Over the years, we have received our share of Letters to the Editor, and I believe we have printed all but maybe a couple of dozen of those submitted. Ones that were rejected were “round-filed” because of the following: they were either extremely lengthy, and the author was not willing to shorten the message; the letter was sent anonymously (we do not print anonymous letters); the author of the letter could not be contacted for verification; the letter was a comment on an article in another publication; the letter sent to us was obviously a form letter sent to papers around the country and had nothing to do with us or our readers; or the letter was a piece submitted by a candidate during election (it is against our policy to run letters written by candidates once they have declared candidacy).
With all of the letters submitted to us, I have rarely commented in print on a letter itself, unless I felt the letter pertained to something we had published that I believed needed clarification.
I feel compelled to respond to a letter we are publishing this week that was recently submitted by Shirley Thomas of Long Beach. I do not know Ms. Thomas, and I am glad she took the time to write to us. However, I want to respond to two of her comments. On this page you will find her letter in its entirety. Below, I have included two segments of her letter (in italics) and presented my responses to her statements. I thank Ms. Thomas for the opportunity to communicate with her in this manner. I hope to hear from her again. She seems to be a very astute woman who is truly passionate about her convictions.
Firstly, Mr. Belk’s article accurately describes the young lady’s behavior as against the League of Women Voters’ ground rules for recording. This information should not have been buried at the bottom of the piece. Such information is integral to the story. It should have appeared earlier in the piece.Â
Here’s the actual excerpt of Sean’s story, to which Ms. Thomas is referring. It does not describe the tracker’s behavior as being against the rules:
Though the forum was organized by CSULB, it was moderated by the League of Women Voters, which had a protocol of “no filming of the forum without advanced approval.” Both candidates signed agreements that all recording would be approved before the forum and footage would be published in its entirety to prevent either candidate from misrepresenting or taking parts of the forum out of context.
However, Hewlett continued to proclaim that it was a “public event” and that she had a right to record once the forum was over.
This portion of the article was actually the 13th and 14th paragraphs of the 26-paragraph story, not at the bottom, as Ms. Thomas states. The approach that Sean took with this article was that of reporting the events in a chronological order rather than to arrange the story based on sensational happenings first and less controversial incidents last.
Secondly, your picture of the “tracker” does not portray how rudely the young lady was behaving with her camera phone. I witnessed her shining the light of the camera into Gary DeLong’s eyes from approximately six or eight inches away from his face. It was quite clear to me she intended to provoke a response.
Although Ms. Thomas may have witnessed the tracker filming Delong at an extremely close proximity, our reporter/photographer did not, since he was engaged in an interview with Lowenthal and was not aware that Hewlett’s alleged controversial actions were even taking place. He therefore did not take a series of photos to be used later to document what he subsequently heard had allegedly occurred. The photo he did take, which we published, was taken simply as a way to depict the after-the-event meet-and-greet mingling on the part of the politicians with those still in attendance, and it was the only photo Sean took of Ms. Hewlett.
With all of that said, I look forward to more letters on more subjects, but just because I addressed a letter this time, please don’t expect me to do so in the future. I don’t want our letters to become a two-way discussion forum between me and the writers.
