An open letter to the editor of the NY Times
Published 2/28/06
Dear Editor:
As you might suspect, many of us here in grim town are still smarting a week after the appearance of your front page article “Company Town Relies on G.M. Long After Plants Have Closed.”
In fact, we would cancel our subscriptions if your circulation reached us. However, we do have Internet here in Anderson so most of us read the article in your virtual edition, which also featured an audio slide show and photos of Anderson that didn’t exactly show our best side.
Considering the fact that the New York Times’ weekday circulation is more than 1 million, that many papers around the world publish your page one and other stories through subscriptions to the New York Times News Service and that the story was omnipresent on the Internet, the city of Anderson probably couldn’t have bought the kind of national exposure that we got last week. More than likely, we wouldn’t have signed up for that kind of advertising.
If TimesWatch, an organization that documents the paper’s political agenda, is correct when it says the NY Times is “arguably the most influential media outlet in America” and that it “sets the agenda for the television news programs from which most Americans get their news,” well, we are humbled by the exposure of your coverage.
We won’t question your story’s statistics, which we live each day, unless it’s the 50 miles that separate Anderson from Indianapolis. The many of us who to commute to Indy to find jobs would confirm that we can make it there in 35 miles instead of your estimated 50.
But what we will call into question were your interview sources for the article and exactly what trail you followed to get the pulse of the city.
Your reporters didn’t appear to interview anyone who did not have a GM connection. There was the one factory retiree who said that without GM, Anderson “would be in a heck of a mess.” Hmm. It seems to some of us that because of GM, we are in a heck of a mess. We marvel at how the world’s largest automaker and global industry sales leader for 75 years could come to shutter up operations, as your article points out, in 80 communities throughout the U.S.
But then again, maybe there’s no reason to marvel. As your article notes, employees were “made comfortable by one of the richest retirement programs offered to working Americans.” So, was it the huge social contract they had with employees, which made their health care and labor costs the highest in the industry? Who was steering GM’s “company car”? Could they not see past the next quarter? Was it simply every executive and union leader for himself or herself? And what if Aristotle ran General Motors?
Not only did you primarily interview those of the “GM legacy,” you also didn’t appear to consult with anyone under the age of 70.
Times reporters quoted one GM retiree who said, “Young people don’t stand a chance.” Many of us, of course, believe they do stand a chance if they learn the history of this town, peruse the job market and then climb into the seat of higher education.
But in your reporters’ search for the youth of Anderson, they stumbled into MCL.This has to be one of the most ironic lines in the story: “Yet there were few young people at the tables of the MCL Cafeteria last week.” You see, Editor, here in the rust belt, young people don’t hang out at buffets and cafeterias ordering early bird specials.
And what in the name of the Pulitzer Prize led you to a corner bar for your “man on the street” quotes. You call it “one of Anderson’s most storied factory taverns” but I doubt that any story coming out of this bar has the least bit of relevance to the economy and development of this city.
Your writers gave the article a beautiful “art imitates life” ending, with a wrapup quote from another GM retiree: “We’re going to turn the lights off when we leave.”
Well, don’t touch the lights please because there’s a whole other population of Anderson that’s working on a blueprint for the future.
And Mr. Editor, if your reporters ever return, we’d be happy to tell the Times…the rest of the story.
Dear Editor:
As you might suspect, many of us here in grim town are still smarting a week after the appearance of your front page article “Company Town Relies on G.M. Long After Plants Have Closed.”
In fact, we would cancel our subscriptions if your circulation reached us. However, we do have Internet here in Anderson so most of us read the article in your virtual edition, which also featured an audio slide show and photos of Anderson that didn’t exactly show our best side.
Considering the fact that the New York Times’ weekday circulation is more than 1 million, that many papers around the world publish your page one and other stories through subscriptions to the New York Times News Service and that the story was omnipresent on the Internet, the city of Anderson probably couldn’t have bought the kind of national exposure that we got last week. More than likely, we wouldn’t have signed up for that kind of advertising.
If TimesWatch, an organization that documents the paper’s political agenda, is correct when it says the NY Times is “arguably the most influential media outlet in America” and that it “sets the agenda for the television news programs from which most Americans get their news,” well, we are humbled by the exposure of your coverage.
We won’t question your story’s statistics, which we live each day, unless it’s the 50 miles that separate Anderson from Indianapolis. The many of us who to commute to Indy to find jobs would confirm that we can make it there in 35 miles instead of your estimated 50.
But what we will call into question were your interview sources for the article and exactly what trail you followed to get the pulse of the city.
Your reporters didn’t appear to interview anyone who did not have a GM connection. There was the one factory retiree who said that without GM, Anderson “would be in a heck of a mess.” Hmm. It seems to some of us that because of GM, we are in a heck of a mess. We marvel at how the world’s largest automaker and global industry sales leader for 75 years could come to shutter up operations, as your article points out, in 80 communities throughout the U.S.
But then again, maybe there’s no reason to marvel. As your article notes, employees were “made comfortable by one of the richest retirement programs offered to working Americans.” So, was it the huge social contract they had with employees, which made their health care and labor costs the highest in the industry? Who was steering GM’s “company car”? Could they not see past the next quarter? Was it simply every executive and union leader for himself or herself? And what if Aristotle ran General Motors?
Not only did you primarily interview those of the “GM legacy,” you also didn’t appear to consult with anyone under the age of 70.
Times reporters quoted one GM retiree who said, “Young people don’t stand a chance.” Many of us, of course, believe they do stand a chance if they learn the history of this town, peruse the job market and then climb into the seat of higher education.
But in your reporters’ search for the youth of Anderson, they stumbled into MCL.This has to be one of the most ironic lines in the story: “Yet there were few young people at the tables of the MCL Cafeteria last week.” You see, Editor, here in the rust belt, young people don’t hang out at buffets and cafeterias ordering early bird specials.
And what in the name of the Pulitzer Prize led you to a corner bar for your “man on the street” quotes. You call it “one of Anderson’s most storied factory taverns” but I doubt that any story coming out of this bar has the least bit of relevance to the economy and development of this city.
Your writers gave the article a beautiful “art imitates life” ending, with a wrapup quote from another GM retiree: “We’re going to turn the lights off when we leave.”
Well, don’t touch the lights please because there’s a whole other population of Anderson that’s working on a blueprint for the future.
And Mr. Editor, if your reporters ever return, we’d be happy to tell the Times…the rest of the story.
posted by Jack W. Williams | 1:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home