Choice of cartoon shows lack of ethics

No one expects a small rural newspaper that publishes three times a week to adhere to the same journalistic standards of a New York Times or Washington Post.

However, the decision to print the editorial cartoon which appeared in the Wednesday, Sept. 9 edition of your paper demonstrated a complete ignorance of the basic precepts of ethics in journalism. I refer, of course, to the cartoon which depicts a young, clean cut elementary school boy transformed into a Fidel Castro like monster wearing a Che Guevara tee shirt after hearing the speech of the President of the United States given to the nation’s school children.

One of the missions of a free press is to promote fair and reasoned discourse. Such discourse presumes knowledge of the subject of comment.

Obviously, your decision to run the cartoon was made without any knowledge at all of the content of the President’s address. The full text of the speech is readily available. I commend its reading to you. In it you will find the President, just as Ronald Regan and George H. W. Bush before him, encouraging his listeners to assume responsibility for their lives and education. He tries to inspire them to success through diligent study. The only remotely political comment he makes is a pledge to try to provide the facilities, books and computers they need to succeed. There is no hint of political indoctrination.

Bogalusa and this entire area suffer under an intolerable burden of ignorance. It is this ignorance which has contributed to our history of racial intolerance and bigotry. This ignorance now threatens to overwhelm us with a generation which has replaced thought and ideas with crime and drugs.

I therefore encourage you to raise your standards. Please, work a little harder to dispel ignorance, not add to it.

Sincerely,

Richard W. Watts

Franklinton