
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 6, 1991                   TAG: 9104090472
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

WOUNDS INFLICTED BY PRESS WILL HEAL IF IT CLEANS HOUSE

IN A RECENT issue of U.S. News & World Report, David Gergen addressed "Why America hates the press," a timely issue you have ignored. He contended that the press was less prepared, approached the gulf conflict from an anti-war perspective, and went beyond its appropriate role of asking tough and probing questions.

However, he only alluded to the real reason why we resent you people when he said the press should re-examine its biases.

For many years, the Fourth Estate has been deciding what is news, what if any of it should be reported, and how it should be reported. You all have been acting as a sort of prejudiced judge, jury and executioner without portfolio. The Gulf War let most of us see the news as it happened and decide for ourselves (for a change), and we were outraged to find that arrogant reporters were perverting the "news."

For example, the press recently made an issue of Gen. Schwarzkopf's simple statement that we had had the enemy in a rout and he wanted to keep going. A simple, straightforward statement was perverted into the "news" that the general disagreed with the president. Many reports even omitted the rest of the statement, which praised the president's decision as "courageous and humane."

Gergen says the wounds inflicted by the press will heal when it discovers malfeasance and reveals it to the world. I believe there will not be healing until you all clean house of the Blame America First Crowd with your leftist mind set. DICK LAMBERT EAGLE ROCK

by CNB