Balance: Is it all a matter of perspective?

Tim RUTTEN’s screed against party-line political rigidity in the choice of personal news sources would have been more convincing if he hadn’t confined his verbal sniping to strictly conservative targets [“The News: A Nation Divided,” July 7]. By lambasting Fox News and talk radio while giving a pass to a veritable Who’s Who of establishment left-leaning news outlets (NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the New York Times), Rutten produces a work of unintentional self-parody.

What seems to bother Rutten most is that more and more people now have alternatives to the ideological near-monopoly once enjoyed by the self-important sacred cows of establishment journalism, and are choosing them.

I advise him to get used to the new state of affairs because it isn’t going away. The “good old days” when a uniformly leftish, self-anointed “elite” of journalism could sell pretty much whatever they wanted to the American public without opposition are gone forever.

Dick Eagleson

Gardena

*

Rutten makes good, astute points, but he is either too polite or too freaked out to put it bluntly: What happens in a democracy when the government and parts of the media lie every day, all the time -- and, when discovered in their lies, lie some more?

Of course, “all politicians lie.” So do all non-politicians. That’s not the point. Here’s the point: Is there, after all we now know, any reason to believe anything the Bush administration says?

Ellis Weiner

Los Angeles

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Fox at least separates its commentary from its news reportage, a welcome departure from the smug liberal media stance, which declares its opinion-infused news reporting to be justified because of the worthy goal of creating a more “progressive” society.

The liberal media will never gain credibility until they realize that conservatism is a reputable sociopolitical philosophy embraced by millions, and not (as many liberals believe) a ruse used by greedy capitalists to opiate the masses.

At heart, Rutten does not yearn for objective news reporting; rather, he yearns for the days of an unchallenged era of faith in CBS and the New York Times.

Robert Waterbor

Rancho Mirage