Since his election loss last year to Bob Casey, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum has languished in political obscurity. But he’s back in the vortex of a swirling controversy over the Philadelphia Inquirer’s announcement recently that he will write a regular column for Pennsylvania’s largest and the nation’s third oldest newspaper, starting one week from today.
Santorum’s column will appear in The Inquirer every other Thursday, alternating with another new Inquirer columnist, Santorum’s idealogical opposite, commentator George E. Curry, “an unabashedly liberal” former editor of Emerge magazine, according to the Inquirer’s editorial page editor, Harold Jackson. It’s an idea the Erie Times-News should consider to give some balance to its pronounced left-wing drift on the editorial and op-ed pages.
The Inquirer’s announcement that Santorum would be a regular columnist on its op-ed page, Jackson wrote today, “brought forth a torrent of responses from our readers – most of it negative.
"Apparently some thought Santorum’s lost bid for reelection last year meant they should no longer have to hear from him again. Off to purgatory, failed candidate, never darken our door again. Hmmm. Imagine if Al Gore accepted his election defeat as a directive to speak no more on global warming,” Jackson wrote.
One Santorum critic, in a letter to the editor wrote: "You do know the reason we, his former constituents, voted him out of office was that we thought his policies were radically right-wing, his 'family-values' philosophies unconstitutional. . .You truly think that your Democratic-leaning Philadelphia-area readers are going to enjoy his viewpoints?"
"Do you realize," wrote another of Santorum, "that we voted this narrow-minded bigot out of office because he is a scary extremist who does not represent our values or interests? . . . There is no one who can balance Santorum, so your paper has just taken a huge dip to the right."
Jackson responded; (Erie Times-News, Kevin Cuneo, please take note). “First, and foremost, an op-ed page should be a forum of ideas - not the ideas of the newspaper, which are presented daily on the Editorial Page, but the ideas of other folk, who may or may not have a different point of view.
“On the Editorial Page, we typically seek consensus,” Jackson wrote, “often considering the extreme positions of others and trying to find acceptable compromise. The op-ed page is more likely to let the extremes have their say, so all who agree or disagree can respond to their unvarnished rhetoric.
“The object,” Jackson added, “is to get a conversation going - in our letters section or also on the op-ed page - hoping that through dialogue among those who disagree, some understanding, if not consensus, just might occur.
“We're not running columns by either Santorum or Curry because we expect them to say things we agree with, nor are we doing it to appease the particular audiences that already like one guy or the other. Our purpose is to stimulate discussion with engaging commentary. These guys are pretty good at that,” Jackson concluded.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Excellent post, Joe. I wouldn't hold my breath though, the ETN has to be dragged kicking and screaming to a balance on it's opinion page.
I suspect the editor of the page, Bryan Oberle, is not comfortable reading opinions that contradict his own views. Bryan, it seems to me, also harbors a hatred for Rick Santorum that borders on the pathological, so I doubt we will ever see Rick's column in the local paper. Oh well, one more reason to NOT subscribe to the ETN.
Thanks you for posting this. I need to find a way to get my hands on Santorum's articles. It's interesting to note that left-leaning thinkers want to silence the oppositional point of view while holding their own as sacred. They also fail to see that some of us in this state actually voted for Santorum and think what he has to say is relevant.
Trisha,
As I noted in the piece, Santorum's column will appear in The Philadephia Inquirer every other Thursday starting next Thursday, November 8, 2007. Anytime that day or thereafter, just do a Google search for The Inquirer, click on the Opinion page link, then on the Santorum link.
Not to appear as a Times apologist, but the editorial page does run regular opinions by at least four pretty good conservative columnists: Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, and Michelle Malkin. I believe there is one other woman with right leaning tendencies as well. Not sure how this balances out against the lefties, but I don't think the right is under-represented. Ann Coulter was even in there for awhile.
Ralph,
Thanks for your input.The various columnists rotate from day to day. But invariably on any given day there are more liberal than moderate or conservative voices. The disparity is significant. There's nothing cut and dried about the process. Typically, the editorial/op ed page editor(s) may have a dozen different columns "in the can" available to use on any given day, depending upon space available. The editor typically picks and choses from among those available, sometimes based on timeliness and what he or she picks often depends upon how they slept the night before or what they had for breakfast. Or their political or idealogical biases. You may recall that Ann Coulter was summarily dumped because the Times-News couldn't take the heat.
Post a Comment