Star shirks ‘journalistic responsibility,’ he says

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May 21, 2006

Anonymous The Meridian Star Sun May 21, 2006, 09:51 PM CDT

In his letter in last Monday’s Star (“Columnist’s articles lack depth, basis in fact”) in which he criticizes columnist Craig Ziemba, Joe Clay Hamilton argues that “The Meridian Star does have a journalistic responsibility to its readers to require opinions to be those of qualified and capable writers and those opinions, to some reasonable degree, to be based on facts gleaned from research and not street talk.”

Mr. Hamilton also contends that the “articles written by Mr. Ziemba are constantly shallow, ill thought-out and frequently groundless in fact.” Although, for the most part, I don’t have a problem with what Mr. Ziemba writes in his column, I certainly agree with what Mr. Hamilton says about the Star’s “journalistic responsibility” and how he defines it. I think, however, that what he said about Mr. Ziemba’s “articles” — that they are “ill thought-out and frequently groundless in facts” — more accurately describes guest columnist Phillip Johnson’s “articles” in the Star, in which he praises and defends the “Black Panther Party” and its murderous “leaders,” who Mr. Johnson contends, in his column of Sunday, Feb. 19 (“A hollow celebration”), “were imprisoned and assassinated by a joint FBI and CIA program, because they developed community workshops around the country, such as the Free Breakfast Program.”

Mr. Johnson fails to mention that during the same period, the Black Panthers called for and carried out the murder of white police officers, and that it was this policy — and not because they developed community workshops around the country that strengthened the black community — that brought about the FBI program to which he refers.

In my opinion, when the Star chooses to publish such a column, it suggests that there is a remarkable lack of “journalistic responsibility,” as so well defined by Mr. Hamilton, on the part of the publishers.

Richard L. Williams

Meridian

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