Also popular on the comment list:
"You are a bunch of lefty idiots."
"You never print conservative letters to the editor."
"Pat Bagley [editorial cartoonist] should be tried for treason."
"Leave George Bush alone."
I get it: Many of you are unhappy about our editorials and want Bagley to stop drawing the president looking like a monkey with a tail.
To get an explanation of what the heck the editorial writing staff is up to, I talked with Paul Wetzel, a longtime Tribune staff member and deputy editor of the editorial page.
Let's start with Bagley. Wetzel says, "We look at Bagley's cartoons, but he's like a columnist, as he has his own voice and has considerable latitude to express that." But the bottom line is: "He's extremely popular and extremely good."
As to what's going on with The Tribune's editorials, we should start with how those editorials are crafted. Wetzel says the editorial board [Editorial Page Editor Vern Anderson, Wetzel, Marilyn McKinnon and Casey Jones] meets every day. "The members go over the paper and talk about what issues are ripe for comment. We do try to concentrate on local issues first because, as with the rest of the newspaper, that's our franchise. Readers can get comment on international and national issues other places, but can't get comment on local issues except in The Tribune and other local newspapers."
Publisher Dean Singleton (also publisher of The Denver Post) gives the editorial board a lot of latitude, Wetzel says. "The editorials are sent to him after they are written, but he does not make a decision in advance. There are exceptions: It is the publisher's page and if he feels strongly about a given issue and wants to make his feelings known, then his opinion is the most important one."
The situation is similar at most newspapers.
As for the complaints from some readers that we are screaming liberals, Wetzel says the editorial page can best be described as "moderate-progressive." Under the previous ownership it was moderate-conservative.
As to the charge that we run more liberal columns than conservative, Wetzel, who picks the commentary columns, says, "It's fair to say we run more liberal-leaning columns than conservative columns. If you look at what I've picked this week: Rich Lowry of the National Review, David Brooks of The New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times and Cal Thomas, you can see we do make a deliberate effort to run conservative opinion as well as liberal opinion in the columns we pick."
It's that mix of people's opinions that makes a lively editorial page - and a well-informed readership.
Picking letters to the editor (done by Elbert Peck, Letters to the Editor editor) is "like practicing medicine - as much art as science. We have to take into account how well-written letters are. We are in the writing business. Granted, that's partly subjective. We try to be fair when trying to be subjective," Wetzel says. "We do not pick letters based on political slant."
The process of picking the local guest columns for the Sunday Opinion section is a bit more complicated. "They are submitted to Vern Anderson, who is the Editorial Page editor. He and Marilyn McKinnon make those decisions. Marilyn is the line editor for those. People submit a lot of that stuff over the transom. Vern decides what he wants to use and what he doesn't."
So, to sum up what we have learned: The paper's editorial stance is moderate progressive, Bagley will not abandon those drawings of Bush with a tail, letters to the editor are representative of the letters sent in, the editorial writers decide as a group what they will write on and what the editorials will say.
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The Reader Advocate's phone number is (801) 257-8782. Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, 90 S. 400 West, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. E-mail: reader.advocate@sltrib.com.
* 31: Number upset they can't read the Asimov Super Quiz
* 18: Number who want more political coverage
* 38: Number who think editorials are too liberal
* 7: Number upset over redesign of comics pages
