Herald should police its letters
On Feb. 15th, you printed a letter from Marty Colgan describing a visit by Hillary Clinton to an elementary school. During the visit, Sen. Clinton is asked tough questions by a student, who then mysteriously disappears.
The story is, word for word, an Internet joke that circulated years ago with a different politician in the punch line. You printed it, word for word, as if it were an actual fact, adding your own headline, "Hillary Clinton goes to school" to substantiate it.
What's next? Will we see a picture of a giant shark attacking a helicopter on your front page?
Why not print a story about how Starbucks refused to send coffee to our brave soldiers? I know! Do a story about me! I won a Nigerian lottery and the Irish Sweepstakes in the same week! It says so right in my e-mail!
Why in the world would the Herald print this letter? Your editorial page provides a public forum for the discussion of important ideas, not scurrilous lies and outright fantasies.
You choose which letters to print and which to withhold. You have a responsibility to your readers to choose wisely, and you utterly failed at that.
You damaged a newspaper's most important asset, its credibility. Your readers deserve better from you.
Stephen Loh
Hoffman Estates