Funmurphys: the Blog

General Sanchez and Editing

I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I haven't written one in a while, but their treatment of Lt. General Sanchez's remarks the other day caused a big enough gasket blowout to generate a letter. It wasn't one of my best, and I knew it was a little long for their taste, but I couldn't see a way to get from the 350 words I wrote to the 250 max they like without damaging my arguement. And frankly, the word limit just one more constraint newpapers operate under that doesn't exist on the internet.

First, the letter as printed:

Lt. Gen. Sanchez's message

"Ex-Iraq commander blasts Bush policies" (Oct. 13), about Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez's address, was appalling. It did not include his criticism of the media: "The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas.... You are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war."

Yes, Mr. Sanchez blasted the Bush administration, but he also blasted other government agencies and Congress. He said: "The administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the Department of State, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable." His focus was on getting the nation focused. All readers were provided was another military officer who "harshly criticized the administration's conduct of the war." There was no hint of his equally harsh criticism of the press, Congress and political partisanship.

His message was clear: The military has been shouldering the whole load of the war on terror, but it cannot win the war all by itself, and partisan politics has kept the nation from bringing the full range of its power to bear on the war.

He said, "Our nation has not focused on the greatest challenge of our lifetime. The political and economic elements of power must get beyond the politics to ensure the survival of America. Partisan politics have hindered this war effort.... America must demand a unified national strategy that goes well beyond partisan politics and places the common good about all else...."

The letter as written, with the edits (mostly deletions) in red:

General Sanchez's Real Message

Your article of 10/13 on Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez's address to the Military Reporters & Editors Association was appalling. Your mis-reporting is exactly what the general spent almost half his address discussing. Somehow you didn't see fit to include this direct quote about the press: "The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas. What is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our servicemembers who are at war." Clearly, you are among those General Sanchez called out by saying "the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases, and agendas."

Yes, Sanchez blasted the Bush administration, but he also blasted other government agencies and Congress. "The administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the Department of State, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable." His focus was on getting the whole nation focused. Somehow all that went unreported and all that your readers were provided was a another military officer who "harshly criticized the administration's conduct of the war." Not a hint of his equally harsh criticism of the press, Congress, and political partisanship in general.

His message was pretty clear - the military has been shouldering the whole load of the war on terror but it simply cannot win the war all by itself, and partisan politics has kept the nation from bringing the full range of its power to bear on the war. Or in his own words, "Our nation has not focused on the greatest challenge of our lifetime. The political and economic elements of power must get beyond the politics to ensure the survival of America. Partisan politics have hindered this war effort and America should not accept this. America must demand a unified national strategy that goes well beyond partisan politics and places the common good about all else. All too often our politicians have chosen loyalty to their political party above loyalty to the constitution because of their lust for power."

So as always, I ponder over the edits. Some were good, such as removing my weasel word "pretty". Some are just annoying, like the change of "Not a hint of his..." change to "There was no hint of his..." which is what you'd expect of an english major who doesn't see a verb and who has been taught to abhor sentance fragments. Some were clearly for length, such as "And America should not accept this." Re-reading the letter I wish I had swaped the ending around to end with my own words instead of the General's, but I can't expect them to clean up my act to that extent. But some make me see red - such as removing the last line about putting political party above loyalty to the constitution, or my linking at the start what the General was complaining about and how they reported his speech. I really think they were trying to soften General Sanchez's criticism of the press, and of the Democrats.

That's why I have a blog, that's why I use the internet and primary sources as much as possible for my news, and that's why newspapers have lost the trust of the majority of their readers.