Newspaper Editors are Dangerous

Last week I read a feature article in the opinion section of our local newspaper, with an accompaning editorial. The subject of the article was Intelligent Design Theory and the controversy it has raised in the scientific community. Although it tried, it failed to represent ID very accurately--understandable in a brief article.

The unsigned editorial, however, totally denigrated ID, creationism or anything that smacked of anything but the materialistic worldview.

So I decided to write a letter to the editor response. I worked on it and sent it, all 386 words of it. In the acknowledgment email, the paper said that anything over 200 words would be severely edited. So I waited to see what the results would be.

The following Sunday edition included several responses to the editorial, some supporting and some denigrating ID.

My letter appeared, minus several key sentences--and the punch line at the end. So most of the intent of the letter was eliminated or at least diluted to a point of insipid weakness. Next time I guess I'll have to be more concise to avoid having my work pruned.