TRUTH HURTS

To the editor: Great op-ed piece by Tracy Everbach about Bill
O'Reilly (On Second Thought, Oct. 26, 2005). Nothing hurts like the
truth, and his nickname for the show -- "The No-Spin Zone" -- is
quite ironic. On Monday, a speaker from my organization, Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, was on Bill's show for a big seven
minutes. Norm Stamper is a retired police chief from Seattle who
wrote a book called Breaking Rank, and one of its chapters is devoted
to calling for an end to drug prohibition. Of course, O'Reilly chewed
Stamper up, not allowing him to speak and interrupting whenever
Stamper actually had a chance to pitch an idea.

What do college students think of this kind of reporting? My
daughter, who's a sophomore at Syracuse University, tells me that
most college students get their news from The Daily Show on the
Comedy Central network. Now, that says something about the media, huh?

Mike Smithson

Syracuse, N.Y.