Warmongers Rise to the Top

Apparently, not satisfied with the Judith Miller debacle or with their withholding of the news of government spying for an entire year, the New York Times is now elevating William Kristol to the Op-Ed page. Perhaps "elevating" is the wrong verb here. I wrote a letter to the editor protesting this absurd hire. Here it is:

January 2, 2007

Dear Mr. Rosenthal,

I am writing about the New York Times' announcement that William Kristol will be hired as a columnist for the Op-Ed page. Mr Kristol is hardly a columnist lacking a public voice. He is heard and seen constantly on Fox News and commands the attention of many news outlets.

As a believer in free speech and the First Amendment, I understand the argument that all points of view be represented on your Op-Ed pages. But in fact they are not. There is only one regular woman columnist (and one on your blog), no feminist spokesperson who questions the status quo, no anti-war columnist, no columnist who speaks for the rights of children or questions the priorities of the military industrial complex.

With the increasing consolidation of the news and TV business, voices like Kristol's have many places to be heard. Women are not heard. In fact we are still confined to the ghettoes of gossip and chick-lit. We are 52% of the population yet seriously underrepresented in the field of opinion.

Because we expect more from the New York Times, because we value the depth of your reporting, your attempt to be independent of the general circus of infotainment, we write to you in hopes of being heard. The printed word has always been the seed of change -- from the French Revolution to the American Revolution to the Feminist Revolution. Many voices are not heard in your pages. Why give more space to one who already has plentiful outlets and is not a questioner but a confirmed propagandist?

Respectfully,

Erica Jong