Mr. John Dunster
Publisher- Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate
Dear Mr. Dunster,
When Greenwich Time cleaned house a few weeks ago, we Democrats in this town hoped that the long era during which the newspaper actively denigrated and insulted Democrats might just come to an end. Sadly, we were wrong. One had only to glance at the December 3 edition of Greenwich Time to understand that dissing Democrats remains an honored tradition at the paper. That edition, under the front page headline "Inauguration day 2007", highlighted large color photos of the new Republican first selectman Peter Tesei and his family and, just below that, Republican selectman Peter Crumbine and his family. Where was Democratic selectman Lin Lavery's photo? Predictably, Greenwich Time buried her black-and-white photo showing her being sworn in by Connecticut's attorney general and Greenwich resident Richard Blumenthal on page four. Never mind the fact that Lavery soundly defeated Crumbine in their head-to-head race, winning in the process nine of the town's twelve electoral districts, and almost winning a tenth. In typical Greenwich Time style, she was predictably dissed by having her photo shunted into the paper's inner recesses.
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| One could think that it was a snafu, an oversight, or just sloppy editing, if this sort of thing hadn't been going on at Greenwich Time for years. But it has been going on for years. Take a look at what GT did just two days before the general election last fall. It devoted most of the front page to color photos of Republicans Chris Shays, Dolly Powers and William Nickerson, who were facing Democratic challengers, noting in the accompanying article that those politicians had campaigned in town that day. But Democrats Ned Lamont, Frank Farricker, Ed Krumeich, and Ned Lamont had also campaigned in town that day. Where were their photos? Only Ned Lamont's made it into the newspaper, and his, again a grainy almost indistinguishable black-and-white photo, was buried in the inside pages. Furthermore, the meager mention of Lamont in that article was attached at the very end. I could offer you many, many more examples of this sort of bias in the news pages of the publications you now manage. I might just refer you to the characterizations of Democrats Ed Krumeich and Frank Farricker in the Sunday weekly summary last spring after they announced they would run for state representative and state senator: "Dems Cough Up Eleventh Hour Candidates", as if those two gentlemen were nothing but vomit or hairballs. Or perhaps you'd like to take a look at the first sentence of Neil Vigdor's article reporting on their announcement earlier that week at the Cos Cob Starbucks: Mr. Vigdor dismissed their candidacies as frivolous and hopeless in just three words: "Lattes and long shots?" I could also mention the political hit job Mr. Vigdor inflicted on Mr. Farricker near the end of the campaign in his article that essentially accused Farricker of being an unethical New York slum lord. Or I could mention the equally sleazy article, again by Mr. Vigdor, that accused Ned Lamont's supporters of being anti-Semitic. That came in an article, placed on the front page of Greenwich Time and highlighted in dark gray, that attempted to link anti-Semitic postings on MoveOn.org's website with Lamont.
But your coverage of Joe Lieberman and his opponent Ned Lamont has been nothing short of shameful. Let's take it from the most recent and most relevant: while every responsible journalistic institution in the state of Connecticut and the country has long correctly and properly described Joe Lieberman as an independent, including CNN, C-SPAN, Associated Press, Hartford Courant, Washington Post, New York Times, and your affiliate Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time continues to play political games by referring to him as a "Democrat". In yesterday's edition above a story written by AP reporter Andrew Miga, you referred to him as "Democrat Lieberman" in Greenwich Time and in the body of the article you changed Miga's characterization of Lieberman as "I-Conn" to "D-Conn". I checked with Miga's editor at AP and was told that it has long been official Associated Press policy to refer to Joe Lieberman as an "independent" or "I-Conn". So Greenwich Time went out of its way to change the designation in Miga's article. Yet you changed the headline to "Former Democrat Lieberman" from "Democrat Lieberman" in your on-line edition. Today we see that Greenwich Time's front page article about Lieberman's endorsement of John McCain again changed Miga's article's reference to Lieberman as "I-Conn" to "D-Conn". However in the exact same article carried in Stamford Advocate today you retained the "I-Conn" designation.
Apparently you believe that it's alright to insult Greenwich Democrats, nearly 70% of whom voted for Ned Lamont and against Lieberman in the August 2006 primary, by continuing to refer to Lieberman as a Democrat, but it's not OK to offend Stamford Democrats. Do you play games with Lieberman's affiliation simply because you think you can get away with it easier in Greenwich, where a much smaller percentage of your readership is Democratic, as opposed to Stamford's higher Democratic numbers? If so, it's simply unethical, unprofessional and indefensible.
I can think of nothing to justify your games-playing with Lieberman's party affiliation, calling him one thing in print in Greenwich, another in print in your Stamford publication, and yet another in your online editions. It would be charitable to chalk it all up to sloppy editing. But knowing how Greenwich Time has repeatedly dissed Democrats for so many years, your paper's decision to continue referring to Joe Lieberman, who is reviled by town Democrats, as a Democrat is nothing short of unethical journalism and a deliberate affront to Democrats in this town.
If you feel that it is perfectly acceptable to continue denigrating Democrats in this town, you are certainly free to do so. But by the same token, we are free to decide not to purchase your newspaper, and to encourage others to refrain from purchasing it or advertising in it. If you want to publish a newspaper for Republican residents that takes into account Republican sensibilities only while repeatedly offending Democrats, it's time that you made that clear so that we Democrats and like-minded independents, as well as responsible Republicans, can come to a decision as to whether we wish to continue to patronize your paper. If you choose to institute ethical journalism at Greenwich Time, you can begin by ending your references to Joe Lieberman as a Democrat, and apologizing for the affront to Selectman Lin Lavery.
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