Letters to the Editor

To e-mail a letter to the editor, write to "letters@nytimes.com."

You may also send your letter to:

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
fax: (212) 556-3622

Letters to the Times should only be sent to the Times, and not to other publications.[Duh!--G21] We do not publish open letters or third-party letters. When writing be certain to include your name, address and a daytime phone number. We do not set a limit to the length of letters, but we advise the shorter the better. We regret we cannot return or acknowledge unpublished letters. Writers of those letters selected for publication will be notified within a week to ten days. Letters may be shortened for space requirements. [End Quote. Editorial comments and emphasis completely ours. -- G21]

So what were we to do? Send what is basically an Open Letter, or conform to the "Policy" of the Great Gray?

You guessed it. We sent the e-mail anyway, because we had documentary evidence that the New York Times was behind the curve on this story, and that their reporter, Seth Mydans, was Repeating rather than Reporting. By their own admission[see the NYT "Late" edition of 28 July, 1998], the New York Times picked up wire service stories which revealed the truth and published them hours late.

We call that lazy and shoddy, and we do so without apology.

Please find below an Open Letter which the GENERATOR 21 sent to the New York Times today, while working on our coverage of the Sunday election in Cambodia:

To the Editor:

I write this letter to you with a great deal of distress, not only because your performance indirectly reflects and causes others to form opinions about my own, but because I have always had a considerable amount of respect for the efforts of the Times.

As our own publication has followed the election in Cambodia, I've observed with interest and incredulity the commentary of your reporter Seth Mydans. This morning, after receiving an early morning dispatch from our alumnus, Kim Carter, about the joint press conference of Prince Ranariddh Sihanouk(FUNCINPEC party) and Sam Rainsy(Sam Rainsy Party), the leading opposition in the election, I "surfed" to the your online coverage.

Now I understand that what you had online at approx. 9 PDT was a reflection of your morning coverage, East Coast time, and accept that.

Nonetheless, I was surprised to find that Mydans "cautious optimism" spin on this story had not altered one iota. If I believed Mydans story today, I'd think all was right in Cambodia -- which is a white and shining lie, to quote another writer.

So I am left with questions. Before typing this missive, I did return to your website(in the interests of fairness and colleagial courtesy) to note that you had picked up wire service stories on the actual situation by 6 PDT. My questions:

• 1- Is Mr. Mydans reporting from Cambodia at all?
• 2 - If he is in Southeast Asia, is he just doing "press release journalism" from a hotel room?
• 3 - Why did the NYT miss the press conference, which AP, Reuters, and our publications had by 7:50 EDT today?
• 4 - If Mr. Mydans is not in Cambodia, as we are not, what hindered him from checking the same sources that anyone could with less resources than your resource-rich organization?

Just wondering. Especially as you guys in the "mainstream" are so eager to complain about "the lack of standards" for journalists on the 'Net.

We look forward to your response.

Rod Amis, generator21.net