Dear Editor,

In her letter of August 24, Karen Black misquoted me. She said I expressed my discomfort with the inability of the traditional media to control the narrative any longer. In fact, I said, “Many in the old-line media are frustrated by no longer being able to control the narrative, as they did for most of our history.” Actually, I celebrate this fact.

Dr. Black expressed her great faith in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Having lived in the Washington metropolitan area for more than 24 years, I long ago learned to verify the Washington Post’s articles independently. As for the New York Times, it used to have a well-deserved reputation as the gold standard among newspapers, but the gold has tarnished somewhat in recent years.

With respect to the Internet, Dr. Black seems to have overlooked my statement about the variety of sources, both left and right, that allow us to be exposed to both sides of a story or an issue. Of course, this doesn’t help if one limits one’s choices to one side only, but this is also true of newspapers, no matter which ones they are.

In reviewing what I wrote previously, it occurred to me that I should have mentioned one more way in which the reported news can be, and is, slanted. Simply not reporting certain stories, no matter how important they may be, is a great way to introduce bias. A good example of this was the IRS targeting of conservative groups, for which a financial settlement has finally just been made by the government.

Gary Widell,

Warren