From: across@spj.org
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 18:28:48 -0500
To:webeditor@weeklystandard.com
Subject: Respond to Article: Stephen F. Hayes 10/26/2001

To: Stephen Hayes, Fred Barnes
From: Al Cross, SPJ president

Sally Lehrman, chair of SPJ's Diversity Committee, is preparing a reply to your 10/26 "Accuracy in Media" article, but I wanted to weigh in before too much more titme [sic] passed. (I called Fred today but he hasn't called back.)

As I told Fred on his radio show, we are NOT advocating pre-publication review by subjects of stories. I find it amazing that you would believe that an organization of journalists would suggest such a thing. It appears that you got this mistaken impression from a story in The Working Press, our student-produced convention newspaper. I see how the story could have given you the impression that Richard Luna granted pre-pub review to his Arab Amercian [sic] readers, but he did not. But the story was unclear on that point, and thus should have been checked out. The student byline should have been an additional warning flag.

As far as what the guidelines recommend, one phone call or e-mail to me or Sally would have cleared that up. But in this case, you appeared to be more interested in voicing an opinion than gathering the facts. That's a disservice to your readers, to us and the reputation of The Weekly Standard.

Thanks for listening. You'll be hearing from Sally.