Herald-Leader flooded with letters
With a single AP photo and a two sentence caption, the Lexington Herald-Leader appeared uninterested in reporting on our I Love Mountains Day rally. The paper has since been flooded with calls and letters criticizing their poor coverage of this important event. Eleven of these letters were published in Saturday's editorial page.
Clean water matters
The Herald-Leader can cover every aspect of meaningless news but can't provide adequate coverage of an important issue to all Kentuckians: clean water.
There was a rally in Frankfort on Feb. 14 in support of the "Stream Saver Bill," but there was no news story in the Herald-Leader. More than 1,200 Kentucky citizens and taxpayers who actually want to protect Kentucky's water attended, but the Herald-Leader seems only interested in covering meaningless stuff.
Having clean water and protecting against a water shortage should be more important issues to Kentuckians than deciding what to buy their sweeties for Valentine's Day.
What is wrong with the Herald-Leader? Has it been bought, as legislators in Frankfort have?
Clean water and air matter, not profits for coal mining executives and their bought flunkies.
Linda Sizemore
Richmond
Disappointed in paper
The Herald-Leader's lack of significant coverage of the large rally on the ice-covered steps of the state Capitol on Valentine's Day is very disappointing.
Attempts by legislators to ignore such input from citizens trying to get a hearing on the "Stream Saver Bill" may be attributed to their being in bed with surface-mining interests. I hope the Herald-Leader is not subject to the same sordid connections.
Maybe the rally was too peaceful and friendly. Civil disobedience or a few arrests might have made better news copy.
John Payne
Berea
Publish Berry's speech
You can read the rest of the letters from Saturday's paper here.What a shame that the Herald-Leader did not see fit to give more attention to the huge rally that took place in Frankfort on Valentine's Day. More than 1,200 people from all over the state came to protest mountaintop-removal in Eastern Kentucky.
Kentucky author Wendell Berry gave a wonderful speech, which, at the very least, deserved publication in the paper. People from Eastern Kentucky were there to testify to the devastating effects of mountaintop removal, which is ruining their drinking water and turning their beautiful land into a horrible moonscape.
I'm disappointed that the Herald-Leader did not provide more enlightening coverage of this vital issue.
Dianne Shuntich
Richmond
Legislation & Sausage
Rep. Jim Gooch, irritated by cartoonists and editorial writers who lampoon him in cartoon and print because of his alleged love affair with King Coal, wants to make it illegal for the above to hang out in the House or Senate while the lawmakers are making their backroom deals –Excuse me, I mean while the lawmakers are in session.
This is of course, an obvious assault on the First Amendment, and it will be interesting to see if the coal industry helps old Jim push this legislation. He only has the gal to even offer such a bill because a lot of newspapers and media are either owned by big coal or feel threatened by big coal.
In the heart of coal country, sometimes it is hard to say anything negative about the coal industry, even on issues where the coal corporations are obviously wrong. So let’s not be too hard on Mr. Gooch, he is not the only one influenced by the coal industry. Papers who hesitant to print anti-coal views even when the views may highlight a legitimate environmental or health and safety concern create a slippery downhill slope that causes the print media and us to lose First Amendment rights.
They say if you are squeamish you may not want to see sausage or laws being made. With coal company lobbyist flush with coal cash roaming the halls of government we need someone to watch it being made for us even if we are to squeamish to watch it ourselves. I loved the old Charlie Rich song “Nobody Knows What goes on Behind Closed Doors” when applying it to its original intent. However I do not want my legislatures making laws behind closed doors, it all should be out in the open.
A lot of our young people involved with the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth’s push for The Stream Saver Bill are going to get their first experience watching sausage being made. They had a big rally in Frankfort and spent the day lobbying their legislatures on House Bill 164 and got virtually no coverage from the major papers in Louisville or Lexington. Young kids, college kids full of enthusiasm and zest for their cause will I am afraid come away jilted and dejected and rethinking their views about how the legislative systems works. That bill don’t have a snowballs chance in hell passing. Coal county legislatures will fight it tooth and nail and if Mr. Gooch has his way they can go behind closed doors and do it so the people can’t see the sausage being made.
I have always been proud of my State government and brag about them everywhere I go. I can say with pride to any individual from any other state that our state government is better that any in the land. I feel that we have the best government that money can buy and have never been shy about saying so. The young Kentuckians for the Commonwealth are about to get a real life lesson on how the legislature really works.