The Daily Disappointment

Welcome to "Letters from Oklahoma"-- a blog dedicated to discussing the Letters to the Editor section of the Oklahoman, Oklahoma's largest daily newspaper. The reason for this blog stems from the fact that the editors of the Oklahoman-- dubbed in 1999 as "the worst newspaper in America" by the Columbia Journalism Review (for some reason, older articles from that publication are not available on-line; if you can find a hard copy, though, it's worth the read)-- generally use their Letters section to promote their own far-right agenda without having to worry about accountability or credibility (even if the Oklahoman has little of the latter).

In general, a newspaper editorial is written with a bit of decorum and statements like "Obama was born in Kenya and wants to turn America into an Islamo-fascist state!" have no real place there. Similarly, syndicated columnists typically write toned-down pieces devoid of hate-filled language and where right-wing lies and deceptions are more subtle.

With letters, however, all bets are off. When "Jim Smith" from rural Oklahoma-- a man who lives in a right-wing media bubble fed by AM talk radio, Fox News, and, yes, the Oklahoman-- writes a letter to the paper, he is free to talk about socialism all he wants. After all, those crazed, fact-free attacks are the opinions of an ordinary citizen and not of a respected newspaper, right? Right.

Yet, of course, the message put forward by the very selection of these letters is exactly the message the paper's editors want to impart. You almost never see left-leaning sentiment expressed in the letters page, and there is no real mechanism to respond to the lies and half-truths that appear in these letters. (Indeed, it is often difficult to do so given the 250 word limit of their letters.) You similarly almost never see published counters to the letters advocating some far-right myth, and when you do, the paper cleverly publishes responses to those counter-points before ending the argument altogether. Moreover, the on-line version of the paper allows for reader comment in all of its opinion section save one. I'll let you guess which one that is.

It is an incredibly frustrating experience. And while I have no illusions as to the impact of this blog (if I can even maintain the energy to keep it going!), I hope that over time, some will come to stop here and find refreshing counters to the right-wing hate that the Oklahoman promotes with its letters.

Thanks for visiting.