Thomas Jefferson once said, “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
What brought that quote to mind was the Civil War piece that occupied an entire page in the Jan. 13 edition of the Record-Bee. The author was not identified. Instead, the Record-Bee used the byline staff reports, which suggests that this was news. The first and last paragraphs may fit that definition, but the bulk of the piece did not.
A similar piece appeared the same day in another publication, but it was correctly published as commentary and identified the author as Phil Smoley.
The opinions expressed in the bulk of the R-B treatise are familiar to historians who spend much time refuting on blogs such as Civil War Memories. Visit http://cwmemory.com/2010/10/21/black-confederates-on-countdown/ and scroll down to Nov. 22, you will find exchanges between Phil Smoley and scholars. The historians point out fallacies in Smoley”s research, reasoning and conclusions which the Round Table attendees may be missing.
Of course, Mr. Smoley has every right to his own opinions and to publish them. However, such material belongs on the opinion page.
By publishing those opinions as news under the byline Staff Reports, the Record-Bee misled its readers.
Deb Baumann
Upper Lake
