The policy of uninformative bylines
The Chronicle's "byline policy" rears its head again. Last week readers were offered an opinion column by one Tarif Abboushi who thinks the U.S. is kowtowing to Israel:
A point of contention during Tuesday's vice-presidential debate was John Edwards' barb that the Bush administration had outsourced the capture of Osama bin Laden to Afghan warlords. But there is no denying that it has outsourced the Israel-Palestine conflict resolution to Israel. After repeatedly asserting he would do whatever it takes to ensure that Israelis and Palestinians comply with his peace plan — the much-vaunted but ill-fated road map — President Bush has shown he was only talking the talk. When it came time to walk, he toed Sharon's line all the way around the illegal Israeli colonies on the West Bank.
Here's the byline, at the end of the column:
Abboushi, a Houstonian, is a Palestinian-American. He can be e-mailed at tabboushi@aol.com.
That's a pretty information-lite byline, but a minute spent on Google helps fill in the blanks. Abboushi is a bit more than just a Palestinian-American Houstonian. He also appears to be a past director of the Houston chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it should have been included in the byline. Abboushi obviously has a point of view, perhaps even an agenda, and many readers would appreciate knowing this after reading his op-ed.
This problem of uninformative bylines is a continuing one with the Chronicle. Charles Kuffner has noted it, and Kevin Whited tried, unsuccessfully, to get some answers from the Chronicle about what the paper's policy is. Last week I emailed the Chronicle's reader rep and Outlook editor about Abboushi's byline and didn't receive a response.
This may be a little detail, in the eyes of the Chronicle editors, but it's these little details that are adding up.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/13/04 07:45 AM | Print | Comments (2)
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.