LETTERS:

To the editor:

The Speak Out caller who gigged the Southeast Missourian and compared it to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has no knowledge of what a newspaper should do.

We Cape Girardeans want to know what is going on in the rest of the world, and we would like it as succinct as possible. Both papers must use the national wire services to give us this knowledge.

But the Missourian's smart staff cuts the length of the stories considerably, and we still get the same knowledge as a reader of the Post. Also please note that the Post's advertising income, which is necessary to keep any paper in circulation, is many times that of the Missourian's.

And the Post, in its news, doesn't seem to ever have heard of Cape Girardeau, which is the largest city between St. Louis and Memphis.

True, the Post does have superior things, like the TV magazine, but that again reflects the income of the papers. I'm in desperate hopes the Missourian will get us decent TV coverage as soon as it can. I'd be willing to pay more so I wouldn't have to subscribe to the Post to get it.

The Missourian has come up from a nearly bankrupt know-nothing newspaper to one of the best in its class in just a few short years under present personnel. Hooray. As a journalism graduate, my subscription to it will stretch out to forever.

CHARLES E. STIVER

Cape Girardeau