LETTERS: MORE ABOUT BALANCE

To the editor:

I could not agree more with Emily McIntoshs statements in her Oct. 31 letter to the editor, "More balance sought." I have held back critical responses to your right-wing news and commentary as well as your weekend offerings on Bible interpretations and sermons, which are presented as positively factual instead of being offered as an opinion of the writer. I do wish I could see an improvement in balancing voices, as McIntosh stated in her letter, but my searching finds little balance in ideas, doctrine or political or religious offerings.

I do value, word for word, McIntosh's statements in her last paragraph -- until her last sentence. Having read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for over 30 years (which carries the notoriety of the third most liberal newspaper in the United States), I found too much liberalism to satisfy my desire for balance in a newspaper. News that should have been on page 2 or 3 was in the back on page 8 or 10. The editorial page was as unbalanced as the Southeast Missourian is, only with opposite dispositions.

I thought the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (until it went broke, taking $62 of my subscription money) was as conservative as a paper could get, but that was before I was exposed to the Missourian. Between George Will, Jay Eastlick, Cal Thomas and Walter E. Williams, it is hard to get any balance with Mike Royko and David Broder. I must admit, I get my laughs from Royko and some balance in Broder and the columnist from Kennett, Jack Stapleton. Heidi Nieland should be promoted to a daily column. It's a shame she can't be enjoyed much more often.

CURTIS L. MATHIS

Marble Hill