Mr. Bob Meyers
President
The National Press Foundation
1211 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Suite 310
Washington, DC 20036
Dear Mr. Meyers:
You have brought discredit on the journalism profession with the award to the Boston’s Globe’s Martin Baron as “Editor of the Year.” He was forced to apologize for highlighting pornography taken from an Internet porn site as alleged evidence of American soldiers raping Iraqi women. Presumably, if members of the Globe staff had been accused of rape, the paper would have done the necessary authentication before going to press. In this case, it was American soldiers accused of crimes. So the procedure was to go full-steam ahead with the smear. The award demonstrates that standards in journalism are low, if not nonexistent.