Dear HCN,
Your article on federal
judges and FREE puzzled me. It contained no fresh reporting, so I
wonder why you bothered to run it. You could have referred your
readers to the original hatchet job in the Washington Post. Or you
could have taken a look at what actually goes on at these
conferences.
At the last one I attended, Felix
Romero of San Luis, Colo., and I gave a presentation on “Communal
land rights and the law of usufruct,” based on an article from the
Chicano-Latino Law Review. Does that sound like a right-wing
conspiracy to influence judges supposedly too stupid to distinguish
wheat from chaff? I don’t think so. Did we “influence” federal
judges? Well, two of the Hispanic judges took a strong interest,
and they thanked us for calling their attention to the issue.
Here’s what I would do with your reporter: send him to one of these
conferences. Then have him write an article worthy of HCN’s high
journalistic standards.
Tom
Wolf
Westcliffe,
Colorado
The publisher
replies:
HCN tried to cover the seminars two
years ago, when freelance writer Ray Ring asked FREE for permission
to attend and report on one of the events. However, John Baden
would not allow it.
Ed
Marston
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Just a hatchet job.
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