EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter to the editor is in reference to a story headlined “Print newspapers’ future? New publisher gloomy, but sees AC-T morphing into digital info provider” that appeared in the Feb. 27 edition of the Daily Planet.
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After reading John North’s coverage of new AC-T Publisher Randy Hammer’s speech at the Asheville Forum’s Wednesday Luncheon Series, I wondered if Mr. Hammer reads his own newspaper.

North quotes Hammmer as (saying) “People were nice but basically they said they didn’t like what we were doing with our newspaper in its switch to hyper-local news content, with international, national and state news given short shrift.”

During that same week after North’s report on Hammer’s speech, AC-T editions dated 2/27 through 3/1, the AC-T’s front-page news stories had more than a three-to-one ratio of local news stories to other news stories.

Another Hammer quote on going back to the old news format was, “To me, it was sort of a no-brainer to go back. I hope corporate has learned its lesson.”

Changing the format doesn’t correct the problem of not reporting enough national and state news. The AC-T gives almost as much space to deaths, births and marriages as it does to national news — and that’s shameful.

It’s discouraging to pick up a Sunday edition of the AC-T and have the advertisements weigh three or four times more than the news sections. Hammer says he wants a larger business page, but the paper is too small.

Yet he gives us a local sports section. The opinion page is overloaded with local opinions and the same array of syndicated columnists appear week after week.

There’s nothing wrong with the likes of Pitts, Novak or Parker, but a few liberals would give better balance.

Asheville is growing fast. I don’t expect The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times for 50 cents, but the road to news reporting doesn’t end at the Buncombe County line.

Perhaps the AC-T’s problem has been a lack of competition. All other daily newspaper boxes have disappeared. The only place I can find the Charlotte paper is the local library — and that’s usually a day late.

If the AC-T’s circulation isn’t growing along with Asheville’s growth, I suspect it’s the product.
I can’t even buy a candy bar for 50 cents. Perhaps that explains this better.

Bert Bass,
Weaverville

Two recent Planet articles
termed worthy of comment

Two articles in the Jan 30 issue deserve much more discussion than 200 words.

The opinion piece by Lloyd Stover discusses the resources made accessible through arctic melting.

Newly accessible oil and gas, if extracted and burned will accelerate the already alarming rate of climate change. Arctic melting is also devastating arctic ecosystems. The Polar Bear’s long term survival in the wild is in doubt, due to the extreme retreat of arctic ice from the land surrounding the polar area.

Janese Johnson writes a moving account of saying goodbye to her son as he goes off to the war in Iraq. There are two things required to continue the insanity of this war. One is people following orders to go there and participate in it. The other is people allowing their money to be taken off to Washington to fund it.

The link between these two articles is the fossil fuels which we cannot afford to continue to use because their continued use is warming the planet and may eventually warm it beyond the ability of the ecosystems which support human life to survive. The ecosystem which supports Polar Bears is collapsing. So is the ecosystem which supports Humans.

Act.

Cicada Brokaw
Asheville