Editor's note:
Now a Northwest correspondent for the Wall Street Journal , Bill Richards occasionally writes about Boeing.

An article in your April issue mentioned that local political columnist and media commentator John Carlson, after lunching with Seattle Times publisher/CEO Frank Blethen and editorial page editor Mindy Cameron, will now be writing columns for the Times.

Formerly the publisher of the Washington Spectator, Carlson says that publication (not to be confused with Seattle University's student newspaper, The Spectator ) "was a campus response to the UW Daily."

No, the Spectator was a knee-jerk response by dedicated right-wingers, many of whom boasted no affiliation with the UW campus. Funds for the paper were provided in part by nationally influential, conservative think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation based in Washington, DC. The sophomoric newspaper gleefully published, among other liberal-bashing articles, snide asides about feminists, blacks, Jews and others. Gays were openly referred to as sodomists, child molesters - or worse - as AIDS spreaders.

Has Mindy Cameron or Frank Blethen or the editors of the Free Press ever bothered to read a copy of the Spectator ?

According to the Free Press , "most of us realize that all debates are enhanced by the interjection of all points of view." Differing points of view must be tolerated in our society, sure. But John Carlson's thinly veiled hate mongering doesn't encourage reasonable debate.

I was pleased to see in your pages a bit of an expose on the Seattle Weekly's sometimes questionable management practices. You may be aware that, in addition to the more recent layoffs, five employees were laid off a year ago, including the chief proofreader (me), the staff photographer, the assistant managing editor (who had been closely associated with David Brewster and had worked at the paper about seven years), an executive assistant to Mr. Brewster and an employee in the accounting or business department.

All were women of child-bearing age, and one was pregnant at the time of her dismissal.

Employees seem to be fired with arbitrary abandon at times; art directors at the Weekly appear to be particularly vulnerable to the whims of the publisher and managing editor, who seem to feel that it is the appearance of the art director's work that makes or breaks their publication. As soon as they hire a new art director, whose work they are excited about, that person goes on trial - and would be well advised to keep other job possibilities in mind.

I worked at the Weekly for almost three years and watched some of my favorite co-workers get the ax. I also watched, not altogether passively, as my own job was gradually taken away from me and the proofreading department was dismantled. It is my understanding that, currently, only a portion of the classified section of the paper is proofread. Other copy is sent directly from the (lone) copy editor to the typesetting department.

I am not sorry that I no longer work at the Weekly. I am somewhat sympathetic to the paper's financial dilemmas and miscalculations. I am not sympathetic to unfair hiring and firing practices, and I don't miss belonging to any kind of "happy family" that boots its members arbitrarily.