Letters for January 30, 2003

A prosecution complex

Comments (0) Thursday, Jan 30 2003

...continued from page 1

Case in point, Eric Alan Barton's January 16 article "Farewell to the Fighting Pianists." Despite your headline and Gong Show reference, I can assure you that no final decision has been made regarding the future of interscholastic sports at our school.

While an 11-member Ad Hoc Committee on Interscholastic Athletics has recommended that the School of the Arts shift toward intramural competition, this is just the first step in an extensive evaluation process, not the last. Additional input is needed from parents, faculty, staff, and, most important, from our incredibly talented and caring student body. All available options will be carefully considered.

At the Dreyfoos School of the Arts, we take great pride in all of our students -- be they artistic, athletic, or both -- and we will continue to do everything we can to properly prepare them for first-class colleges and professional careers.

Ellen Van Arsdale, Principal

Alexander W. Dreyfoos Jr. School of the Arts

West Palm Beach

In journalism? Remember Oscar Madison?I really hope that WLRN-FM (91.3) goes ahead with its deal with the Miami Herald. WXEL-FM (90.7)'s morning news with the wheezy Sun-Sentinel announcer is awful, and the current "news" on WLRN is pretty terrible and amateurish too.

At least the Herald will give the station some professionalism in the news department. Good news at last!

Timothy Burrwell

Deerfield Beach

TelePrompTers can't protect us from dumb anchors:Hell of a column on Rick Sanchez ("Wake Up and Smile," Bob Norman, January 9). Beautifully written. Congrats. MSNBC is a dump. It's not as big of a dump as CNBC, but give it time.

Somebody really sold Sanchez a bill of goods -- making him believe that he could fly without a parachute (TelePrompTer) and convincing him that people would actually watch that show. In 1987, the bosses at KNBC (Los Angeles) decided that it would make the anchors look smarter if they asked questions of the field reporters during "live" shots. That policy ended when the highest-paid female anchor in the market asked me why it was going to take so long to identify the victims of the crash of a DC-9 that plunged nose-first into a neighborhood from about 15,000 feet. I thought to myself: "Gee, maybe because all 84 passengers and crew members have been reduced to tiny charred pieces," -- then I muttered something about dental records.

Matt Stevens

Grand Rapids, Michigan