ShawneeDispatch.com

To the Editor:

I've enjoyed your factual, unemotional reporting of events at city hall, the school boards, other local elections, and high school sporting events. In fact, the only real complaint I have is that there is no apparent point of view at all on your editorial page. The only opinions expressed therein come from citizens' letters, the canned "Guest Commentary," and "Talking Points" from apparently random encounters with the average Joe or Jane.

When I mentioned this at the dinner table, my teenage son said, "Mom, those people are fake." WHAT?!! But, yes, he showed me the best-selling book "The Onion: Dispatches From the Tenth Circle" and sure enough, there on page 10 and again on page 33, and 62, and 78, and 92, and 100, and 130, and 154, and finally page 174, were two of the three faces pictured in the April 11 issue of The Shawnee Dispatch.

So is your paper just an extension of Onion's "Dispatches From the Tenth Circle" or is this a sly editorial comment on a reporter's life in our fair city? More likely, you have your own Jason Blair (the New York Times reporter fired for making up stories). I'd fax you some of the pages from the Onion as proof, but I'm lazier than your reporter. Besides, you can probably find your own copy lying around the staffroom.

I look forward to seeing this letter and your explanation in the next issue. Otherwise, your competitors could have a real hay day with this.

Your Faithful Reader,

Emily Griffin

Shawnee