One letter writer accused me of being against working mothers because I criticized Channel 6's Joyce Garbaciak for the lack of journalistic professionalism she displayed in allowing the station to build a warmy-feely promotion about her motherhood. An academic colleague once flamed me because of another throw-away line in this column, asking why Mexicans can't get it right the first time so that they don't have to keep refrying those beans. I'm not taking issue with press criticism. Rather, it's the malevolence of those who believe that our media should never report a story they believe shouldn't be covered, or because it's covered differently than the way they'd prefer, or because the media include expressions of opinion they find offensive for reasons of political preference, race, religious belief, morality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or what have you. As those folks would have it, anyone who writes or utters such expressions should be silenced-and the media that afford such opportunities should be punished whenever the opportunity arises.
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