OPINION
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Is
MetroWest Daily Worried About MassNews?
By J. Edward Pawlick, Publisher
Back in the beginning of 1999, the editor of the MetroWest Daily, Ruston Lodi, told us with great disdain that he would never allow the name of our newspaper to appear in his columns. So we were a little surprised when a reporter, Heather Anderson, called and asked for an interview. It was with some foreboding that we finally agreed to give her two hours of our time. The article, which appeared on Sunday, however, was even more poorly done than we could have anticipated. It’s obvious that our print edition is bothering Lodi because we are having an impact. We are telling another point of view, and Lodi doesn’t want that to happen. We’re used to attacks from the establishment, but this article was so puerile and childish that it was embarrassing to watch them make fools of themselves. His reporter began her story with, “If the thought police were to raid One Cameron Street, they’d find a cache of graphic materials about gay life, as well as a stockpile of audio cassettes titled ‘Sexualization of Children.’” The first part is a total lie. There are no “graphic materials about gay life” in our office. We challenge Anderson to name what she saw that could possibly fit that description. The audiocassettes that she mentioned are the tapes from Fistgate which we have distributed all across the state to thousands of parents. (Heather, why didn’t you ask us what those tapes were instead of sneaking around the office? We invited you to see anything you wanted, you didn’t have to sneak.) Her second paragraph wasn’t any better: “And they just might conclude that the 73-year-old, second floor renter in downtown Wellesley is one kinky, gay guy. Or worse.” A “second floor renter?” What’s wrong with being on the second floor? Or renting an office? We could easily go on about the whole article but you don’t want to bother and we also have much better things to do. This is another part of the Fidelity empire which owns 134 newspapers around Boston and controls much of what we read and know. It’s amazing that this group would complain that we mail a quarter million copies of our paper to “unsuspecting residents” when they mail their Tab newspapers to thousands of “unsuspecting residents” every week. It would appear that one is allowed to give his opinion only if he’s a billionaire under their value system. Get used to it, Lodi. There’s another smarter kid on the block now .
. . much smarter.
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