Today WaPo ran an article entitled "Lieberman Certified to Appear on Ballot" with an accompanying photo. The caption reads, in part, "U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., speaks at a rally . . ."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Which I found hilarious since, well, the entire point of the article was how Lieberman has now been certified to run as the sole member of the "Connecticut for Lieberman" party. And I got to thinking, so why the fuck is he IDed as a Democrat?
So I wrote a letter to the editors and everyone's favorite ombudshack, Deborah Howell, asking them to please correct the error. Here's my letter. I suggest you send your own. Joe's not a Dem -- not officially on the ballot; I don't give a rat's ass who he caucuses with -- and he should be IDed as such from now on.
Dear Editors:
For a Post web article today ( 8/23/06) headlined "Lieberman Certified to Appear on Ballot" there is a photo of Sen. Lieberman with the following caption: "U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., speaks at a rally . . . "
The caption is hilariously inaccurate since the entire point of the article is to point out that Lieberman will NOT be running as a Democrat in the upcoming November election, that he is now officially certified to run as an Independent. Which, logically, means he is an Independent. Nonetheless, you (w/o editing the AP) have identified him as a Democrat -- (D). Lieberman is NOT the Democratic candidate, so your identification of him as such is patently inaccurate. Sen. Lieberman is now the sole member of the "Connecticut for Lieberman" party. He is an indenpendent should be identified as such. It is erroneous and misleading to continue, now, to identify Sen. Lieberman as anything other than "U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn."
This is not some semantic niggling on my part but a very important factual point. It is, in fact, the entire point of the article.
Please correct this error.
Thank you.
[my name]
******
I haven't written AP yet, but I'm going to. You should, too. Just be polite and hammer on the accuracy issue, since, frankly this is what it is all about.