Sir: I fancy that all readers will agree with Kingsley
Amis's com- plaint in 'Personal Column' (30 January). It is an abuse of the power of the press if people find themselves attacked or their views distorted and are unable to get their side of the story ventilated.
There is a further aspect of the matter which I think is worth men- tioning and that is that if cele- brated literary figures like Mr Amis find so much difficulty in getting a fair crack of the whip, even from papers which are usually thought to be on his side of the political spectrum, then a fortiori the pros- pects for the rest of us ordinary mortals are pretty hopeless. After all, when Kingsley Amis threatens to publish his side elsewhere, the paper concerned may well take it seriously. When Joe Bloggs is the victim, he has little chance of threatening anyone with anything. Perhaps a couple of examples from one Joe Bloggs may be of interest.
One was fairly recent. I was the subject of a snide paragraph in 'The Times Diary' in which Mr Cross- man said some things about me. all pejorative, some absurd and others absolutely untrue. My reply was subjected to progressive whittling down and in the end appeared over one month after the offending para- graph so that any effect it may have had was diluted, to say the least. But at least I did manage to say something sometime. I was less lucky in the other example. A long 'judgment' dismissing a complaint I had made to the Press Council about the way the Daily Telegraph had dealt with a 'strike' at the LSE (in which my student son was in- volved), was published in full by that paper, the Times and the Guardian. I wrote to all three papers pointing out that the 'judg- ment' was a mixture of absurdities and untruths but nobody published my letter. (To be fair to the Guardian, they had printed a letter on the subject from me previously and it was only because of that
letter appearing in the press that the Council condescended to hear my case at all.) The end of that story was that a correspondence took place in the SPECTATOR in which the Press Council repeated what Mr Amis would call a 'flat lie' as a result of which I offered £100 to any press charity if the Press Council could substantiate what they said. The offer was ignored and I be- lieve the SPECTATOR is still in possession of my cheque. All of which goes to prove, 1 fear, that there is no answer to Kingsley Amis's complaint You can take the press to the water, but (unless they have libelled you) you can't make them drink.
L. E. Weidberg 14 Templewood Avenue, London
Nw3
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