After reading Michael Dresser's article on campaign promises, I felt compelled as a teacher to grade his coverage of my own campaign for governor ("Candidates make many promises — but how to pay for them?" March 14).
It's absolutely amazing that The Sun has published online or in print dozens of articles about the Jaffe campaign for governor. Yet Mr. Dresser has completely ignored my candidacy. I could actually charge Mr. Dresser with journalistic malfeasance for this failure.
I always thought the most important job of the reporter is to be objective, to present readers with the whole story and to impart all of the facts. My campaign is a glaring omission in his writings.
Mr. Dresser refused to write about my $1 billion lawsuit against BGE — I'm fighting to protect customers of BGE from being ripped off instead of pandering to the company as my opponents do.
He also refused to write about my victory against the University of Maryland concerning their violation of the Open Meetings Act — Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler clearly gave bad advice to the university in this case.
And he has refused as well to acknowledge my pre-K education plan, which would cost the taxpayer not one penny, a fact no other candidate can claim.
In short, he is guilty of being subjective, presenting a partial story and deleting pertinent facts.
Mr. Dresser's coverage, which does a tremendous disservice to the readers, warrants a D. Actually, the grade should be F, for failure — but I'm a nice guy and so he gets a D.
With regard to a grade for The Sun's overall coverage of the Jaffe campaign for governor, the grade is M, for mediocrity. As the saying goes, there's always room for improvement. I'm hoping the day will come when the publisher and editor will seize the challenge and pursue the truth.
Ralph Jaffe, Baltimore
The writer is a Democratic candidate for governor.
-
To respond to this letter, send an email to talkback@baltimoresun.com. Please include your name and contact information.