Why does The Sun give the Ravens such a free ride?

I find it difficult to understand why the Ravens, who played a terrible game, got about 33 percent of the front page in Monday's Sun ("Disappointing defeat," Sept. 19). The University of Maryland team, on the other hand, played a great game even though they lost, and they did not get even a single line on Page 1.

Do you have to be reminded that the Ravens are a for-profit business and that by giving them so much attention you are, in effect, doing their advertising for them? No other business receives this level of support.

The Terps, on the other hand, are part of an educational institution, and they get comparatively little support. I suspect that's because the Ravens buy lots of advertising, and in return for that you give them all the editorial space they want.

This strikes me as both unethical and antithetical to the way newspapers ought to operate. Advertisers should not be allowed to control either the positioning of the news in the paper, nor the volume of coverage that they get.

John S. White, Stewartstown, Pa.