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A Letter to the Editor of The Daily



Subject: A Letter to the Editor of The Daily Yomiuri 

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Since the editors of the Daily Yomiuri seem to be ignoring all letters about
Burma (and we know of many) we'd like to share Jeffrey Sievert's letter to
the editor about Martin Robinson's travel article.

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Martin Robinson
c/o The Daily Yomiuri
1-7-1 Otemachi
Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100-55

10 June 1996

Dear Martin Robinson:

As a fellow journalist, I can doubtlessly appreciate some of the crap
you've got to put up with in the trade.  A lot of us get stuck with jobs
we would rather not do.  The trivial ones can be dealt with and we learn
to soldier on, keeping our professional standards intact.  But not all
assignments are trivial.  When a story is not, when the facts behind it
affect large groups of people, it shouldn't have to be pointed out that the
writer's job is to get at and tell the truth.  If draconian editorial control
or other circumstances will not allow the facts to emerge, the writer is
obliged to protest and turn down the assignment.  Why then did you
accept yours (Burma travel, June 8)?  Why did you allow your name
and photos to be associated with such a dreadful piece of reporting? 
And to whom did you think you were writing?

The informed?  Of course they know what's going on inside Burma'
they rely on honest journalism, accurate accounts, to keep them posted. 
The uninformed?   All the more reason, then, if so, to fulfill your duty
of informing them.  It would have been better to do nothing than what
you did, recycling SLORC - sponsored propaganda with no reference to
on - going U.N. - documented human rights violations in the country.

On page 4 of the same edition in which your piece appeared there's an
AP report on Aung San Suu Kyi.  You may have heard of her.  Rather
than urging tourists to visit her country, she is actively working to
dissuade them from doing so, thus limiting the flow of money and
legitimacy to the SLORC dictatorship which enslaves her people with
the backing of outside corporate and state interests.

For your edification, moral or otherwise, I am sending along some
recent journalism on Burma from Britain's Guardian Weekly and the
latest Kyoto Journal.  I hope it may cause you to pause and think about
your own work.  Our profession is not as honorable as it could and
should be, but it is still honorable enough to make me ashamed of what
you wrote.

Sincerely yours,
Jeffrey Sievert
(Mainichi Daily News)


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