Mailbag: Daily Pilot appears to be showing bias

Your publication of David Gold’s letter (“‘Occupy’ coverage was a little faulty,” Nov. 29) regarding the “Occupy” demonstration at John Wayne Airport illustrates both a positive trend and a disturbing one in Daily Pilot news coverage.

The very positive trend is that you seem to be allowing more letters in opposition to your apparent political position. The disturbing trend is that a political position is so apparent in your news reporting. The discrepancies that Gold pointed out in his letter are frequently obvious in your reporting on Costa Mesa political news in both the unbalanced attention paid to the hotly disputed actions of the City Council and the slant of the headlines and subheadings.

Even your title for Gold’s letter illustrates a bias: While he stated that “the paper is faulty in its coverage” and “utterly failed to tell the whole truth in its reporting,” your title for the letter says the “coverage was a little faulty” (italics mine).

An even more distressing trend to news reporting in the Pilot recently is its near absence; a good portion of the information that does see print seems to be barely more than a press release from, for example, the city of Costa Mesa. I understand the financial pressures that newspapers are under these days, but your subscribers still need a reason to open the paper.

Given the frequent sudden and damaging actions of the Costa Mesa City Council, this is a crucial time for citizens to be regularly informed. I, for one, would like to keep getting my local news from the Los Angeles Times and the Pilot, but the news just hasn’t been adequately reported. A free press and an informed citizenry are essential to democracy.

Tamar Goldmann

Costa Mesa