Another satisfied customer
Dear Telegraph,
I just read Will Sands’ editorial (6-30), and frankly, he’s right. If the Telegraph wants to tune itself to its communal constituency, let it. Left-leaning, white people, microbrew drinkers and banjo listeners are an apt audience description. What other descriptors are missing? Scruffy hygiene, smoking bales of pot while labeling oneself an artist/musician/construction worker/student and skiing/rafting whenever possible.

Kudos, Shan Wells is one of the 50 best political cartoonists in America, and Durango is lucky to have him … I’d like to see a Telegraph text editorial match his visual edge and message.

I’ve never seen a Navajo or Southern Ute reading the Telegraph. Why? Because it’s known as a white publication. How about hiring an Indian student or Indian teacher from the Fort to write a piece? The best part about being in the small town press is that there are few barriers to entry. A couple of college kids with a staple gun, a website and some writing talent could upend a controlled news town like Durango. Even the Telegraph’s entry to market shows the Herald has limited experience with competition.

The worst aspect of both publications is that local writers must be careful to avoid negatives (I see this a lot in the Telegraph and the Herald), particularly if it involves an advertiser or “established/historic/white” family or the Southern Ute Tribe (because the tribe sponsors so much for the community). Newspapers will criticize out-of-towners much faster than those in town. Call it human nature or preferential journalism.

Sands says there are “plenty” of journalism vehicles showing the underbelly of SW Colorado. Really? Name two. Having worked at the largest papers in Los Angeles and San Francisco, our local periodicals are more advertising vehicles than news providers. We all know that. That’s why people who want knowledgeable opinions and researched information subscribe to papers like the L.A. Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. But Will Sands is right. He can write what he wants … and what he chooses is a Pollyanna Durango, where cops are always fair, beer is always flowing, life is grand and adults can be on spring break forever.

Try hardship for a readership. Here are some ideas: how about living as an Indian or minority in this predominantly white town? A FLC student could write this. Or, cover bars that regularly over-service customers, leading to DUI, alcohol being a huge elephant in the room in Durango. How about Durango as a cocaine/ecstasy/meth capitol of the Four Corners? How about non-homeless, non-poor cheapos eating for free at Manna Soup Kitchen? How about the skate park and the liability it creates with no helmets, no waivers and no gates? Ask the City Manager how much the liability insurance costs. How about how long it takes before a dog is put down at the SPCA? Same day? Try asking.

There are interesting and worthwhile things to read about. You just need to write them. Hope you try to keep it real and stretch outside the comfort zone that appears to have formed.

– Sincerely, Tammra TwoBears-Sillo, Durango  

A classy read
Dear Editors:
Kudos to the Telegraph for once again demonstrating your class and wisdom in pointing out why you choose to create a positive window to our world rather than the fear mongering, soul sapping, psyche-squishing, neuron depleting negativity that we are bombarded with every day.

Will and Missy, your editorials are always great for causing one to look a little closer at our own seemingly ordinary lives with new eyes of appreciation of the simple and yet, intricate gifts that we share with our families, our friends, our communities and our planet. I usually always get a good chuckle out of life’s paradoxes. All of your writers and the articles they offer in your paper are insightful and useful to us here in the semi-isolated Southwest; the photography is often spectacular – that piece on Escalante was awesome; Shan’s cartoons and his relentless ironic wit is refreshingly honest and noteworthy, certainly on a national level of professionalism. And of course, your calendar of events keeps us all informed of the many diverse, interesting and especially fun things our little town has to offer. The classifieds are the best buy in town!  I always tend to support your advertisers.

God knows that our world could use a lot more positive angles on what IS working than forever stuffing fear and futility down our gullet for our daily diet  What if for just one month, all of the media – especially talk shows with a bias either way – were to only focus on what things are working, how we can work together to create the miracles we need to get through the mess we’ve thus far created and offer positive solutions that are already working in small pockets of our nation and world and how easy it actually is to make our lives so much healthier and prosperous! There would be no politics or politicians unless there was something wonderful to share! (Natural disasters could, of course, be covered, but focusing more on how people come together and how we can help each other through them.)

Better yet, what if everyone stopped watching, listening or reading any negative news – just for awhile – and focus on our own lives and how good they actually are, and even if they’re not, without hearing every day how things are only going to get worse for all of us, all that new, hopeful energy would turn on creative synapses in our brains to begin to remember that anything is possible – simply by removing the constant bloodthirsty, brainwashing negative bombardment on our bio-chemical, spiritual consciousness by the headline seeking sensationalist sparking, sadistic news and talk shows.

Of course, I admit that I would have to start with my own anally amorous addiction to such things – but I think I’ll just give it a try – at least for a day or two. It’s good to know that even during negative news drought times, I can still pick up the Telegraph to keep up on what’s really important!

– Blessings, Susan Urban, Durango

Low-cal living
To the Editors,
We are living in a society that has became increasingly lower in calories, both in food and in thought. Not only have we passed from the stew and a good plate of beans to the salad slightly seasoned, but we have also created rules that subordinate the personal decision to a government dictatorship.

We have gone from thinking and reading to watching captivated the small screen. Models are copied more than ideas followed. Beyond entertainment, the media spectacle, more and more light to reach a wider audience, has become a transmitter of a culture “light” that once was known as instincts, destroying the classical virtues, breaking the authority in the family and school. Offering in the TV series disastrous models, disguised as new ways of life, are presented as attractive, helping to undermine the values rooted in society.

In these fields involves not only market mechanisms for its loyal customers with new tastes and flavors, playing with emotions, because, influenced by politicians, is also involved “media engineering” to convey ideologies that lead to society the channels they want, pursue a new model of man: to make man and woman a being detached from real links, left at the mercy of itself.

As a result, while the agitators of the street or microphone are awake, the show is watched by a passive and sleepy citizenry, waiting for someone to say WAKE UP!
– Agustín Pérez, via email