Letters to the Editor

Thorough disappointment with the management of WCAI

Another excoriating Letter to WGBH 
Local affiliates have"done a disservice to its listeners"

May 19, 2007
Mr. Henry Becton, president, WGBH
125 Western Ave. Boston, MA 02134

Dear Sir:

A duo of local authors, Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb, has just published “Cape Wind”, a treatment of the way in which the wealthy and powerful attempt to subvert the democratic process to achieve their own ends.  The book, which describes in detail the organized local opposition to a proposal to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound, has garnered interest across the country, as evidenced by the fact that the book is entering its second printing and that the authors will be signing copies as far afield as California next month.

I have learned that when two of the local bookstores hosting signings approached your local affiliate, WCAI, to find out if they would be airing a discussion with the authors, they were told that this would not happen because station management felt that the book was ‘biased’.

I find this to be an extraordinary position to be taken by a public radio station.  It should be noted that the authors of “Cape Wind” at no point take a position on the appropriateness of the proposed wind farm.  The theme of the book is to expose the lengths to which the wealthy powerbrokers of the Cape will go in order to maintain their imagined perquisites, irrespective of the public interest.  If there is bias in the book, it is leveled against such undemocratic behavior, not for or against this renewable energy project.

It is also worth noting that the authors, both journalists, attempted throughout the writing process to obtain countervailing information from the people and organizations that feature in the book as being opposed to the project.  This information, in the form of scientific support for the claims made by these organizations against the project, was never forthcoming despite repeated requests.

Your local affiliate WCAI appears to have misinterpreted “Cape Wind” as a treatise in favor of a form of energy production proposed for a controversial location, and in so doing has done a disservice to its listeners.

I therefore register with you, Sir, my thorough disappointment with the management of WCAI and their powers of judgement,

Yours sincerely,
Christopher W. Stimpson
82 Sandwich Road, Apt. 33
Bourne, MA 02532
508 827 3031
cwstimpson@earthlink.net

Read previous Letters and Stories on this subcet here;

• WCAI answers letter, Mangiafico answers WCAI
• Book banned in Boston?
• Media boycott of book causes windstorm of protest
• Letters protest media boycott of book events