LETTER: KOMU shows it doesn't care about its viewers

Editor's note: This letter is in response to a guest column by KOMU/Channel 8 General Manager Marty Siddall, which was published by the Columbia Daily Tribune on March 22.

I will concede that I am embarrassed for Marty Siddall ("KOMU 8 values its viewers" - Tribune, March 22, 2011). What in the world, short of a direct order from Brady Deaton, would motivate him to submit such irony to the public? And, irony upon irony, to do so through a print media outlet?

For at least a couple of years, it has been clear to everyone of any prescience that KOMU takes no notice whatsoever of its viewers. There is little point in revisiting the Paul Pepper firing, but to note that it made clear that KOMU/Channel 8 values its viewers not at all.

And some of us are going to angered whenever Marty starts with the nonsense about KOMU being an "independent business" and "committed to our viewers" and so on. The Pepper firing and the way it was handled was both injury and insult to the community, and I don't think the community is going to forget that.

Marty needs to assume the position that served him best during the Pepper firing: in his office under his desk, incommunicado. He'll be doing us all a favor.

Dan William Peek lives in Columbia.