LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (03/23/03)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Weekly needs "news from here"

Dear Editor:

Taking the lead from former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill who said that "all politics is local," here are my thoughts about increasing the number of subscribers to The Ukrainian Weekly.

The population in general prefers to read about issues that directly impact them, and their preference is for news mostly of a local nature. Consequently, to keep readers interested, one must keep in mind the local issues that relate to and are of concern to the readers. As your recent editorials indicate, you are addressing this issue by encouraging contributions to the newspaper from far and wide.

There appear to be many contributors/writers to The Ukrainian Weekly from major population centers of the diaspora, as well as from outlying regions. They provide a fair amount of information on the activities in their communities. The "news from here," however, appears in an irregular and inconsistent form. The collection and reporting of such news can be improved in order to maintain the attention and interest of the readers.

As you have indicated in your editorials, your small editorial staff of 2.5 individuals is not sufficient to provide proper coverage on the life of our diaspora at a time when our diaspora is becoming more and more geographically dispersed. At the same time, there surely must be a large pool of writer talent across the land that can help your editorial staff on a volunteer basis. Some are doing so even now, but not in a particularly effective or focused manner. Nonetheless, the potential is there.

Here are few of my suggestions regarding this matter.

Objective: To increase the depth and the substance of coverage of local events in a section specifically devoted to the life of the Ukrainian diaspora in U.S. and in Canada by increasing focus on the issues significant to the everyday lives of your readers.
Means: Establish a special section in the newspaper devoted to this topic. For example, establish a section titled "The News from Here." You do have a "Newsbriefs" section that addresses mainly the issues in faraway Ukraine. A similar format can be used for the "The News from Here" section to address issues of the multi-faceted life of the Ukrainian diaspora.
Implementation: From a list of your volunteer contributors select a volunteer coordinator for this newspaper section. The coordinator will then contact all of your past contributors from various locations in the country and establish a volunteer group of contributors to this section on a regular basis. This action, being volunteer in nature, will not be a financial burden to The Ukrainian Weekly.
Format: Standardize the format of contributions, say articles of not more than 250 words on events of local nature that might be of interest to the general reader. Publish the section as "The News from Here" on a regular basis at a frequency dictated by the magnitude of response.

We have tried many other approaches to this problem. Why not try this?

Ihor Lysyj
Austin, Texas

EDITOR'S NOTE: Let's hear from other readers. What do you think?

Puzzled by wisdom of spelling changes

Dear Editor:

I am quite puzzled by the wisdom of authorities in Ukraine who changed the ancient English spelling of "Kiev" to "Kyyiv" and latter modified it to "Kyiv." Since then, two versions of the name are being used. One, "Kyiv," by English-speaking Ukrainians and the other, "Kiev," by the rest of the world.

The alleged motive for the change was that the spelling "Kiev" did not correspond with the Ukrainian language. I am wondering why the authorities of cities like Cologne, Prague, Warsaw or Moscow have not gotten the idea to change the names of these cities to correspond with their native language.

Leo Wysochansky
Brunswick, Maine

Why don't critics write a column?

Dear Editor:

There seems to be no end to the anti-Kuropas leftist rant. It's really getting boring and predictable. Unfortunately, the leftist critics don't advocate diversity or tolerance - you would think they would volunteer to submit a monthly liberal opinion column the length of Dr. Myron Kuropas'. Instead it seems they would rather curse the darkness instead of lighting a candle.

Actually it's much easier for them to try to silence and censor Dr. Kuropas than it would be to submit an intelligent monthly liberal opinion column. However, I think a monthly column by a bona fide liberal would be much more beneficial for an honest airing out of opinions. Sorry, Andrew Fedynsky's column doesn't qualify, as he is much too centrist to appease the liberals or infuriate the Conservatives.

For the record, Dr. Luba Petrusha (March 2) is wrong in calling Vladimir Putin "an unreconstructed Communist." He's no more "Communist" than Leonid Kuchma, Leonid Kravchuk or Viktor Yushchenko. Mr. Putin has attacked the Communists and relegated their party to insignificance. What's more, he's taken on the fight against his oligarchs in a way our Ukrainian ex-Communists have not.

Mr. Putin has become a super-Russian and a dangerous one (for Ukraine). He's no Boris Yeltsin, who was my kind of "Russian." Ukraine's window of opportunity for implementing reforms is rapidly closing. With the Russian bear about to embrace us, there will be little room for error if we are to avoid becoming "Little Russians" again.

In sum, let there be a monthly "liberal" opinion column in The Ukrainian Weekly so that our "leftists" (after all we're all part of the same bell-shaped curve) don't feel so out.

Jaroslaw Sawka
Sterling Heights, Mich.

The Ukrainian Weekly welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typed (double-spaced) and signed; they must be originals, not photocopies.

The daytime phone number and address of the letter-writer must be given for verification purposes.

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