Letter to the Editor--Santa Caught in Bank Photo (Never Published--Why??)

Dear Editor,

Shame on you. I am sick and tired of reading the Post Standards' slanted coverage of the Dhafir Trial. On October 22nd you published a photo of Dr. Dhafir in a bank. The caption below it regurgitated the prosecution's claim that Dr. Dhafir was doing business at the bank while pretending to be someone else. Clearly the photo meant to make Dr. Dhafir look bad.

Okay, so you were reporting what was said.

The next day in court during cross-examination the prosecution witness's claims about the photo were discredited. The witness admitted that Dr Dhafir presented no fake ID and that he was not doing anything illegal in the photo.

If you thought that the photo was so important then why didn't the paper subsequently report that it was discredited by the defense during cross-examination? The only goal of the photo was to malign Dr. Dhafir, something you seem all too willing to do.

And just when I thought you could not top that on October 28th you ran a headline reporting that Dr. Dhafir's agent in Jordan was buying cloth with charitable funds. A claim that had no merit whatsoever and was never said it court. Where did that 'bogus' header come from? An eager editor looking to embellish testimony to sell more papers? Or was it to push the paper's slanted pro-prosecution perspective?

The next day we complained and you ran a correction. But is it 'fair and balanced' to run a correction in small print that does not even take up enough space to cover one word of the front-page headline of the day before? And what if we had not complained loudly?

I am sure that you could even make Santa look bad if you put your mind to it.

Shame on you Post Standard.

God Bless,
Madis Senner
Syracuse, NY 13206
315-463-5369