News Analysis About Fun Zone Questioned

Your story, “Fun Zone Foes Aren’t Laughing” (Times, April 26), gives a whole new meaning to “news analysis.”

Claiming that hearings on the Santa Monica Pier plan are “no more than a cover for a fait accompli, “ your writer goes on to say that “many in town” are disturbed by “a procedure that sometimes seems noticeably absent of any meaningful interplay between the council and the public,” but he only names five people. Lots of “they,” “a number,” “opponents,” “detractors,” “others,” “many residents,” and so on, but only five names.

Then, near the end of the story, your writer refers to “numerous supporters” of the project, “700 of whom have signed a petition” favoring it.

Since “many” and “numerous” are synonyms, but five is only 1/140th of 700, wouldn’t it have been a bit more accurate to say, if five are “many,” that 700 are “many more.”

Factually speaking, of course, in a city of 83,000, five people are hardly even a blip, while 700 could, at best, be described as “some,” but, of course, the beauty of “news analysis” is that it has nothing to do with the facts.

PEGGY CLIFFORD

Santa Monica