Re: “Letter to the Editor”

In response to the letter to the editor in the Oct. 15 edition of The Uniter (page 8), I would like to applaud your publication for providing an alternative to mainstream press in our community. While I do agree the sports coverage is often a little thin, I expect The Uniter will pick things up once the Wesmen basketball and volleyball regular seasons begin. I personally have no difficulty getting ample NFL coverage from every other media outlet in my life. I also cannot turn on the radio without hearing some reference to the previous night’s NHL scores. Reporting on the university’s own sports teams should be the priority of The Uniter.       

This leads me to the music section. As a local musician, I cannot begin to express my gratitude to The Uniter, a fairly well-read weekly publication, for covering local artists and bands. Everybody wins when local musicians are put in the spotlight: The artists get the coverage they would otherwise unlikely receive, and readers can discover new music.

If people such as the writer of the letter want to read about bands everybody knows, I suggest picking up a copy of Rolling Stone or Spin.  For someone who extols the virtues of being objective, the writer of the letter is quite prejudiced in her beliefs about the talents of bands she self-admittedly has never heard.

In conclusion, I say “Keep it up, Uniter!”  I look forward to every Thursday to see which local, downtown issues and great new artists are featured. To the writer of the letter, I say go check out some of these “talentless” bands. You might just find your new favourite sound.

– Chris Muirhead

Published in Volume 64, Number 8 of The Uniter (October 22, 2009)