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Letters: David Frum’s departure, North Dakota’s jobs

Marketplace Staff Oct 19, 2011
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Letters: David Frum’s departure, North Dakota’s jobs

Marketplace Staff Oct 19, 2011
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Kai Ryssdal: We’ll start letters today with one last thought on David Frum. Most of the mail we got on the days that his commentaries ran wasn’t all that positive. Now that he’s moved on, though — sure, that’s when he gets all the love.

Shaun Petersen of Miami spoke for many of you when he said he might not have always agreed with David’s views, but he’s sad to see him go.

Shaun Petersen: While I agree that his positions are no longer representative of the political right wing, it seems more like the party left him than vice-versa. I understand the need to reflect the views of both sides of the spectrum; I just hope his replacement can represent them accurately and still keep the segment fact-based and free of hyperbole.

We had Farhad Majoo on from Slate the other day with a commentary about how job seekers are facing new competition from robots. There’s even software, it turns out, that can write news stories.

David Burns wrote from Needham, Mass.

David Burns: “Andino smacked a game-winning single in the ninth” might have been poetic in 1927, but now it’s hack writing. Indeed, the sports story writing software does nothing more than manipulate previously stored symbolic phrases in an imitation of what once was poetic sports story writing.

Finally, we sent Stacey Vanek Smith to North Dakota, the land where jobs are plentiful. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to get oil out of North Dakota’s substantial reserves has a lot to do with that.

Paula Fitzsimmons lives in Hudson, N.Y. She says creating jobs is great, but we should have talked about the health and environmental impact of fracking, as well.

Paula Fitzsimmons: As we watch our neighbors in Pennsylvania deal with the downside and watch fracking move toward us in New York, I believe there are better ways to create jobs.

You can send us your thoughts.

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