Dear Crikey,

I try hard to take Crikey seriously, but your credibility is again battered by Hugo Kelly’s pitiful effort condemning our newspapers’ coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s election.

It’s an insult to our staff to say we missed the story “in favour of Peruvian folk music”, etc. We managed to remake Page 1 in about 80,000 of our 550,000-plus newspapers despite the story breaking shortly before 3am. Anyone who understands newspapers and deadlines knows that’s an outstanding effort.

If your audience is as astute as you claim (and I concede you occasionally publish some interesting stuff), they will appreciate the point I’m making. Informed analysis and scrutiny is welcome and appropriate. Take a deep breath and don’t treat your readers so shabbily.

Yours sincerely,
Peter Blunden,
Editor in chief,
Herald Sun.