It appears that Jonathan Knutson, Agweek staff writer and Herald columnist, has abdicated his journalistic responsibility to evaluate the sources of information he uses to form his opinions on scientific topics, preferring instead to rely on the numbers of emails he gets pro or con on these issues ( "The science says," column , Page B1, Feb. 8).
Knutson may want to rethink his approach. For example, if he were to ask for opinions on the issue of water fluoridation from his readers, I suspect he would get many emails insisting that putting fluoride in water is a harmful and possibly Communist plot and pointing to a host of websites that "prove" that.
But the vast majority wouldn't bother to write in to say it was fine with them, as it is with virtually every dentist and professional dental association in the United States.
Journalists evaluate the accuracy of information sources all the time; perhaps there is one on the staff of Forum Communications that can give Knutson a few lessons on how that is done.
Ell-Piret Multer
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Grand Forks
