On journalistic integrity

From: Laurence Shandy
To: The Montgomery Advertiser
Re: Dead pastor

Dear Advertiser,

Peabody Award-winning journalist Laurence Shandy here. I must say I was appalled to read your paper's shoddy coverage of the Rev. Gary Aldridge accidental death case. Your initial reports of the circumstances were so vague that they led Aldridge's fellow Liberty University alumni to believe he may have been murdered. I wonder why you didn't report all the relevant facts. From reading the Advertiser, I could easily learn that Rev. Aldridge was a former employee of Jerry Falwell's, that he was a devoted family man, that he was beloved by his congregation at Thorington Road Baptist Church. I could even read about how his body was found shrouded in two wet suits, face masks, flippers, and rubber underwear. That he had hogtied himself, bound himself in leather straps. But what I could not learn about in the Advertiser was the fact that Rev. Aldridge was also found with a dildo stuck in his butt.

To me, the dildo in the butt seems the single most pertinent piece of the puzzle. Let's call it "the smoking dildo" of this case. You can't have slobbering sheep running around crying murder when they know the pastor had a dildo in his butt. Everything else reeks of foul play. Perhaps the pastor was murdered and bound by some sadistic scuba diver. But the dildo in his butt--that changes everything. It's the kind of thing Angela Lansbury would find at a taped-off crime scene. The wet pop of the dildo's removal would signal an a-ha moment. It would crack the case.

This is just sloppy reporting on your part. I expect a little more from the local newspaper of Montgomery, Alabama. It will take a long time to remove this dildo of shame from the butt of your integrity.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman