Quite the recent news article (Aug. 8) concerning the Naval Hospital’s emergency room in the Whidbey News-Times, or maybe its the Whidbey Tabloid News.

The first sentence stated that an email from a Naval Hospital doctor had officials scrambling to quell rumors about the closing of the emergency room. They didn’t need to scramble. All they needed to do was ask this newspaper to do some actual news reporting rather than tabloid exploiting. The only rumors were those generated or validated by this paper. I’m a little nearsighted, but even with a magnifying glass I couldn’t find the part where your reporter talked to the hospital and got their response. Probably would have been some boring comment about not adding to the rumors. Most likely the part where you wrote that the Navy will host the media next week to lay out proposed services. You do manage to quote the Base Public Affairs Officer and Whidbey General CEO as stating that the services would be changing, but would be similar in scope to what they’re doing now.

One might get the impression that there were some changes on the horizon and not necessarily that, quoting the email, it’s going to be a mess. However, this paper seems more interested in stirring up the general public with some good old-fashioned and juicy tabloid reporting. Let’s not find out what those changes are or seek any facts before we quote comments from an email that someone’s going to die. Even Rep. Barbara Bailey questioned the accuracy of the email, stating about the hospital that she thought they’re trying to be more efficient and they’re helping people find out what they have to offer.

By now hello, McFly must be ringing in your reporter’s ears, but it’s too tempting to generate that tabloid buzz so you add from the email, One day here without an ER could be a death sentence for someone’s loved one. Man, you are definitely blessed with talent at this point.

We hear it a thousand times over about the close relationship between the local community and the Navy. Need to buy up property to prevent encroachment. Work together on issues. The list goes on. So why the desire to flush that cooperation down the toilet? In your smoking gun email, you quote, the disservice is that the public hasn’t been notified. The disservice is that the public gets notified without any desire to provide them with the information to make an educated observation or opinion without the Chicken Little quotes normally reserved alongside UFO sightings in the tabloids. One can only hope that the meeting with the media generates cooler heads, some common sense, and a willingness to work together to come up with the best plan to support the hospital’s beneficiaries and to present to the general public in this paper. At least it won’t be done via email.

Michael Delaney

Oak Harbor