The Times has once again (June 28) carried a one-sided report on skinheads, which takes the fund-raising propaganda of one group, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), at face value to give readers a totally misleading impression of another group, skinheads. If the Christian Coalition issued a report demonizing homosexuals you would include a response from gays; if the Environmental Defense Fund issued a report demonizing Western cattle ranchers you would try to put it in perspective. Why does the Times thow the principle of balanced news reporting out the window as soon as the word "skinhead" is uttered? First you take an already skewed ADL "Survey of Neo-Nazi Skinheads" and then report its findings--not in quotations from an ADL spokesperson, either--as applicable to all skinheads ("skinheads remain....", "skinheads share...they read...they prefer....their disposition" "American skinheads are organized..."). You might as well take a report on "Right-Wing Militia Military Veterans" and then continually tell your readers "veterans favor....; veterans denounce...., etc." as if these militia members represented all veterans. In fact, the ADL has accepted the preposterous claims of extreme right groups to the skinhead tradition---which actually began among Jamaican blacks in the 1960s, not "in England two decades ago"--and given them currency because having a scary enemy helps the ADL raise money. In so doing they are actually helping the Nazis by giving them legitimacy among working-class youth. Traditional skinheads denounce these imposters as "boneheads" who have no respect for the long tradition of racial integration which in fact has characterized the skinhead movement. Anyone who has attended skinhead music events in New York City can see for themselves that black, Hispanic, Oriental and Jewish skinheads are common. Nationally and internationally traditional working-class skinheads far outnumber the boneheads, financed by wealthy right-wing patrons, who are trying to steal a proud tradition. All the "skinzine" publications I have seen are determinedly non-rascist, and the main one in New York, "No Escape," is edited by a black skinhead. So is "Carry No Banners," the leading Midwestern skinzine. The ADL report may have "found no discernible national skinhead organization in the United States," but they either didn't do much research or deliberately omitted traditional skinheads, since they omitted the nationally organized non-rascist United Front organization, now headquartered in Ohio. Maybe they couldn't handle the UF's racially integrated logo. Traditional skinheads often proclaim that they have been crucified by the sensation-seeking mass media. As a former newspaper reporter, I like to defend good papers like The Times. But you continually prove their point. As a responsible paper, you should be talking with real skinheads, especially here in New York where you are published, and report the truth, not just the ADL's propaganda. Why don't you talk to someone from SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP), which has chapters around the nation and in New York, for example?