AThe News and Observer Raleigh, North Carolina Tuesday, November 16, 1971 - Page 4
Chess Fan Wants More Chess News
To the Editor: Thanks, anyhow, for your Sunday printing of Harold Schonberg's fine essay on chess and music, which obviously was inspired by Bobby Fischer's victory over former world chess champion Petrosian in the finals of the world elimination matches to determine the next challenger for the world's championship.
Unfortunately, The News and Observer completely ignored this internationally significant event while it was going on. For almost the whole month of October, I looked in vain for some report on the progress of the match in your news columns. Although the TV networks reported the final outcome on at least four news programs, you still failed to bestow your recognition. Just what news do you consider important enough to print? If Fischer were a Russian, he would be regarded as a national hero, but in America, to which he has brought more honor than the Olympic games, he is treated as a nobody by the press.
In Buenos Aires, where the match was held, his feat drew headlines, and Fischer himself ruefully observed: “Around the world I am better known than Joe Namath, but at home hardly anyone except chess players knows who I am.”
For shame! It is certainly to be hoped that you try to make amends next spring, when Fischer attempts to bring the world chess title to America for the first time in [*recent recollectable, aka Paul Morphy, 1859] history. W.M. Hobson, Dunn.
