Bowler was a real pro

Your excellent tribute to Mike Bowler left out just one component of his meritorious editorship — when he disagreed with a writer, he would state his disagreement substantively and would respond in kind (“Michael H. “Mike” Bowler, veteran Baltimore Sun journalist and Baltimore County Board of Education member, dies,” Sept. 18). Mike and I were not close, but we had over the years somewhere between several and many exchanges on issues, and one day when he heard me declaim on WBAL Radio on an issue that interested him, he contacted me to ask me to write a piece on the matter even though he did not fully agree with my position.

He was noted in his obituary as being politically liberal, and you could have added “crusty,” but most of all he could interact fairly and substantively with writers with whom he disagreed.

That is what excellent journalists do.