Readers expect authentic news, not propaganda
Dear Editor: The Freeman’s news coverage has been anemic in content and depends on a good deal of outsourcing to The Associated Press. While we honor and respect the Freeman’s local staff journalists, it is blindly obvious that outsourcing and financial constraints are a guiding reality of survival in the news industry today.
In the current politicized era of uncertainty, the integrity of news is paramount. In this regard, we are compelled to raise question in regard to “Trump followers march on Walkway.” March 27, 2017, a half page of coverage of selfproclaimed Trump followers marching on the Walkway Over the Hudson. The article has the byline Mid-Hudson News Network and a grand pair of photos listing only “contributed” as their source.
The “coverage” presented identified the event as having been organized by the New York Faith and Freedom Coalition, headed by the Rev. William Banuchi. His political blog (http://www.nyfaithandfreedom.com) is telling, with comments that match his narrow-minded self-righteousness against all things progressive. The public might like to know that on March 5, 2016, Banuchi raised the question, “Could it be that it is God who is raising up Trump? Could that be why he is defying all conventional rules? Could the ‘teflon’ actually be God’s anointing?”
While there is no question that the First Amendment protects dissent, it is a journalist’s obligation to represent all sides when it presents news that appears not simply biased posturing, but highly structured, written propaganda in the article itself. The portrait of the American flags proudly flying high over this “newsworthy” presentation, shown prominently in both pictures, is fictionally endorsed by a self-proclaiming, stated “majority,” with a constituency of the police force, veterans, families and members of religious organizations. This coalition, in turn, proclaims support for President Trump, “whose administration is ... under fire by the liberal left ...” with direct support from the “mainstream media” who are all conspiring against all these “hard-working people” who all stand under the fake anthem of “Make America Great Again.”
Adding the phrase “We the People” and pocket-sized copies of the Constitution to support their promotion, one has to be pretty gullible to not see professional politics (and wonder over its finances).
We, the public, demand our right to dissent and to counter this propaganda. We ask the Freeman, in turn, not to present this “alternative truth” to its public without critical journalism somewhere in its own pages to balance the facts. We don’t expect investigative reporting from your paper. We do expect pride and authentic news. Bruce E. Woych Cultural anthropologist Kingston