We need to respect our free press — and stop calling them ‘fake news’
My friend Steve Boyle commented (Letters, Dec. 24) on the need for Kurt Montgomery to take a chill pill because he may get his liberal facts from “fake news.”
We need to respect all of our “free” news outlets. These people are no different than you and me. Their job is to report what they see and hear as accurately as possible. For some high-level politician to label a certain portion of our society “fake” for selfish purposes is very dictatorial and scary. Silencing and controlling or eliminating the news media, Justice Department, FBI and any other departments in our democracy is nothing short of a Saddam Hussein, Kim Jon-un, Putin, and many more dictators.
That said, then we must forward this simple philosophy of “fake” to everything.
So let’s say I’m building a house. One of my subcontractors doesn’t know how to do his job and I think he is a “fake contractor.” Under this new philosophy we now seem to have, I have to assume that all of my subcontractors and even my general contractor are “fake contractors.” Wow. “No one knew this could be so complicated?”
John Hammond, Paso Robles
This story was originally published December 27, 2017 at 7:19 AM with the headline "We need to respect our free press — and stop calling them ‘fake news’."