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Where has fairness gone?

To the editor:

I was born and raised in the Tri-Lakes, and until the last few years I had found the papers to be fair and objective. In the last few years, this has not been the case. Right now they are on a crusade to destroy Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Ninety-nine percent of the articles about her are slanted and negative. She has been a tremendous congresswoman for our district. I called her about a month ago about an issue I had with the VA that had been going on for almost a year, she said she would look into it, and 10 days later it was resolved for me. She has been a tremendous advocate for the farmers and the poor. By not even pretending to show objectivity and fairness, you will continue to lose readers.

Rik Cassidy

Saranac Lake

(Editor’s note: The Enterprise is not “on a crusade to destroy Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.” We report on things that happen with regard to her, some controversial and some not. We also fact-check prominent local elected leaders, and in recent years, many U.S. politicians, including Rep. Stefanik, have made this necessary more often than in the past because, with the growing influence of Donald Trump, they have become more free in saying things that are not true. Journalists are biased toward truth, and when a local politician says untrue things, we feel obligated to point that out for the benefit of readers and voters. We do this regardless of political leaning, and we did it for both the Republican and Democratic congressional candidates in the fall election. We reach out to Rep. Stefanik for input on every article we write about her, but lately she has not been answering our questions as often as she once did, which diminishes the degree to which we can explain her thinking to readers. If that makes her look bad, we are not sure that is our fault. We are trying our best to pursue, as Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein says, “the best available version of the truth.”)

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