Editor:

When I read the TC’s op-ed by CNPA Executive Director Tom Newton [March 16 issue] titled “Enablers of the Enemy,” I chuckled. That’s because in writing this adolescent doggerel, Newton provided yet another clear example of why so much news is indeed fake.

Newton began by mocking President Trump’s tweet (that called out ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC as fake) with his allusions to laws such as Freedom of Information and the Brown Act.

But while waxing eloquently down the path of the press’ fight for open access, Newton was a dismal failure at trying to explain what the president was actually expressing.

Trump’s point was that those who should be reporting as champions of truth have overwhelmingly become the mere mouthpiece of the liberal agenda.

But this misbehavior in the media has been going on for decades. In my own personal experiences, I have seen (political) yard signs stolen by the hundreds never reported; and school-board meetings where (conservative) eloquent speakers have been shut down the second their time ran out, while other, well-intentioned folk whose speaking abilities were embarrassingly poor were allowed to ramble on for several minutes past their allotted time — also never reported. These were and are the tactics of our mainstream media’s fake world.

Conservative victories are routinely underreported while the sometimes even twisted liberal agenda is extolled.

Mr. Trump is correct in his “Enemy of the People” tag on most media. At best, it is social engineering; at worst, completely dishonest. Lest we forget Brian Williams “fake” helicopter-under-attack story?

And so, Newton’s article is yet one more display of the media getting it wrong. That’s because Mr. Trump’s tweet wasn’t about Freedom of Information, but rather misuse of that information for the purpose of forwarding its personal agenda.

Thank you, Mr. Newton, for your shining example of “bait and switch.” Great use of your quill.

Mark Dean

Pine Cove