Dear editor,
On April 26, I delivered this email to Mr. Baker, Ledger Independent Publisher, asking that you reprint
his apology for the reasons stated in the letter.
Mr. Rod Baker
April 26, 2022
Dear Mr. Baker
I have read your apology for printing an anti-solar biased article in the Ledger Independent on Wednesday, April 20, 2022. I have a lot of problems with the article that was published. It was filled with falsehoods and innuendoes, it showed that Ms. Hopkins had not researched her subject, she did not talk to any who favored solar and that she has an extreme dislike for solar development in Mason County.
I also have an objection to your apology. First off, you allow this biased article to be printed on the front page then two days later, after you received numerous complaints about the article, you decide to call it biased but instead of apologizing on the front page you assign your apology to the Opinion page and then veil it with the headline “Nobody’s friend”. A lot less people read your apology because you buried it instead of placing it on the front and headlining it “Solar Apology” as it should have been. You said that you believed that it was biased instead of you knew that it was biased. You failed to mention that the articles that Ms. Hopkins wrote on March 25, 2022 and April 1, 2022 were also biased. You and Ms. Kearns have been asleep at the wheel and apparently not reading your own paper if you let this kind of information be published when you say you are taking no stance on the issue.
In closing, you say that you are amazed that people say, “no one reads the paper anymore”. I know that they say this because it’s true. The Ledger Independent has become an “olds paper” instead of a newspaper. In the month of April, there have only been three time sensitive articles. No news article that says, this happened yesterday, and this action was taken. The rest have all been articles that were human interest that can be pulled off the shelf any day for filler. The rest of the paper is from the liberal Associated Press. The case in point, there have been over 23 letters to the editor about solar but only very sparse coverage in news. When the there was a public meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission, you printed the ground rules for the meeting, but you had zero coverage of two nights of sworn testimony. Ms. Kearns can’t be the editor and the reporter also. You need some reporters who will gather news. Evan Dennison does a good job.
I hope that you will do the right thing and reprint your apology on the front page and designate it “Solar Apology”, so your readers know that you when you say “I’m taking ownership” you really are.
Sincerely,
Dave Clarke
As of Friday morning, I have not seen the reprint or had any response from him. I guess what I should draw from his inaction is that he is taking a trick from the major newspapers and putting the correction on the bottom left-hand side of page 17. It was a little better than that but if you are going to make an apology put it where everyone can see it, not veiled by a strange headline on the opinion page. I hope it wasn’t an opinion. If I had to gamble, I would say that trick kept at least half of the readers from reading it and that means half of your readers still don’t know that you know the article was biased. So much for “taking ownership”.
Dave Clarke
May’s Lick
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