R. A. Pacini
Charlestown
To the Editor,
It is quite obvious that the Eagle Times is anti-Trump on many levels. This is apparent by the numerous anti-Trump editorials and political cartoons you print almost on a daily basis.
Today’s issue dated June 22 has the entire Opinion page A5 devoted to Trump bashing. Two editorials and a cartoon occupy the entire page.
Perhaps all your readers are not anti-Trump and they might enjoy something more on the positive side. I have debated for several weeks whether or not to bring this up but today’s Opinion page closed the deal. It is time to speak out. Regardless of your political bent, you owe it to your readers to show more than one side.
R. A. Pacini
Charlestown
Editor’s response
Mr. Pacini,
Thank you for your letter.
We subscribe to a service that makes available a regular roster of nationally syndicated columnists. Since taking over as editor at the end of May I have begun running them on a weekly schedule (as they are available). They were not run in a regular order before that.
The Friday June 22 paper featured Cokie and Steve Roberts and Gene Lyons, as it will every Friday. They are certainly anti-Trump. On the other hand, Kathryn Lopez and Byron York are both staunch Trump supporters. David Shribman and Donald Lambro are generally speaking conservatives, but have been impatient with the Trump administration. Georgie Anne Geyer is also rather conservative, but as a long-time inside-the-Beltway journalist, she is not always happy with Trump administration policies, which are of course determined to disrupt business as usual in Washington.
When it comes to choosing which AP stories to include in the paper, I have consciously kept to a minimum stories about the Trump administration because AP seems so obsessed with covering the President’s actions as a series of follies, and because the television, radio, and internet news already gives everyone plenty of “Trump just did this” news.
As for the editorial cartoons, I too am surprised by the unending stream of anti-Trump cartoons from our service. I have six cartoonists to choose from, and as with the AP, I try to avoid the Trump subject when possible (as there are simply no cartoons available that support Trump or even make fun of his opponents).
I have inherited all this content and try to curate it as evenly as I can. The long-term plan at the Eagle Times is to reduce the national content considerably and focus more of the paper on local and regional matters.
Regards,
Bill Chaisson
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.