LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Media still fraught with peril

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To the editor:

(re: “Issue after issue, ensuring Press remains ‘compelling,’” Jan. 14)

Congratulations to reaching your 200-issue milestone at The Riverdale Press. It can’t have been easy. Being the editor of a community newspaper is an awesome responsibility. I know. I have sat in your chair.

Your Jan. 14 Point of View posited that “community journalism is probably far safer than higher levels.” I’m sorry to contradict you. Although some may scoff at the notion, it is fraught with peril.

Many of today’s readers may not have been around in 1989 when my brother Buddy (who was then the editor) and I discovered the extent of that peril as terrorists torched our office in response to incitement from their “great leader,” Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. The flames were so intense that the computers in the newsroom were grotesquely melted, and firefighters had to smash every window and punch holes in the roof to extinguish the flames.

You can imagine the effect on me of the recent televised images of terrorists with “murder the media” and “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirts invading the Capitol.

I was sickened, but not surprised. After The Press was bombed, Buddy and I were invited to share our story with newspaper associations around the country.

That’s when I was surprised.

We were buttonholed by fellow publishers who shared their own violent stories — a car bombing in an urban setting. A burning hay wagon backed into an office front in a rural town. Assassination attempts — and more. We discovered that violence against community journalists in America has been almost routine.

And you didn’t have to look as far as Washington to find political corruption on a grand scale. In our time, we saw multiple local state lawmakers, a congressman, a borough president, a Bronx Democratic Party leader, and state senate majority leaders from both parties carted off to jail. We even saw a governor resign in disgrace.

But yes, Donald Trump has lived up to his name and trumped them all with his traitorous mob incitement — another “great leader” calling on his minions to show their loyalty with violence. His impeachment is well deserved.

So, stay vigilant and tell the truth as you see it. Even when, as you say, “if government officials love us, then it’s pretty clear we’re doing something wrong.”

Michael, thank you — and your staff — for putting your “heart and soul” into every issue. Mazel tov on meeting your first 200 deadlines. Buddy and I met more than 1,500 of them, so you have a little catching up to do.

But I hope that the endeavor continues to be as much of an adventure for you as it was for us.

Richard Stein

The author is a publisher emeritus and a former editor and co-publisher of The Riverdale Press.

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Richard Stein,

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