Paper should take more care with 'facts' in letters

A newspaper's letters page is a lively bridge between the paper and its readers. Reader ideas are important - but then so too is a paper's responsibility to discern between a letter writer's opinion (free range as long as the opinion is not hateful, libelous, etc.) and plain misstatement of facts.

A May 10 letter from a reader in Streamwood pulls out the tired and invariably overstated he's-just-like-Hitler comparison, referencing, in this case, Donald Trump. Although only Mao and Stalin, among figures from recent history, committed crimes as awful as Hitler's, the Trump-Hitler comparison is nevertheless the letter writer's opinion, so the writer gets a (grudging) pass. (For what it's worth, I'm no fan of Trump either.)

However, facts are not points of debate, and newspapers needn't feel obligated to provide forums to amateur historians unable to express facts accurately. Contrary to the letter-writer's assertion, the German people never "elected Adolf Hitler into power." Rather, in January 1933 President Hindenburg and other Weimar officials appointed Hitler chancellor of a new coalition government, in the mistaken belief that Hitler and his followers could be marginalized. A plurality of voter support for Hitler's NSDAP in the German Reichstag helped encourage the move, but voters did not directly elect Hitler to leadership of Germany. Hindenburg and other politicians took that option out of voters' hands.

The letter writer dates Hitler's assumption of power to 1936, which is incorrect. Further, World War II did not begin "two years later" (in 1938), but in 1939.

Why is this important? We expect the Internet to bubble with misstatement of fact, but newspapers are held to higher standards. When a paper allows plainly inaccurate information into print, that information acquires an undeserved credibility. No one is well served.

David J. Hogan

Arlington Heights