Foreign interference in sovereign elections
With all this ongoing madness with Russian interference with our election process, I find it relevant that our own media either in print or broadcast interferes in all our elections on a regular basis. I can cite many examples but I will use one glaring type, the newspaper endorsements of specific candidates or referendums.
I believe in general most Americans are reasonably aware of socio-economic and political facts and myths. As from my own life experience I also know there are a great number of Americans who are so naive they believe most anything they see or hear in the news. I would assume most people would fact check any newspaper endorsement before deciding whether to accept it or not.
As I see it then, when a group of voters accept a newspaper's endorsement at face value they are not thinking on their own and are clearly being stimulated by an external force on how to vote, I call this ' interference " just as it is alleged and proven the Russians did via Facebook accounts, different method but with the same desired outcome.
I've been around for a long time, seen the media transform from reasonably giving me the facts, and let me reach my own conclusions about it, to now giving me information and telling me what conclusions I must reach about it, this I categorically refuse to do and will not do.
I believe newspapers should not be in the business of telling people who to vote for or not to vote for. Just give me the facts, I will make up my mind who to vote for.
Alex Fomin
Bloomingdale