I am greatly pleased your newspaper at least temporarily has decided to close Internet comments. I consider anonymous Internet comments an unfair ability of moneyed interests to unduly influence elections, such as Community Transit’s Proposition 1, outside of campaign finance laws.
When I had to wage air superiority to help pass Community Transit’s Prop. 1 against anonymous Internet commentators such as “civicinterests,” “SmallGov!,” “Rinnwald” and the like; I had no idea if they were grass-roots like I, or astroturf funded by moneyed special interests, or even Russian government trolls. As Sheryl Attkisson, a conservative journalist, wrote on her blog, “Astroturfers and propagandists tend to attack and controversialize the news organizations, personalities and people surrounding an issue rather than sticking to the facts. They try to censor and silence topics and speakers rather than engage them.” Perfect descriptor for those transit expansion opponents hiding behind screen names to me, but I’m biased.
Ultimately, unless the Everett Herald is OK with moneyed interests running dirty stealth campaigns on its website; I hope you can keep the Internet comments off. Alternatively, like the Mukilteo Beacon, you can charge $10 annually to online subscribe and comment with zero anonymity.
Joe Kunzler
Sedro-Woolley
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