Confusing news and opinion is troubling

After reading Monday’s letter, “Shift to the left is wrong direction,” I must admit to having gone through a wide range of responses.

My first, to the inclusion of information regarding retail marijuana sales in the area was, “Does this person not understand the difference between news and political opinions?” Then, when I got to the part about an editorial cartoon which lambasted Fox News apparently being the “last straw,” I must admit to a period of laughter.

But afterward, I started to become concerned and maybe a little frightened. Does someone really expect their local newspaper to adhere to a political litmus test as to what it will publish as “news?” Marijuana is now a legal commodity in this state. Information regarding its sale is “news,” not some political viewpoint. And further, are certain subjects now immune from editorial comment, someone’s “opinion,” because they are somehow now considered “sacred” and cannot be questioned or challenged under any circumstances?

I would love to know the letter writer’s response to the multitude of editorial cartoons which take on elected politicians. There is one, in particular, who seems to be the constant subject of these, and they are almost universally less than complimentary. Is there no complaint about disrespecting someone who has been elected by a plurality of voters to public office, but take on a private corporation no one has elected to anything, and some line has been irrevocably crossed?

Although I do not agree with everything I read in The Daily Herald, I always renew my subscription because it is vital to a community to have a source of local news. If we become dependent on some multi-national corporation’s worldview to inform us of only what they feel we should know and then also tell us how we need to feel about it, we cease to be truly informed, free-thinking citizens and are simply pawns in someone else’s game. That prospect should frightening a lot of people.

Steve Guinn

Edmonds