EDITORIALS: Guilt by association

Friday’s editorial used an unfair “tactic” The Press uses at times. You criticized persons who “interrupt, shout, threaten, badger and disrupt” at the City Council workshop. Fair enough but added; “…part of the same pack who vent spleen at…the Kootenai County Optional Forms of Government Commission (KCOFGC) gatherings.”

I’ve gone to KCOFGC meetings since October. I have not witnessed any of the behavior you describe. One meeting allowed audience comments. Some speakers spoke critically to commission members as if they were the County Commissioners. They said their piece and have not been back. Meetings since have been respectful and uninterrupted as these meetings should be.

Persons with comments on this final proposal can do so Thursday night. Just attend, sign up and you get 3 minutes. This is what your editorial advocates.

The “tactic” I note above is ‘character assassination by association’ where another person is mentioned as “just like….” This was used often last summer. Articles criticized someone for bad behavior and someone uninvolved was also added in the article.

For example; Coeur d’Alene Press reports were flawed when Patricia Gidding’s censure was underway. In most reports on Patricia Giddings, Janice K. McGeachin, with no part in the matter, was mentioned in a “just like” implication.

This type of “assassination by association” is naming a person or group who had no part in the matter, but is labeled to be “just like…” the initial person.

Friday’s false editorial attack used a “just like” label on attendees at Kootenai County Optional Forms of Government Commission (KCOFGC) meetings.

VERN WESTGATE

Coeur d’Alene