Wow! The Leader’s editorial clarifying its letter submission policy, once again explicitly “open to the ideas of others,” was very well considered and articulated.

During the lockdown repression initiated in 2020, a number of commentators noticed and protested a strange change in local media, which increasingly slow-walked and rejected dissenting opinions in their letter columns. See the Port Townsend Free Press article “Of Covid Testing, ‘Misinformation’ and Censorship” for the full story.

I got the strong impression at one point that this censorship was in part, a response to outside pressure, either economic or from above. If this pressure came from government actors (as documented to have occurred nationally by Glenn Greenwald, the “Twitter Files,” etc.), then that indeed “abused its First Amendment right to protect those views” as the Leader’s editorial aptly states.

Thanks again for restoring “Glasnost” (openness) to the Leader’s letter pages instead of functioning like “Pravda” (a ministry of truth).