Printing lies
Apart from outing victims of sexual assault (a la Rep. Priscilla Giddings), perhaps the gravest betrayal of journalistic ethics is to knowingly publish lies without bothering to acknowledge them as such.
Evidently the right-wing pressure campaign on Lewiston Tribune ... has worked well enough that we are now seeing a daily barrage of lie-based opinion in the paper, enough so that the once formidable Sunday Opinion section has become all but worthless, save the delightfully full spectrum of letters, of course, which are for obvious reasons exempt from any standard of truth whatsoever.
This recent rightward turn becomes problematic with the long-form columns featuring Richard Eggleston, Bob Hassoldt and Marvin Dugger, which purport to be presenting factual information that is both disingenuous and false but serves to prove various right-wing conspiracy theories about climate change, COVID-19, salmon extinction and other life-and-death public policy issues.
A.F. Branco’s “Flag and Cross” cartoon showing Columbus and Galileo as victims of fact-checkers conveniently avoids the historical fact that Galileo and Copernicus were persecuted by conservative religious authorities (the right-wingers of their day), not liberals insisting that facts still matter. Branco conveniently omits mention of Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection ... or Black American journalist Ida B. Wells’ investigation and documentation of Jim Crow and lynching.
Both experienced hostile push-back for telling the truth, mainly from the “Flag and Cross” crowd, not from liberals or progressives who Branco continually tries to demonize and mischaracterize as enemies of truth, freedom and the Constitution.
Chris Norden
Moscow
Tyranny of small numbers
Wayne Beebe (June 1) is correct that this is no time to be complacent about the risk for COVID-19. ...
However, it is misleading to compare cases per 100,000 for small towns because of the sample size. Cases per 100,000 are calculated by dividing the case number by the population size of the town multiplied by 100,000.
A town with a population of 100 and one case will have 1,000 cases per 100,000 whereas one case in a 1,000 population will have 100 cases per 100,000.
Pullman, with more than 10 times the population of Colfax, would have fewer cases per 100,000.
Most small towns in Whitman County report 1 or no cases. This means that they either report zero cases per 100,000 or more than 100 cases/100,000.
I expect small towns in Latah County to be similar. One case in Bovill would come out to more than 300 per 100,000.
The New York Times risk assessment uses case count and test positivity. Test positivity is important because a high test positivity rate suggests undercounting of actual cases.
Latah County’s test positivity has fallen from a high of more than 20 percent but is still more than 10 percent whereas Whitman County’s test positivity has fallen to 3 percent from the previous high of 6 percent, which happened after spring break.
Although one cannot attribute increase cases or test positivity to a specific event or group, it is suspicious that test positivity increase coincided with students returning from spring break.
Charlotte Omoto
Palouse
Praises Johnson
Thank you, Lewiston Tribune, for the enlightening opinion of Marc C. Johnson on the June 4 Opinion page.
It was all about “Erasing history,” and he brought it home by naming some local names of some with chalk on their hands from their efforts. He could have included the prominent op-ed writer, Dennis Prager, probably the sloppiest and most flagrant violator of history that the Tribune tolerates.
Johnson’s best one-two punch? Next to last paragraph in the fourth column: “Without confronting the past, we cannot confront the present. It is just that simple.”
My late grandmother used to say, “Take this medicine. It’s bitter, but you will be better in the morning.”
Steven R. Evans
Lapwai
