(Letter to the Editor - Graphic Illustration/MetroCreativeConnection)

I read the letter published in the newspaper on March 12 and noted the author’s assertion “I would challenge … and our Democratic friends to turn off the mainstream (fake) news media and watch Fox News … and broaden their knowledge.” I would like to accept this challenge.

If the author would listen to real and legitimate news media, he would know that Fox News has been sued by a company — Dominion Election Systems or some such name — for $1.6 billion for statements made by Fox relative to the 2020 election and the operation of the election machines sold by that company. He would know that discovery depositions have been taken under oath and filed in the suit, of Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and the other main host whose name has escaped me.

I am quite sure that there have been reports that officials of Fox have stated that Fox is not a real new agency, but rather engage in “entertainment.” I am sure that the reports are, and that I had read excerpts of the discovery depositions of the above-mentioned four Fox persons where they have all said that they knew that former President Trump’s statements about the 2020 election were all lies, but they broadcast them solely to keep their viewers.

Between 1948 and 1952, I attended WVU, majoring in political science. I took a course entitled “Public Opinion and Propaganda.” I have the textbooks now. We studied the tricks that propagandists use to create public opinion. I found that course to be very informative and interesting and remember many of those tricks even as of this day. As I observed Mr. Trump campaign in 2016 and 2020, I saw him use many of the tricks, if not all of them, that I learned about way back then.

One of the tricks is to state a false statement and to keep repeating it over and over and eventually people will believe it. That was done with respect to “stealing the election.” He was the one trying to steal the election, not the Democrats. No one has ever found any real evidence of any fraud or anything else relative to the 2020 election that is of a substantive matter that would affect the outcome. I think the Trump organization filed 50 or 60 lawsuits over the election, some before judges nominated by President Trump, and I think they lost all of them but one.

Another trick that we studied was to accuse your opposition of doing something that you are doing. He was creating “fake news,” but he accused the “mainstream media” of doing that. He also accused the Democrats of trying or actually “stealing” the election while that was actually what he was attempting to do, which resulted in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

I submit that the author of the previous letter get some real legitimate news from agencies that attempt to broadcast actual news and not just broadcast what they think their viewers want to hear and be entertained.

Robert Friend

Vienna