Montana newspapers should stick to objective journalism

Editor:

In cobbling together a flashy story designed to showcase his byline and aid dangerously slumping media bottom lines, Associated Press writer Nicholas Geranios makes the sophomoric mistake of confusing correlation with causation, cites non-credible gadfly sources as "experts," implies the political left is the political right, uses only quotes that support the story spin, and generally violates whatever objectivism may have been taught to him in journalism school.

In order to ramp up the octane of this tabloid-like "news story" about alleged "extremism" in northwestern Montana, Geranios includes all possible pejorative buzzwords, including "violent," "terrorist," "anti-government," "militia," "radical," "white supremacist," "hate groups," "right wing," "Christian" and others.

He even invokes the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, in his broad brush attempt to associate some perfectly reasonable people with alleged terrorism, especially people with right-of-center political views, meanwhile ignoring that Kaczynski was a committed leftist, as are most of the groups on the FBI's terrorism watch list.

Hey Montana newspapers, times are tough for all of us, but most of us don't abandon our standards just to make a buck. That Montana media would use or give such play to this Geranios propaganda piece surely explains why the public is losing confidence in and trust of the conventional media. Such stooping will only further damage your eroding bottom line. Editors should have the gumption and personal standards to reject trash writing such as the alleged Geranios AP "news story."

Gary Marbut, president

Montana Shooting Sports Association

Missoula

http://www.mtssa.org