We all know that Editor Jim Sachetti [of Northeast Pennsylvania's The Press Enterprise] manipulates 30 Seconds [a call-in/email opinion feature] through placement, delays, snide remarks, strategic silences, and comments aimed at fueling the local fires of bigotry, encouraging personal assault on his nemeses, and encouraging those with whom he agrees to post more often.
What we didn’t know, until now, is that the same strategy governs the Op-Ed page, putting the lie to any respect Sachetti may have had for the first amendment. Fact is, he cares no more for free speech than suits the promotion and protection of the Eyerly Tabloid Empire.
Indeed, Sachetti’s cliam to be impartial with respect to who gets a hearing on the Op-Ed page is a sham.
Example: Jay Nixon recently submitted a letter to the editor where he demonstrates Sachetti’s manipulation of 30 Seconds. Each case Nixon details shows how Sachetti accomplishes this objective.
When Evy Lysk used 30 Seconds to make the unsubstantiated claim that Benton School Board members are guilty of recruiting, Sachetti not only let the remark stand without challenge, but printed several reiterations of it.
When she and other Patriot’s Voice members accuse president Obama of being a member of an Islamic terrorist sleeper cell—no comment.
Yet when Jerome Cragle offers a remark critical of the climate change deniers, Sachetti asks about his profession snidely implying that Cragle has too much time on his hands.
There are no names John Pushinaitis cannot call me that Sachetti sees as unfit to print, but when I show that Pushinaitis’ anti-choice rhetoric effectively condones the murder of reproductive healthcare providers, Sachetti bans me from 30 Seconds, demands I make my case as Op-Ed (I did), claims to convene a three-member panel to consider it, and then pretends to chivalry reinstating me at Pushiunaitis’ “request.”
When Nixon challenges Sachetti to provide evidence to the claim that Nixon is disingenuous with respect to calling Sachetti out about the manipulation of 30 Seconds, Sachetti calls Nixon “delusional.”
This sample represents a fraction of the distortion and control with which Sachetti maneuvers 30 Seconds into Eyerly Empire sales.
But here’s the real story: Sachetti REFUSES to print Nixon’s letter, importing to the Op-Ed page the same control, the same disdain for free speech, that governs 30 Seconds. Perhaps those who benefit from this will celebrate.
After all, they win.
Thing is, they don’t.
Sachetti could change his mind, and because his decision-making—however cloaked in the ideological—is really an expression of his personal feelings of affection and loathing, even his love-fest with Pushinaitis, the Patriot’s Voice, Togno, etc. could end.
Love, after all, is fickle.
Nixon offers at least two examples in his letter that make the Eyerly Empire potentially vulnerable to lawsuit, and it’s no wonder that Sachetti doesn’t want that to come to light.
A terrible bind for the poor guy: He forfeits his integrity to sell Eyerly’s tabloid but fails to calculate that some of us might figure out that the empire is the Truman Show.
The Eyerly Empire’s goal is to control public opinion.
But Sachetti has choices:
He can “man up” and print Nixon’s letter demonstrating that he’s not Eyerly’s puppet.
He can print my letter and Nixon’s demonstrating that he really does care about free speech.
He can refuse to print one or both revealing once and for all that the PE is neither a newspaper nor a venue of democratic discourse—but instead an agent for an empire that manipulates its readers into PAYING to be the autonomic vehicles of its profiteering.
What’s it going to be, Mr. Sachetti?
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
592 words
2 comments:
I find it ironic that an educated person as yourself, employed as an educator by a university, would criticize a privately owned newspaper about their gross misuse of journalism and then use words like 'Eyerly Tabloid Empire.' Also, in the world of giant corporate-run companies, it seems again ironic, that you would direct your ire at a newspaper that is privately owned in an industry where many are not. Furthermore, do those respective corporate-run newspapers even offer a section that they print for your OWN opinions? Funny thing is, that was one thing I was told everyone had — an opinion.
I highly doubt that the newspaper is at the root of evil in this town but glad to see your salary is being put to good use.
Dear anonymous,
My apologies for not seeing this sooner. This was posted some years ago.
That the newspaper is privately owned is irrelevant. The Press Enterprise promotes itself as a legitimate source of objective news accounts; it is manifestly not that.
It is, on well established evidence, a tabloid. It's editor, Jim Sachetti, has a long history of manipulating the call-in feature, 30 Seconds, both with respect to placement and timing of comments in order to achieve maximum impact. He does the same with the Op-Ed page.
Your reference to my salary is an example of a fallacy called ad hominem--the common resort of the offended who, having no good argument to make, attack some irrelevant feature of their opponent.
Thanks for writing.
Wendy Lynne Lee
*It IS ironic that you--staunch defender of having an opinion--find yourself unable or unwilling to use your name.
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