‘Readers of our community papers deserve better…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., slammed a Glens Falls, New York journalist for his “false and shameful attacks” after he alleged she “cheers on those who threaten” reporters.
Liberal Post-Star editor Ken Tingley used the opportunity of a routine fundraising letter Stefanik’s team had sent to write a snarky column attacking her for allegedly failing to rebuke a citizen’s threats against his newspaper.
Her donor letter urged supporters to help her “fight back” in typical political rhetoric, claiming the Democratic Party has been coming after her with “everything they’ve got” (Stefanik was one of the Republican House defenders of President Trump in the Senate impeachment trial).
Except Tingley, to serve his own agenda, sarcastically treated the fundraising letter as though it was a personal missive from Stefanik to him, instead of the form letter plea for donations that it actually was.
Tingley had previously criticized Stefanik for supporting “a local man who shouted threats against the newspaper at a public rally,” despite the fact that Stefanik contemporaneously denounced threats against the media:
I unequivocally condemned violence of any kind, specifically violence against the press, at a public community event in Hudson Falls. The @poststar editor @KenTingley was in attendance but refused to publish my answer. WATCH ? pic.twitter.com/iFEOgpk5Kv
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) February 19, 2020
Instead of accurately reporting Stefanik’s response, Tingley accused her of trying to raise money off of “violence.”
“By the end of the [fundraising] letter I wasn’t sure whether she would be buying campaign ads or bullets,” he wrote. “I thought about the ‘elite’ media in our newsroom who cover late-night fires, dutifully sit through long and often tedious town and county meetings and report the stories of unscrupulous landlords to save some of our citizens a few hundred dollars while they struggle to pay their own bills. All the while, Elise cheers on those that threaten us.”
Stefanik demanded an apology from Tingley for his deception.
THREAD: Today’s @poststar column by @kentingley ends with a dangerous allusion to gun violence and has no place on the pages of a serious community newspaper. This news editor is well aware of the impact of his words, and is completely unacceptable.
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) February 19, 2020
“We can all respectfully and passionately disagree on policies, but allusions to threats of violence — as Tingley does today — have no place in our community discussions or in print. Readers of our community papers deserve better, and Tingley should apologize for this unacceptable error in judgement,” she said in a statement.