Parker Robinson, Sartell
I’m not sure who will read this or if it will even get passed on, but I need to send this for my own satisfaction.
I’ve been a resident of Sartell for 15 years and love the community. It’s a wonderful place to live and now that I’m a father, my child will be able to take advantage of the best school district in central Minnesota. There is no town in this area my wife and I would consider raising our family in other than Sartell.
My wife and I both work full time and consider ourselves contributing members to the community. We both exercise our right to vote on the local and national level. I would like to comment on the views of a couple members of your staff without naming them. Just as freedom of speech allows us to voice our opinion on topics, it also can portray people in a negative light, sometimes unfairly.
It’s my opinion articles written in the Newsleader about our president are over the top and one-sided. Just as I don’t feel politics should play a part in our children’s education, I also don’t feel it has a place in a community newspaper that’s put in the mailboxes of every resident. If there was a political section where both sides of a topic were shared, then I wouldn’t be bothered. It seems as if the views of the newspaper are one sided and that’s the message our community is receiving.
Without expressing my opinions on President Trump and his policies/accomplishments in his short term, I think it’s obvious the people were looking for change when they elected him. I think politicians in general are standing with their hands out and often wasting taxpayers’ money. I would challenge the Newsleader to post the presidential votes from the Sartell-St. Stephen community. I think a couple of your columnists would find the community they are sharing their views with to actually oppose the majority of what they are writing.
Every week when I get to the page where the column is, I tell my wife that I’m going to write into your news outlet. I have asked many friends in the community if they think some of these one-sided articles are worthy of going to print and they are not impressed either. I’m not expecting anything back, but I have self satisfaction in sending this to you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
(Editor’s note: This newspaper did, in fact, publish detailed summaries of presidential votes right after the presidential election, and a front-page story did state that Donald Trump had “triumphed,” that he’d won the election by a wide margin in Sartell and in St. Stephen. Just because a majority in a city votes for one candidate over another does not mean a newspaper’s editorial opinions must slavishly reflect that majority opinion. For 30 years, this newspaper has published opinions from a variety of viewpoints — left, middle, right — including letters to editor harshly critical of the opinions on its Opinion Page. Furthermore, many, many positive editorials, columns and letters on the Opinion Page week after week have nothing to do with politics. Very often, the editorials and columns are highly laudatory about Sartell, St. Stephen and the area. We welcome and would gladly publish pro-Trump letters and guest columns, but we have received none in the past 18 months. Why are so many passionate Trump enthusiasts afraid to express their opinions publicly? Please do. We will publish them.)