August 20, 2016

NWNW Administrator’s note: The following email was sent by Dr. Bill Warner to Lynden Tribune Editor Calvin Bratt in response to Mr. Bratt’s August 15, 2016 email allegations, (The text of Mr. Bratt’s email is included in Bill Warner’s refutation email).  Mr. Bratt’s charges included this one: “What is truly shameful is this continual attack against me, Mike Lewis and the reputation of the Lynden Tribune. I am astonished that you keep this up.”  In addition to the emails included in this post, you can read Noisy Waters Northwest’s August 15, 2016 post of Dr. Warner’s email thread presenting  his continued research on what he has found to be Lynden Tribune’s Tea Party oriented editorial proclivities.

Subject

A refutaton of your message re Important Research results on the Lyden Tribune

From
•    ‪Dr. Bill Warner ‬
•    Aug 15 at 12:18 PM
To
•    ‘Calvin Bratt’

CC
•    advertising@lyndentribune.com
•    mdlewis@lyndentribune.com
•    mitze@lyndentribune.com
•    tricia@lyndentribune.com

Message body
Calvin:
As long as you choose to continue to manipulate the content of the “Community Forum” to favor Conservatives/Republicans, I will need to serve as the counter-weight representative on behalf of the disenfranchised Liberals/Democrats/Progressives in North Whatcom County. And, as a scientific researcher, I will continue to widely share this research with leaders and citizens of North Whatcom County.  The email messages I submitted to Mr. Lewis and you are accurate representations of the clear bias of the Lynden Tribune in favor of promoting Republicans/Conservatives much to the consternation of a large number of current Lynden Tribune subscribers.

Your email message statement that follows is definitely “false”—a Trumpism.  Calvin wrote below: “We printed letters with a Democratic leaning on July 6 (two of them), July 20 and 27.” (sic)

None of these letters you cite from July 6, 20, and 27 favor Democrat candidates and so you again are mispresenting the Tea Party “Community (sic) Forum.”  Among the filtered LTEs you choose to publish, the LTEs are mostly Republicans who are non-subscribers from Bellingham.  In this current election campaign, why don’t you ever publish an LTE favoring a Democrat?

See bold face bullet points below for a true perspective that refutes your misrepresentations.

Consider the July 27, 2016 edition Guest Opinion and Letter to the Editor:  [No Democrat leaning LTEs in this edition]
1.     “Sheriff speaks to jail population” (this press release voices opinions of Republican Sheriff and Republican County Administrator while in tension with Democratic Mayor and Council Members representing Bellingham’s interests)
2.    “Let’s keep….” (very negative towards Bill and Hillary Clinton) – Diane Lowry, Bellingham (her LTE published in June and another LTE in July 2016)
·        “If Hillary Clinton wins the trip to the White House, her scandals won’t all fit in a carry-on,” quoted from Diane Lowry’s LTE on June 14.   Clearly, Diane Lowry is a Republican masquerading in her LTEs as a unhappy Democrat/Progressive.
·        July 27 LTE “Let’s keep….”  Diane Lowry misrepresents herself as a Sanders’ supporter when in fact she is really out to attach Hillary Clinton both in her LTE in June 15 and this LTE in this July 27.  As you surely must already know.
·        For example on July 27: “But Hillary is not going to cheat her way into the Oval Office or promise favors for cash from big banks and big corporations as long as the Sanders revolution is alive and well.”
3.    “DNC stole nomination” (vote for Trump) – G H, Bellingham
·         Comments about the DNC include: “stole the nomination, slandered Sanders, sleazy, totally appalling, disgusting…”
·         “I will vote for Trump.”  This conclusion is not surprising because G H of Bellingham is no doubt an active Republican (like Lowry) posing as a “hurt’ Sanders supporter—hypocrites).

Consider the July 20, 2016 edition Free Marketing and Letter to the Editor:  [No Democrat leaning LTEs in this edition]
1.     “Vincent Buys running again” (free advertisement for Republican)
2.    “Vote for new faces to get different results” (rants against four [4] elected Democrats; very much anti-Democrat elected officials) – S G, Lynden
3.  We hurt with others in their pain – A Werkema  (harmoniously written as a non-partisan Christian and not as a Democrat; no support of any political candidate)
·         How can you count any of these three letters as promoting the Democrats is beyond me.
·         Alyce is feeling pain for the shooting victims and pleading for “love toward the varied people in Lynden.  I am seeking strength to love all the people I meet wherever we go.  Today.”  Perhaps you are counting this LTE by Alyce as being “Democrat” because she is pleading for Christian values.

Consider the July 6, 2016 edition Guest Opinion and Letter to the Editor:  [No Democrat leaning LTEs in this edition]
1.    “Elections” (i.e., “endorsement”) free marketing of Libertarian candidate – Blaine
2.    “State has important races on Aug. 2” (promoting Independent conservative Karlberg) – N M, Bellingham
·         Doug Karlberg is a neighbor of mine and definitely a very strong conservative who almost always votes Republican.  This letter supports an opponent of the endorsed Democratic nominee.   As an active Democrat, I know for a fact that Doug is anything but “leaning Democrat.”
3.  “We must all learn tolerance” by L McMillen of Lynden
·         This was non-political and did NOT promote any Democrat candidates.  McMillan as attacked by Trump supporters for a simple bumper sticker reading “Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.”
·         Your Commentary (sic) Forum with letters such as from Gary Hardaway do NOT encourage tolerance and reason toward “progressives.”
Calvin, given the above corrections of your false statement, please acknowledge your apology for this misrepresentation or otherwise document your (clearly false) assertion that:  
“We printed letters with a Democratic leaning on July 6 (two of them), July 20 and 27.” (sic)

Bill Warner, B.S., M.A., M.Div., Ph.D.

[Below, Bill Warner inserted his refutations of Mr. Bratt’s charges in bolded blue print- NWNW]

From: Calvin Bratt [mailto:editor@lyndentribune.com]
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2016 10:30 AM
To: bill@prism-media.com
Subject: Re: Important Research results on the Lyden Tribune
Importance: High

Bill,

What is truly shameful is this continual attack against me, Mike Lewis and the reputation of the Lynden Tribune. I am astonished that you keep this up.

You continue to tarnish the reputation of the Lynden Tribune with your one-sided editorial page of biased LTEs and unpaid political advertising for Republicans.

On a puny scale, the Lynden Tribune is to newspapers what Fox “News” (sic) is to cable news.  This is unfair to most of your Tribune readers.

We will publish letters that we can verbally confirm by a phone contact with the letter writer, that are pertinent to the news and that are from local persons.  We print according to the letters sent to us. If that ratio turns out to be 2 to 1 by someone’s estimation of things, then that is the way the public opinion came in. I am not trying to force a certain ratio.

How can you think anyone who reads the LT Community Forum would ever believe that cover story of yours is beyond me!

We printed letters with a Democratic leaning on July 6 (two of them), July 20 and 27.  (sic)  That statement is totally false just like statements from your idol Trump!

We do rely to some extent on what communication is sent out from those who are in public office or running for public office. This applies to the Democrats who represent us in federal positions currently (Rep. Del Bene, Sens. Cantwell and Murray) as well. We covered a recent Del Bene visit to Lynden both before and after. We receive press releases with useful information from many governmental agencies and departments (state Health on childhood immunizations, state Ecology on many matters, county Emergency Management on an earthquake or oil-spill drill, etc.) Sometimes on these leads we do our own additional reporting.

Your emphasis in publishing articles,  truth be told,  is you actively publish any and all press releases from Republican office holders.  These Republican press releases with their political messages are published as if you were personally writing “news stories” (sic) rather than with attribution correctly reflecting the press release source.

I would ask again that this personal attacking against us please stop.

You are abusing freedom of the press by your shameful inclusive promotion of conservative, Tea Party, and Republican candidates.  I am sharing this research on the Lynden Tribune’s Community Forum with leaders and citizens throughout the wider Lynden community.  In doing so, I continue to receive considerable email feedback that concurs with the conclusions from this research.

By the way, I have a journalism degree from Western Washington University and I actually taught Reporting there the spring quarter of 2012.

Peg and I retired from our careers at WWU.  How can you graduate with a “journalism” degree when WWU does not have a journalism department to offer a journalism degree?

Cal

Calvin Bratt
Editor, Lynden Tribune
P.O. Box 153, Lynden, WA 98264
360-354-4444 ext. 22