Editor,

I found the recent commentary in the Saturday, July 22 publisher’s column pertinent and faulty.

The article’s introduction: “The motive behind the whole ‘fake news’ narrative is clear, and the intentions, at best, nefarious.” I find indeed that the narrative is clear, though I do not consider “intentions” to be evil or wicked.

The article goes on with the position that: “Truth is, facts are facts, and ‘alternative facts’ are not.”

I’m familiar with the “principle, or the law, of non-contradiction.” However, this is not what is being challenged when the “alternative fact” is posited. Will MSNBC air White House and Republican Congress achievements? Will the New York Times do the same? How terribly infrequent, if at all, do I recall Fox News hailing former President Barack Obama’s accomplishments. I am one in search of the “alternative fact.”

I listen to ABC, CBS and NBC, though much more frequently to CNN and Fox. The reason is simple, honorable: both sides of the story.

When President Obama “opened” Cuba, Fox News jumped all over the president for recognizing a country practicing human rights violations. The “alternative fact” would have been to point out to its audience that the U.S. recognizes and trades with 20 countries listed on the CIA’s website as the world’s worst human rights violators.

If commentators, journalists and editors wish to continue to comport their profession in an indistinguishable manner from that of 535 D.C. Washingtonians, then “if the shoe fits …”

It is via the media that we are informed of who we are as a country, where we might be headed as a country, who we are to ourselves and to the world.

Regrettably, there is little contradictory evidence, if any, that the media, like Washington, is a slave to its ideology and to hell with the whole truth. Contrary to your — voiced — opinion, there are those of us who love the “alternative fact” — the other side of the same coin.

DON MACCRACKEN

Oak Harbor