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Dan McDonald’s claim of people editing the YouTube audio of his racist comments about the Kalispel people is in the current vernacular, “fake news.” He doesn’t own up to his words and continues to obfuscate the issue because he is running for reelection. He lacks integrity and honesty in doing so.

I’m an independent professional audio producer with 30 years of editing experience for producing national feature stories and documentaries for National Public Radio, Living on Earth, Soundprint, National Native News, and other national and regional public radio programs. I have spent my career and thousands of hours writing, editing and piecing a multitude of stories together so that each one is a seamless, listenable whole combining many voices, narration, ambience and music. I’m doing similar work right now on contract with an audio archive preservation project for an Idaho nonprofit educational media group.

I can say unequivocally that the audio of the YouTube video has not been edited. And ironically it’s not because of the many layered voices, which make it complicated enough, but it’s the ambient sounds — the background noises that editors like me hear almost louder than the voices themselves that make this particular recording virtually impossible to edit. If it was edited, it would be very, very obvious, especially to sound professionals like myself. It is unedited. Listen with headphones at a slower speed, observing the sound waves using editing software on your computer screen, and you will agree with me.

JANE FRITZ

Sandpoint