Finney’s excellent reporting exemplifies importance for free press

Thank you for running the full article on the proposed property tax freeze being debated in the Legislature. Not only did I learn about this property tax measure in-depth, but I also learned about the excellent education students can get in Idaho. The contributing writer, Logan Finney, is a University of Idaho journalism student who graduated from Sandpoint High and cut his teeth on reporting at our own Cedar Post.

Finney’s excellent reporting, clean copy and clear writing are a great example of good journalism training. Next time you hear the term “fake news,” make sure it’s being applied to deliberately misleading stories that are designed to confuse and sow doubt and fear, usually found and shared on Facebook or elsewhere on the Internet (the most egregious example being InfoWars). Most mainstream news reports are like Finney’s story, factual, fair and designed to inform.

Next time you hear the phrase “enemy of the people,” think of our Sandpoint High graduate who is fighting an uphill battle to inform people in a society that is becoming increasingly tribal and distrusts even the mainstream news outlets. The true enemy of the people are the Russian bots and other cyber warriors who are deliberately trying to undermine our democracy by creating absolute cynicism and distrust of our free and independent press.

SUSAN DRUMHELLER

Sagle