Tag: Times Leader

So no doubt it caused great merriment online — by which I mean 79 rip-roaring comments and growing, as of my last count Monday night — after U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta wrote us a letter over the weekend in which he said this newspaper is “fair and accurate.” That was his response to an editorial in which we asked if Barletta agreed with Trump that journalists are the enemy of the people, and whether that would include local media like us. Barletta said he felt the Times Leader and other local media to be fair, but “unfortunately, the national media does not cover President Trump with the same objective lens.” That’s a fair argument, not just because it painted us in a positive light, but because any viewer with a pulse can easily see how polarized cable news coverage has become — though it’s also obvious that some media outlets happily overlook the president’s frequent aversion to facts he dislikes. As the click-baiters say, though, you won’t believe what happens next. “Well this is the first time I disagree with something Barletta said,” American Johnny wrote. They are bias and they are trying to push the same liberal agenda as all the other news outlets,” American Johnny continued in English that makes me wonder if he isn’t really Lyudmila from St. Petersburg. Funny, that, given what a commenter called John Wills had to say farther down the thread. Wonder why.” So we’re trying to push a liberal agenda at the same time as we’re apparently fawning over Republican Barletta, at least according to those two commenters. We often quip in this business that if both sides criticize your coverage on an issue, you’re probably doing something right. But don’t cry for us. Cry for a country in which Americans have turned on strangers, friends and even family with a viciousness that portends worse to come.

Many in the audience made it clear they want Trump to run for re-election in 2020. Sure, Trump wants Barletta to win. He told the audience to go out and vote Republican. Casey, the president said, invoking more fears, wants to eliminate U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) and doesn’t mind the MS-13 gang “slicers” coming into America. “We need Lou Barletta. He’s tough,” Trump said, adding: “I hear Bob Casey is afraid to debate Lou Barletta. I want to watch that debate.” Donald Trump spent more time Thursday night talking about Bob Casey than about Lou Barletta. Donald Trump may well have spent more time talking about tea with the Queen of England Thursday night than he did about Lou Barletta. There was nothing Trump was going to tell this audience about Barletta that they don’t already know. It is, perhaps, worth asking whether Trump might have wanted to say a bit more about Barletta to those TV audiences elsewhere in Pennsylvania who don’t know Lou as well, but what he needed most to do was convince anyone on the fence that Casey is liberal and scary.

Villecco, 29, wants to interview Luzerne County residents about politics and voting for an ethnographic study. Perhaps not surprisingly, his work will be carried out in the context of the 2016 presidential election — but not only that election. “Essentially I want to ask people why they vote the way they do, what informs about how they think about politics generally,” Villecco said during a visit to the Times Leader last week. “I am interested in the deeper cultural, historical, philosophical reasons” why and how people participate in the political process, he added. “Following the election I was reading almost daily, and Luzerne County started popping up repeatedly, as a harbinger county in Pennsylvania,” Villecco said. “It fits the post-industrial story, and also has the immigrant population,” Villecco added. “When people say ‘I am not political, I don’t know very much about politics,’ I definitely want to speak with them as well,” Villecco said. So far, he has interviewed about 18 people. He had in-depth interviews with about a handful. “It’s going to be about the people who decided to vote, and not people as voters — 2016 drew me here, but that’s not the focus.” To participate, call Villecco at 303-241-1390 or email him at jv6775a@student.american.edu.