John Babb: Words, honesty matter

Regarding the March 10 news article “Senate leader Berger changes news headlines on Facebook posts – violating the site’s policy”: The recent article on Senate leader Phil Berger’s misuse of Facebook is sad and alarming. To what depths would anyone choose to mislead through a deliberate act of changing words to change the message?

State politics is moving to new lows. I believe this may be an “uh-oh” moment for the leader in his ongoing efforts to bash the governor. However, maybe not based on the reported response from his chief of staff to The N&O: “Please let us know if you’d be willing to work together with us to provide your readers and our readers with the accurate and honest headlines they deserve.” Really? Words matter. Honesty matters.

Sure, political parties can express different ideology, but using fake news techniques to undermine an opponent is totally dishonest and unfitting of anyone, particularly a person in a leadership role. And then to solicit assistance to collaborate with the journalists to provide readers with the accurate and honest headlines is an insult. The headlines were accurate and honest as published. Why not simply use the headline as written vs. rewriting to suit his agenda?

This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 9:06 PM with the headline "John Babb: Words, honesty matter."