And even that small but accurate comment in a little newsletter elicits earns questioning from media.
Via GF Tribune:
Secretary of State Corey Stapleton sent out his monthly newsletter Wednesday to about 130,000 people and businesses critical of the present-day media and warning people to be wary of “what gets your attention.”
“There is one huge problem with mainstream media in America. It has diminished profitability, and as a result has increasingly begun chasing the tabloid headlines and venomous tweets of personal destruction, in an effort to survive financially,” Stapleton wrote in his nearly 340-word piece that went not only to subscribers but businesses registered with his office.
“Instead of focusing on the policies and impact of leadership decisions across the political spectrum, mainstream media has become obsessed with the sideshows of personality and politically incorrect language of today. Media has become language cops instead of investigative reporters,” said Stapleton, who took office in January 2017.
But the tone did bring some objection as one reader, who did not subscribe but got it through a business registered with the state, emailed the Tribune that he had problems with the post.
“Does it seem proper to you that a public official sends out a generalized notice of this nature?” he wrote. “I could understand a public notification if the press had done something that interferes with one of the functions of the Secretary of State’s office, but this notice has nothing to do with anything of that nature.”
Stapleton disagreed.
“To promote democracy, to talk about how we frame ideas? If not the elected leaders who will talk about it?” he told the Tribune. “Who is going to say ideas matters, that integrity matters. We all have responsibility to take stands on things that matter.”
Stapleton, a Great Falls High School graduate, said Wednesday there was no particular issue that prompted him to write his latest newsletter piece, but he added it has gotten a lot of notice.
“It was just a general observation,” he said, adding it was from issues unfolding over the past few months and described it as a “sleepy little newsletter” in which people are now calling and asking for a copy.
He said it was for people who opted to receive the newsletter and did not want people saying he was using his office “to pollute my mind.”