On Journalistic Integrity

To the editor:

The article by Bill Pearson on the Boothbay Register’s website, “County officials receive complaints about political lawn signs,” was problematic on several fronts.

The article failed to reflect the fact that the message on those lawn signs is not merely political, it is promoting a dangerous conspiracy theory advanced by a terrorist group.

The message refers to a conspiracy theory coming from the group QAnon, that has been officially designated a domestic terrorist group by the FBI¹ in a bulletin last May warning that conspiracy theory-driven extremists have become a domestic terrorism threat. The bulletin specifically mentioned QAnon. The group spreads bizarre lies about Democrats and specifically advocates violence against them.

Believing in the conspiracies touted by this group, in late 2016 a man drove from North Carolina to a restaurant in Washington, D.C., expecting to break up a ring of child abusers in the basement of a pizza parlor. He was apprehended at the site, gun in hand, and discovered that the conspiracy theory was false; the pizza parlor was just a restaurant serving pizza to customers, nothing more. It didn’t even have a basement. However, the FBI is concerned that similarly misguided individuals might succeed in causing harm before being stopped.

The creator of the lawn signs, a Westport Island resident, may or may not be aware of the source of his conspiracy theory. At any rate, Pearson did not make it clear that the signs allude to a conspiracy created by a domestic terrorist group. Instead, he succeeded in further spreading the dangerous message by including an image with its message in a large photograph accompanying the newspaper article. In an editor’s note appended to the article, Kevin Burnham states that Q’Anon “continues to stand by its claim,” which is immaterial. Burnham could also mention that other claims this group stands by include a belief that the Earth is flat and that some celebrities are flesh-eating reptiles from outer space.²

While there may be some exceptions, I firmly believe most people in Lincoln County, regardless of their party affiliation, place great value in truth and decency, including rule of law, and don’t endorse terrorist groups or conspiracy theories. And I believe these decent people don’t consider violence the right way to promote their political views.

The ease with which social media can spread lies and inflammatory conspiracy theories makes it imperative that we do all we can to squash such stories before they do escalate into violence.

This newspaper in printing the article neglected to do so. Instead, it fed the fire. Our constitutional self-governance relies on a free press. To make good decisions and cast good votes readers depend greatly on journalistic integrity in our news sources. That is to say we count on you to make clear distinctions in your reporting between conspiracy theories versus facts, lies versus truth, and between opinions and news.

Christopher Johnson, chair
on behalf of the Lincoln County Democratic Committee

¹ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/19/nation/trump-praises-qanon-conspiracy-theory-fbi-has-deemed-domestic-terror-threat/

² https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/24/qanon-believer-conspiracy-theory/