Staunton News Leader censorship?

Ah, the Staunton News Leader. They have been accused of censoring letters to the editor for years. Their left-slanted opinion is legend in these areas and is the reason many have abandoned the newspaper while others, including myself, have turned to the Waynesboro News Virginian. After three years, I am still very happy with the NV's fair-and-balanced reporting.

Yankee Phil had given the News Leader a fair chance over the years because he knew the publisher who is a neighbor. But he submitted a letter to the editor this week that had two whole paragraphs chopped off the end, and he's not happy.

And I'll tell you this: It takes a lot to get Phil upset because, as long as I've known him, this retired cop laughs quickly and angers slowly.

The NL changed the hard-hitting effectiveness of Phil's LTE, and he responded:

The worst part of the editorial was the last paragraph, concerning the comparison of the Tea Party movement to racism. The Democrat party is and has been the party that divides people by race. It is the home of Ku Klux Klanner Robert Byrd. It is the party of Jim Crow and Black Codes. It was Democrat Sen.Harry Reid who called President Obama " a light skinned" man without "a negro dialect". President Clinton said that President Obama would be fetching coffee for him and Ted Kennedy.

The very first Black, Mexican, and female members of Congress were all Republicans. It was the first Republican President who sent Americans to die to end the evil of slavery. It was a Republican who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. It was Democrats who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Acts. It was Republican Senator Everett Dirksen wrote the language for the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Civil Rights Bill. A. Phillip Randolph, a Republican organized Republican Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's March on DC for his famous "I have a dream" speech. It is the Republican Party that wants people to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

There is a word limit for the NL so not sure if that came into play but it sounds as if they may not have given Phil the opportunity to rewrite his LTE, a courtesy I have been offered by the NL in the past. Phil asked:

Please let them know that you don't appreciate CENSORSHIP. Send in your own Letter to the Editor here or write the Executive Editor Davis Fritz at http://www.blogger.com/dfritz@newsleader.com

See Phil's original Letter to the Editor here.