JAMESTOWN – WRFA Public Affairs Director Jason Sample talks with Jamestown City Council President Gregory Rabb (pictured) about a planned protest of The Post-Journal, along with the paper’s handling of letters to the editor and online readers comments regarding his effort to promote Jamestown, NY as a community that welcomes marriage equality.
Recorded Wednesday, February 19, 2014.
Greg touched on this and I’d like to talk a little more about the influence the Post Journal has on the perceptions of people who don’t live here but read it to get a feel for the culture of our city. The rigidly right wing slant of the PJ’s editorials combined with the extremist nature of some of the letters to the editor with hateful anonymous discussion posts attached to them paints a decidedly negative picture of the kind of town we really are.
Part of a sex/gender transition is changing your given name to one that more accurately reflects your true identity. Part of that process, after my name change was complete, required that I go around town to inform all the companies with whom I did business of the change, which means, effectively outing myself as a trans woman to numerous people all over town. I was initially petrified of the prospect but truly pleased and gratified that I was treated kindly and courteously by all but one of the people I dealt with.
Jamestown in not filled with racist, misogynist, xeno/homo/transphobic people, although our daily newspaper certainly gives the impression it is. People from out of town, when they learn that I transitioned from male to female in Jamestown, react with amazement and pity, assuming that it must have been 50 times harder than it actually was because of the reputation for intolerance our city has, a reputation that has been significantly supported by the Post Journal’s editorial policies. This reputation hurts our city, I’m sure. What modern business would want to come to a town who seems unwilling to accept people who may be gay, trans, latin@ or some other manifestation of the conservative ideal of “normal?”
The Post Journal’s editorial policies promote a picture of our town as being intolerant, über-conservative and categorically unwelcoming to any kind of diversity. They harm us not only personally, with printed rhetoric that borders the line, and too often crosses it, of hate speech but also by discouraging progressive and vibrant modern businesses from locating here.
The mission of tomorrows protest will be:
. . . to persuade the local publisher and editors of The Jamestown Post-Journal to consistently portray a balanced, civil and positive view of the Jamestown area.
We demand that The Post-Journal refrain from publishing editorial and reader-submitted content that includes slurs or insults based upon a person’s or group’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, political views, religious views or physical, mental or socio-economic status.
We demand that The Post-Journal give equal space to syndicated and reader-submitted editorial content that reflects more moderate- and left-leaning views that may not reflect the views held by The Post-Journal.