When a one-frame comic has a word count in excess of 50, it’s a fair bet that something is off. In the case of Thursday’s opinion page, the cartoon was a 58-word attempt to conjure up yet another conspiracy theory targeting our country’s institutions. This is the latest in a disappointing pattern of The Signal buying and perpetuating syndicated extremism to go along with some questionable home-grown opinion content.
As was the case for a letter-writer published in Thursday’s paper, my wife and I have valued the local news provided by The Signal since we moved to Valencia 17 years ago. But having grown up in a military family and having spent my entire career in the aerospace and defense industry, seeing The Signal’s opinion pages populated with images of upside-down flags and questionable opinion pieces that attack the institutions of the United States is more than distressing.
Call me old-school — or maybe just old — but the fact-challenged content you are peddling goes beyond editorial freedom of speech. It is not just un-American but, rather, anti-American content offered up as “patriotism.”
As a community newspaper, The Signal has a duty to be more than a propaganda page targeting the institutions that have set the U.S. apart in a favorable way since World War II and earlier, so I hope you will consider aspiring to more.
Brent Wright
Valencia
