I respect this newspaper’s right to publish any opinion it chooses, including the purposeful right-wing artillery of Michelle Malkin.
My only problem with the selection of Malkin (or Cal Thomas or the leftist Charles Blow, for that matter) is that they are so wedded to one point of view that they often chisel the truth until it ceases to be recognizable.
Readers have to know enough to know what they’ve chiseled and thrown away in order to make any valid analysis of their opinions.
Malkin’s commentary in the Peninsula Daily News [on Sept. 22] serves as an example.
She was so intent on decrying liberalism in television and movie producing that she failed to cite the main cause of declines in TV ratings and movie box office sales.
The primary cause has nothing to do with liberal (or conservative) programming (in fact, conservative programming generally is also suffering declines).
The cause is the younger generation’s preoccupation with social media and personal computing, especially smartphones, according to a Forbes article.
Youths ages 10 to 20, and many of their 21-to-40-year-old elders, simply have no interest in going to movie theaters or watching regular TV.
YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and others attract their eyes.
If Malkin actually knows this, then her last commentary was utterly disingenuous.
John Merton Marrs,
Port Angeles