To the editor:

Quite often in life, the idea of a two-sided issue doesn’t exist, but our media fetishizes their idea of “fairness”. 

Our mainstream media believes every kind of story has a “both-sides”; any contrarion opinion is legitimate no matter how disingenuous or discredited. This itself creates a dangerous reporting veneer of “both-sidesism”.

Wages in our area have been stagnant my entire adult life. I have never met a working-class local resident, Republican or Democrat, that didn’t want a raise. But, when our media reports this story, the minute handful of vocal, anti-worker business interests in this area are portrayed as an entire legitimate “side” against thousands of our friends and neighbors who only wish to make more money while their employer profits from residents’ precious labor and time. These businesses would be nothing without employees, but we live in a society that portrays employers as Founding Father-approved saviors and supermen of average folk; which they are not. 

Air and water should be clean. Workers need more money. The Sun is hot. The Moon is cold. Missouri is a poor state. Vaccines are safe. You might wonder why half this country lives in another non-fact-based dimension; the shameless, pandering, cowards in media, small and large, are actually to blame. 

 Matt Ankney 
Crestwood