A Virginia newspaper has come under fire from its readers after it ran a Ku Klux Klan recruitment flyer in full on its front page.
The Westmoreland News ran a story on how KKK recruitment flyers and DVDs had started appearing in the town of Colonial Beach, Virginia.
However, the paper decided to include a copy of the recruitment flyer, which included racist and anti-Semitic language, in full on the front page to illustrate its story.
“They posted the whole flyer as if they were giving them free advertising,” Colonial Beach resident Betty Tate Thompson told WTVR. “It even had the number on flyer to contact the head of the KKK. Which I thought was totally ridiculous.”
Now I can see why the newspaper would do this as they are accurately relating events, and providing a visual example of what they are reporting.
(I just did the same thing up above as well.)
However if you were the local chapter of the KKK, and you were having a devil of a time handing out enough flyers to really increase recruitment, just imagine how gratified you would be if the newspaper printed your entire invitation, including contact information, for their thousands of subscribers?
I mean that would be the kind of gift to warm an old racist's heart.
So the criticism is quite valid.
Source https://ift.tt/2Hz1Lml
