Letter to the editor: Banning negative ads is censorship

Trib Total Media President and CEO Jennifer Bertetto’s recent announcement on eliminating negative political ads was a total surprise to me (“Why Trib Total Media is nixing negative political ads,” Nov. 27, TribLIVE).

While I sometimes find your newspaper’s positions or articles objectionable, they generally do not violate my expectations of a newspaper’s basic responsibility to not control the news. Your new policy is a perfect example of censorship.

While negative ads can be annoying and misleading, they can be informative and do contribute to educating your readers about the candidates and issues. Your claim to lessen the coarseness and cheapness of politics and better serve your readers by continuing to address all aspects of political campaigns, the good, the bad and the ugly, is a direct contradiction of your new “control” policy.

I might add, if you want to better serve your readers, do something about your news services. For example, Associated Press continually runs “news” reports that contain opinion.

Louis F. D’Emilio

Penn Township, Westmoreland County