The Leader Herald is a free speech publication. We are powerful advocates against censorship.
This newspaper is open to ideas other than those we express in our editorials or in our editorial commentary.
The First Amendment is our bible here on Church Street.
And so it comes as a great disappointment to learn that the mayor tries to persuade some of our advertisers and readers to stay away from the Leader Herald, to not advertise in it, because we refuse to be told what to write about him and the city he believes is his own.
We know this from reports we receive about the mayor telling someone or other not to advertise with us or to avoid us.
We believe the reports from our friends, although there is a chance they are all made up.
We don’t believe they are made up.
We knew when we printed articles, investigative reports and features that didn’t follow the mayor’s party line to the word that we’d be thrown under the bus because he can’t
take criticism.
The mayor is punishing the Leader Herald. He gives his friends in the local media all city advertising.
He gives us not one penny.
They get thousands to write nice headlines about him.
We get nothing.
He thinks, we believe, that withholding city advertising from us can hurt our business or maybe even ruin it. Either that or we will come to our senses and do the right thing for him in exchange for his payments from the city treasury.
We get it.
We won’t be intimidated or extorted here by the mayor.
His money can’t buy the whitewash he wants for his actions.
We are the peoples voice in this city since 1885.
> The Leader Herald will always remain this way.