The lead story on Page One of the April 28 Press Herald was about Gov. LePage’s recent statements that state workers have been corrupted by the bureaucracy in Augusta and that middle management of state government is about as corrupt it could be. Prominently displayed, even above the headline, was a dictionary definition of the word “corruption.”

As with most words, this word has several meanings, four are listed in the paper. As most people know, in a dictionary, generally it is the first-listed definition that is considered to be the most frequent meaning of the word being defined.

In the case of “corruption,” one has go to meaning number three before the word “unlawful” or any word suggesting criminality is found.

When I got to the editorial page and read the lead editorial, I found that it, too, was about the governor and contained the opinion that the governor of the state of Maine should not accuse public employees of criminal behavior.

At that point, I wondered why the editorial writer had cherry-picked the corruption definitions that were appearing in his own paper by using the third-listed definition rather than one of the others, two or which more accurately describe the thrust of the governor’s statements and one of which actually contains the word “integrity,” which is the word he used in the phrase “we are dealing with a lack of integrity,” such phrase being contained in his letter that was referenced in the article.

Occurrences of the truth being overridden by the over-zealousness of the editorial writer(s) and/or editor have become common in the Press Herald over the past few months, often being so silly and unprofessional than many people would feel that a particular editorial might be better positioned on the op-ed page.


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