Accused of Toxic Tales, Warwick Valley Dispatch Makes Threats
Dispatch patterns of vilification resemble trends in troubled local news around the country.
Village of Florida Mayor Dan Harter recently received an email from the Warwick Valley Dispatch requesting an “interview” before Dispatch management considers “legal actions.” It was the latest of several Dispatch attacks on Florida officials.
The conflict escalated this month when Harter posted on Facebook a letter sent to Stephen Kitar, Dispatch manager, in March of 2022 . In the letter, signed by Town of Warwick Supervisor Michael Sweeton, Village of Greenwood Lake Mayor Jesse Dwyer and Harter, they threatened to discontinue Dispatch status as official newspaper for each of their municipalities if the Dispatch persisted with “one-sided journalism,” that intensifies “divisiveness” in a town with a “diverse” population.
Although all three officials are Republicans, Dispatch accusations and insinuations regarding Democrats prompted the initial March 2, 2022 letter to the Dispatch, and then Dan Harter’s public posting of that letter on Facebook this month, with the approval of the others who signed the letter. In the runup to the November election, Dispatch articles had made insinuations without evidence about Democrat Elizabeth Cassidy, the Village of Florida attorney, and Harter, Florida mayor. Cassidy was running against Dispatch-backed Republican Karen Amundson for Town of Warwick justice.
“The three of us signed the letter after Dispatch articles about Michael Newhard, but the Dispatch didn’t stop,” Harter said, referring to Dispatch articles in February of 2022 accusing Democrat Village of Warwick Mayor Michael Newhard of wrongdoing.
The stories before the 2022 election twisted a prank check, found 12 years earlier in Newhard’s jacket at the dry cleaner owned by Kitar, into evidence of criminal behavior. Making out a check to pay the Warwick library’s water bill, the librarian neglected to fill in the dollar amount, and Newhard, as a joke, filled in $1 million, then left the check in his pocket, he said. A story insinuating illicit activity was printed on the Dispatch front page and the paper was delivered even at houses of non-subscribers shortly before a mayoral election, the second time the Dispatch employed the tactic.
Sweeton contended that the “one-sided” partisan coverage tended to cluster around elections, that local stories became more neutral at other times. But Harter pointed out skewed Dispatch coverage three months before the election this month.
An August 2 story with the byline “Kat Leslie,” whom Harter, Newhard and Sweeton say they have never encountered or heard from, quotes Stephen Kitar, described as a “Village of Warwick resident,” and not acknowledged as the person leasing the Warwick Valley Dispatch from owner Eugene Wright. Like many local papers, the Dispatch had been failing financially when Kitar took over and established the Dispatch as an LLC under his management in August of 2021 .
In that August story, Kitar is quoted criticizing bureaucracy in the Villages of Florida and Warwick, without specifics. Then the article goes on to accuse Harter and Village of Florida attorney Liz Cassidy of wrongdoings, again without substantiation or seeking responses from Village officials.
A few paragraphs further, a “Warwick resident” is said to approach Cassidy at the Florida Fun Fest and ask about Florida lawsuits, though Cassidy is prohibited from commenting about ongoing litigation. “Kat Leslie” accuses Cassidy of responding with answers described as “vague,” “incorrect,” “misinformed,” and “perhaps not entirely truthful,” without citing any evidence, while noting that Cassidy was running for Town of Warwick justice.
Cassidy later recalled being approached at the event by Kitar, who did not introduce himself nor say that her responses would be published. The conversation with Kitar that she recalled resembled the one with the “Warwick resident” reported in the article by “Kat Leslie.” Cassidy noted that Kitar asked questions about ongoing litigation in Florida that she was not at liberty to answer.
Harter cited the story as an example of the Dispatch’s ongoing one-sided stories that villainize Republican political opposition without evidence.
“Liz Cassidy has been Village of Florida attorney for five years. Only since she started running for office did they make claims against her,” Harter said. “My grandmother wrote for the Dispatch. They should write facts, not use the paper for vendettas.”
The Dispatch continued to be Florida’s official paper until April this year when its status was terminated because the paper failed to provide required affidavits documenting Florida public notices, the responsibility of an official paper, Harter said. However, despite the severance, the Dispatch has continued to print the Florida symbol on the top left of the front page, indicating that the Dispatch has official status for the Village of Florida.
“Nobody wins on this kind of back and forth. It’s unfortunate for Harter. He works hard,” said Sweeton. “There’s no basis for a legal suit. It seems crazy. It’s unfortunate when rhetoric escalates.”
However, Sweeton does not expect to participate in future decisions about Dispatch status for the Town of Warwick, as no changes will be made until the town board reorganization meeting in January, he said. Sweeton is retiring after this year.
By publication time, Stephen Kitar had not responded to a phone call from the Tri-State Lookout requesting comment and clarification on issues brought up in this article.
Local Papers and “Pink Slime”
Meanwhile, Dispatch partisan patterns are becoming more common in newspapers around the country, according to Philip Napoli, professor of public policy at Duke University. After 20% of local newspapers closed in the last decade because of advertising revenue lost to the internet, political operatives have taken over many such papers and made them tools for political campaigns, using one-sided journalism and other forms of propaganda.
The Columbia Journalism Review has published several articles about what is now called “pink slime” journalism, with “pink slime” referring to the cheap meat byproduct. The New York Times and Washington Post have also reported on it. In these papers with traditional local newspaper names, outsourced writers are paid low wages for propaganda pieces that share pages with what appear to be local stories that may be press releases or other digitally derived material. Large networks of such pseudo-local papers have been formed, most funded by Republicans, some by Democrats, according to a New York Times story on the Republican pink slime network, Metric Media.
“With the First Amendment, media have latitude about what they publish” about candidates, “though state libel laws may be different,” said Myles Martin, public affairs specialist at the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C.
However, the FEC does require that publication funding by a political campaign be acknowledged, and then the question about the publication is, “Are they engaged in legitimate press functions?” said Napoli. “The subject is blurry. The FEC is not proactive. They respond to complaints.”
Sweeton said he knows of no funding source other than Kitar for the Dispatch. However, reporter identities are elusive. Several local officials said they had never encountered reporters credited in the Dispatch. When Sweeton attempted to reach a “human being” at the Dispatch office, he was connected to Kitar’s sister, he said.
The New York City Bar Association articulates New York State defamation law this way: “When one person makes false accusations against or statements about another and ‘publishes’ those statements (by transmitting them to a third party by written word or word of mouth), and those statements damage the reputation, character or integrity of that person, the target of the statements may recover damages from the person who uttered the false statements. Such statements are called defamation of character.”
One Warwick resident pointed out political and community consequences that result from the Dispatch’s insinuations about local candidates. He requested that his name not be used, anticipating the retaliatory maligning he described.
“The danger is a chilling affect,” he said. “It silences those who would run for office or take a more vocal role in criticizing right wing extremism in the community, particularly if they’re a business owner. Libel and slander laws make it hard to combat lies in print or online.”
He noted how the vilification snowballs. He attributed lack of Democratic candidates in Warwick elections to protection of family and work reputation. No Democrat ran for town supervisor this year, even as Sweeton retires after two decades in office.
“They know the playbook. They dump accusations in online parent groups, calling people pedophiles and groomers. Right wing groups add their own language to magnify and amplify. Liz Cassidy was smeared. They allude up to the line of libel.”
This is the recent Warwick Valley Dispatch email response to Village of Florida Mayor Dan Harter’s Facebook post concerning the newspaper:
Dear Mr. Harter,
It has come to our attention that, in your official capacity as the Mayor of the Village and through posts on the corresponding Facebook page, you have alleged an act of slander on the part of The Warwick Valley Dispatch. Additionally, you have made false claims regarding the ownership of The Dispatch, attributing it to Mr. Kitar.We consider these matters to be of utmost importance, and it is our responsibility to ensure accurate and fair reporting. Therefore, we request an explanation and would appreciate the opportunity to discuss these issues with you further. We are seeking your prompt response and it is essential that we receive your feedback, before considering legal actions.
To facilitate this discussion, we would like to schedule an interview at your convenience. Please provide us with your preferred time and contact number, and we will coordinate the details accordingly.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Cordially,
Keith Newman
Warwick Valley Dispatch
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Thank you for this important but disturbing article about a growing trend in American small-town journalism (or lack thereof??)