To the Editor:

Our group, Altamont Main Street USA, is an organization of patriotic citizens living and working in New York’s Capital District. We write to inform you about a campaign we are undertaking to fight the spread of fake news, in particular the false reporting contained in tabloids (e.g., the National Enquirer, the Globe, and the National Examiner) that are placed at, or very close to, the checkout counters of many local supermarkets and stores.

Like so many, we are deeply troubled by the spate of fake-news stories that affected, profoundly and, in our view, in a detrimental manner, the 2016 presidential election. Moreover, the Trump administration and many “news” sources continue to promote stories that are demonstrably and patently false.

We feel it is important to counter, wherever and whenever possible, the spread of fake “information” meant to harm political opponents and/or distract the American people from important issues and from the administration’s legislative agenda.

The press plays an essential role in our democracy, and we therefore feel it is important not only to support the hard-working members of the media but also, at the same time, to resist organizations that, either for financial or political reasons, peddle political stories that are false, made up, and based on lies (what one political partisan recently rebranded as “alternative facts” but that must be called, without hesitation, what they are: lies).

To this end, we have been developing strategies to diminish the spread and effects of fake, politically motivated “news” stories. Tabloids such as the National Enquirer, the Globe, and the National Examiner are prominent purveyors of fake news.

The National Enquirer, one particularly egregious example, consistently prints such lies in its political stories. Between 2015 and 2016 it systematically targeted Republican candidates for president (with the exception of Donald Trump) as well as the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. For example, it claimed, infamously and falsely, that Senator Ted Cruz’s father participated in the assassination of President Kennedy (April 2016). Its publication of false stories about Secretary Clinton was particularly abhorrent and offensive.

After Secretary Clinton announced her bid for the presidency in April 2015, the National Enquirer reported the following fake-news stories: that Clinton was caught up in a “sex-scandal” (July 2015); that she had only six months to live (October 2015); that she was going to jail (October 2015); that she was in a secret lesbian relationship (March 2016); and that, according to her “full medical file,” she had had “3 strokes, Alzheimer’s, liver damage from booze, [and] violent rage” (September 2016).

Every one of these stories, loudly promoted on the magazine’s covers, is outrageously and demonstrably false; yet each and every one of them is capable of influencing — indeed, they were designed to influence – the opinions of those who see the magazine and accept its “news” reports uncritically.

Though we would prefer that the National Enquirer and other similar publications not be sold in any store, we respect the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, with its protection of free speech. Therefore, despite their slanderous content, we would not ask that these tabloids be removed entirely from stores.

But we do think that such publications should not be placed at the checkout counters (or very near them), where every shopper is confronted by them; such a placement makes stores enablers in the spreading of fake news. We have therefore written to stores (Price Chopper, Hannaford, and ShopRite supermarkets; Cumberland Farms; Rite Aid; CVS; Walmart; and Target) to request that the tabloids be removed from the checkout lanes and placed elsewhere — perhaps the designated newspaper and magazine sections — where shoppers are not compelled to see them. We make this request of any store that sells these publications.

Castina Charles

and the members of Altamont Main Street USA