Government Censorship

Here in Hudson we have a weekly newspaper called the Hudson Star Observer. It seems to be a typical small town paper highlighting some of the local issues. Like other mainstream papers it also caters to the local businesses and is heavily involved with school issues. Now here in St. Croix County the institution that employs more people than any other is the Hudson School District. Because of this, the HSO is tied to the hip with the district school and the school board members. In any average issue you will find 4-5 pages, 10-20% of the paper dealing with the school district. Even the school superintendent gets to write a column exposing the virtues of the ‘Great schools’ we have Hudson. We are reminded time and time again about how much “Greater” they could be if we had a $75,000,000 million dollar referendum to build new schools. The education reporter for the HSO even has done consultant work for the district. Some joke that the paper should be called the “Hudson High School Star Observer”. The editor, Doug Stolberg hobnobs with the school board members at the local Rotary Club and is know throughout town for decades.

Doug Stolberg has been on vacation down in Florida and is apparently spending time watching spring baseball training games. So he has left others to do his duties. It looks as though the people he left his duties to are incompetent to say the least. A citizen wrote an editorial that was critical of the police department. That letter was posted at OnTheBorderLine.net showing the original text and what got printed. Now as a private business, the HSO should be able to edit their letters however they wish, but they also need to be willing to take the heat for it. The strange twist on this particular letter is the idiots left at the helm decided to let a government official, Chief Richard Trende edit the letter to the editor that was critical of him and his department! The irony in this whole matter stems that this letters topic was the forcible threat and removal of citizens from a school board meeting last June 14th by officers from his department. This citizen was verbally threatened by one of the officers. These individuals after removal were never arrested and were removed for nothing other than the content of their speech, a violation of their Constitutional Rights. So we go ahead in time 8 months later and we find another subversion of rights, freedom of speech being edited by government officials; the same official who was criticized in the letter. This is nothing more than government censorship. You thought it could only happen in Communist China, Iran, or North Korea. No it’s happening right in small town Wisconsin.

See:

Dzubay, Hanson, Trende- New HSO Editorial Staff

Censorship Alive and Well at the Hudson Star Observer

www.ontheborderline.net