There’s a reason many readers who believe widespread voter fraud allowed President Biden to steal the election question the reliability of The Alpena News and Associated Press.

These readers ignore that every court and numerous government officials, including conservative judges appointed by Trump and conservative Republican state officials who voted for Trump and contributed to his campaign, found no merit to his voter fraud claims. Facing lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages regarding their false claims, folks at Fox News and other right-wing media are scrambling to retract or correct their claims of election fraud. Sidney Powell, the pro-Trump lawyer who defended his claims, is now arguing that “reasonable people” wouldn’t take her comments about election fraud as fact to challenge the $1.3 billion lawsuit filed against her by Dominion Voting Systems.

Powell and her merry band are being reminded that knowingly making false claims is evidence of actual malice or reckless disregard for truth, exposing them to huge financial damages.

The Alpena News, the AP and every reputable news organization would spare no effort to report credible evidence of election fraud because truth is an “absolute defense” in a defamation case.

For 170 years, 35 AP journalists have been killed to bring us the news. They represent but a fraction of the 2,658 journalists who have been killed in the past 30 years, often at the side of our courageous soldiers.

For decades, The Alpena News has reported our weddings, funerals, graduations, sporting events, celebrations and tragedies. Yet we turn on our watchdog for Trump?

Trump demonstrated his reliability, going AWOL after vowing, “I’ll be there with you” when he urged supporters to march on our Capitol in a bid to overturn the election. Just as he was AWOL with his disappearing bone spur from the Vietnam War.

WES HILLS,

Hillman