Brentwood restores funding for 'controversial' newsletter: 'Political tribalism’ removed
BRENTWOOD — The town’s Selectboard is giving the Brentwood Newsletter one more chance after severing its relationship with the publication last year due to "incendiary" and "inflammatory" opinion content.
The board voted 4-1 on May 21 to restore town funding for the volunteer-led publication that features community news from the Boy Scouts to the library.
The vote comes on the heels of Town Meeting voters approving a citizens’ petition to earmark $17,250 to fund the cost of printing, postage, and distribution of 11 issues of the Brentwood Newsletter to residents in 2024-25.
The sole board member voting against restoring the funding was Jon Morgan, who reiterated his stance that if town funds are used for the publication, then it should be run by the town. The publication has operated independently from the town since it was created to "bring the community together" in 1977 by Linda Rousseau.
The Brentwood Newsletter has come under fire over the years by the board and community members who have claimed some of the content is biased and does not represent the views of the entire town.
In 2022, a letter in the publication sparked outrage that claimed the state Democratic Party supports "the grooming of 4- to 10-year-old children on sexual orientation and gender identity." In 2021, residents blasted the publication for publishing an editorial by Richard Gagnon titled "Racism: From a White Man's Perspective." The article criticized Black Lives Matter and questioned whether systemic racism exists. The opinion piece was called racist by some community members and led to a meeting that brought more than 100 residents to debate the future of the publication.
The town’s Democratic Committee accused the publication in 2019 of political bias after it printed voting records with slanted descriptions of bills lifted from Granite Grok, a right-wing conservative website.
The ongoing controversies led the town Selectboard to defund the publication for the first time in the Newsletter’s 48 years of existence.
More: Court orders clampdown on Southers Construction amid $500K 'Ponzi scheme' claims
Brentwood Newsletter looks to rebuild trust
After the controversies, the Brentwood Newsletter installed a new editor Jim Hajjar, and he and his volunteer team spent the last year “making the improvements to the Brentwood Newsletter that many residents were asking for.”
Hajjar said the Newsletter has been able to survive due to funding it received from donations from residents and businesses.
Hajjar presented the Selectboard a “Statement of Assurance” on May 21 as an effort to “build trust.” The statement includes guidelines, including that the Newsletter will not publish any material “deemed a personal attack against any individual,” and it “will not endorse any candidates for office.”
“What I had found (and the Brentwood Newsletter board agreed) is that many, if not all, the ‘candidate endorsement’ letters we received almost always included not just the reasons why the resident supported a specific candidate, but they also had to include some sort of ‘attack’ on the other candidate,” Hajjar said. “In response to that, and in trying to remove what I call ‘political tribalism’ (that seems to be rampant in our country right now) from the Brentwood Newsletter, the board made the decision to no longer print candidate endorsement letters.”
Additionally, the statement to the board also promised that a liaison between the town and the Newsletter would handle complaints in the future. Complaints would be resolved within 30 days, according to the statement, and would be addressed and resolved at public Selectboard meetings as an effort to promote transparency.
“I believe that this document really is the result of our whole community coming together to preserve the Brentwood Newsletter as a town’s treasure,” he said. “I think Brentwood has shown in surveys that we really want to end political divisions and for the people to work together for the good of our community.”
More: Exeter Select Board to decide fate of Pickpocket Dam amid pleas to save it
Selectboard ready to move forward with a ‘non-controversial’ newsletter
Selectboard Chair Jennifer Jones said that the statement offered by the Brentwood Newsletter was “an amazing step forward.”
“This document represents an intention of the Brentwood Newsletter to be a non-controversial, non-problematic, fair, equitable information source for the town,” she said. “It was something important that didn’t seem possible a couple of years ago.”
Selectboard member Paul Kleinman agreed. He stated the statement provided a much-needed standard for published content.
Prior to the vote, Jones and Morgan suggested the Newsletter become a town function instead of continuing to be an independent nonprofit organization.
Morgan said he doesn’t want history to repeat itself.
“An organization collectively made some decisions that caused a few problems in town, and here we are three years later still hashing things out,” he said. “Enough is enough.”
“True leadership requires true change when things go truly wrong,” added Morgan. “My perspective, I don’t see that true change. I see a memorandum asking for money.”
'We went too far' Stratham rethinks school’s $50M overhaul amid taxpayer outcry
Brentwood Newsletter wants to remain independent
Hajjar said the Newsletter would “cease to exist” under the town’s ownership. It was a sentiment shared by many who came out in support of the town restoring funding for the publication.
“People didn’t want politics in the newsletter, and I feel like as a nonprofit organization in town, we can be a non-political group,” he said.
“I think that’s when all the problems started happening is that the newsletter started dabbling into politics when it shouldn’t have – that’s my opinion, not anybody else's. I think if you move it under the town, it becomes completely political,” he added.
Lois DeYoung, a resident of 50 years, said she was involved with the Newsletter when it first started in 1977. She said during that time, it was the then-Selectboard’s idea to have the Brentwood Newsletter as an independent organization, citing “liability issues.”
“This is the right thing for the town, please don’t change it,” she said.
Selectman Andy Artimovich agreed.
“If they can abide by what they set forth… to me, it's kinda like not reinventing the wheel to something already in place,” he said.
Another resident, Laura Hajjar, said the Newsletter would "lose credibility” under the town's ownership.
“There is no way that, as elected officials, you can be objective at deciding what goes inside the town’s newsletter,” she said.
Jones said she is “willing to try one more time,” but stressed that the town can choose not to pay for the Newsletter if the publication does not follow the guidelines, as stated in the “Statement of Assurance.”
Hajjar, in reply to Jones’ comment, said that “it will never happen.”
“This is a win for the whole community,” he added.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Brentwood restores funding for 'controversial' newsletter
