Why Dyster Does Not Talk To The Niagara Falls Reporter

Mayor Paul Dyster apparently doesn’t like us very much. But we like him a lot, since his lack of transparency gives us plenty of headlines every week.

At the Niagara Falls Reporter we consider protecting people from government more important than promoting the government's agenda.

The other media already does that.

On several occasion, the Niagara Falls Reporter has tried to cultivate a working relationship with Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster.

From time to time he agreed to take our calls and make comment.

When he did take our calls, or on the rare occasion meet with us, he would generally be pressed for time, sometimes terse, and, when it came to real answers, evasive.

If we did not write a flattering story that promoted his agenda, as he told it, he cut off communication with us and refused to return calls.

That happened three or four times.

We soon learned that, unless we were prepared to write flattering, promotional stories about him and his plans, he would not talk to us.

Dyster is not alone in this type of strategy. From President Obama to Gov Cuomo this is the new strategy for savvy politicians to employ, a punish-and-withhold plan from a weakened news media, if they do not buy (or at least write) their BS hook line and sinker.

Since many in the media are lazy and dependent on getting their information spoon fed by government, they soon opt to go along to get along and government officials successfully deceive the public this way.

Then a cozy relationship develops between government officials and the media. The results are what you see in most mainstream news. And the rewards from advertisers follow suit, you had better believe.

We choose instead to be outsiders and get our information by independent research and from informed sources; and through our own analysis.

That's why what we publish is so different. We believe that at least one news outlet should be independent.

We are not interested in promoting government, but informing and protecting the people from the government, which of course puts us at odds with most government officials.

Mayor Dyster will not talk to the Reporter because we will not spin stories his way. For our part, we will try to keep the lines of communication open in the event that Dyster wants to openly address the people with no holds barred.

To his credit, Dyster, at least, does not steal our newspapers, as many others have done, and our newspaper is delivered right to city hall.

Week in and week out he has tolerated our criticism without trying to censor what people read in city hall.

Secondly, he has not, as others have tried to do, tried to persuade advertisers not to place ads with us.

We hope he must still have some faith in the First Amendment.

Dyster is not alone in not talking to us. There are many who do not talk to us. In fact we consider it a badge of honor when a politician will not talk to us. We also suspect that they have something to hide because we will ask anything.

Dyster, we suspect, does not want you to know the whole truth. He wants his spin to be spun as the truth. If you want his spin, read the other media.

We represent the people.