BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Editor in Chief Rockland Post
We are a new news agency, only online for three months. I put this agency together to give Rockland County unbiased and accurate news and information. Not only does it seem that the lamestream media and outlets like the RCBJ did in a recent story about Tina Traster passing a stopped school bus, and others in the county are distorting or misusing information, which she was called out in a press release by the Rockland County government, Rockland Post maintains the highest real journalistic ethics in its reporting.
As editor in Chief, I hold myself and my staff to these aforementioned standards of journalistic ethics. We will never post a story without the facts to back up anything that could be deemed as opinion.
We had a story published in which one of my reporters was given information from a reliable source that turned out to be incorrect. The reporter was informed by another source familiar with the story about the mistaken information. After double checking the second sources information, corrections were made. The good thing about being an online news agency is that any mistaken information can be corrected IMMEDIATELY which we did.
We hope that other county news outlets would follow the same aforementioned standards.
Recent stories published by local news outlets involving political/elected officials accused one of infiltrating a private chat group without having any proof that this person was the culprit. They had total disregard for the facts and only published the “information” as a narrative without double checking the “facts” they were presented with.
One example of this type of “reporting” which pushes a narrative and shows that thing are done for political reasons not to expose the truth. The Fight Lawler group whose co-founder Maureen Morrissey said about the “infiltrator” after being asked again if she had pictures and data and logs and why she doesn’t put that up because the only words they use are allegations and allegedly. Her response can be interpreted, that this is simply a political hit job. “I think that’s a legality thing and yes, we have everything, but unless it comes down to a legal issue, which I’m kind of hoping it does. We’re kind of hoping this blows up and takes Erin Crowley down and Mike Lawler with her. So yes, we have everything. We’re holding on to it close to the vest until it’s needed to accomplish our goal.”
In another statement:
DCCC Spokesperson Riya Vashi said “Mike Lawler’s taxpayer-funded staff allegedly spying on his own constituents isn’t just gross, it’s a disgraceful abuse of power. If true, Lawler owes voters an immediate explanation for his staffer actively trying to stage chaos at an official town hall for his political gain.”
A valid question about the release of this accusations in this story is, if this event took place on May 4, 2025, why wait two months to publicize it by the DCCC and multiple media outlets all echoing the LoHud David McKay Wilson story practically word for word?
She was asked, if it’s found out that Erin Crowley never did that would you apologize?
Vashi answered, “I mean, if, if they fully answered and came with proof, like, yeah, we’d let it go. But I don’t foresee that happening.”
This shows that the DNCC was trying to turn the burden of proof onto Lawler and Crowley and take it off of them. It is the opinion of this editor that they were doing this because they did not have the solid proof it was her who did this. Remember they were making the accusation against Crowley. In our system of jurisprudence, the burden of proof is on the accuser NOT the defendant. It is further the opinion of this editor that the lack of a response from Crowley and Lawler was that they did not want to give any legitimacy to an accusation that had no solid proof.
The question comes down to this: If they had solid proof that Crowley was the culprit in this, why weren’t they transparent and release the information, like they want Lawler to be? The lack of publishing the “proof” they claimed to have is more questionable because Crowley was running for re election and if all they wanted to do, as Morrissey said was to take her and Lawler down, then they should have released it not held it hoping to go to court with it.
Doing this kind of “reporting” has consequences for the people they are “reporting” on. It can destroy lives and careers and when the true facts are revealed, they never apologize or put a retraction which includes the accurate information. In a time when public trust in media is already fragile, community outlets have a higher obligation to present complex issues clearly and honestly like the Rockland Post does. Readers deserve to understand not just what numbers say, but what they actually mean.