Editor Fired for
Dissent on Immigration

lites are moving swiftly to quash any appearance in the mainstream press of expressions of public opposition to increased Third World immigration.

They've even gone so far as to fire their own left-leaning professional journalists who allow dissenting views to appear in print.

That's what happened in Maine to veteran newspaper editor David Cheever, a married father of eight who lost his job just because he printed a guest column disagreeing with the paper's support for transforming the U.S. through immigration.

Cheever was editorial director of two papers, the Keenebec Journal, and the Central Maine Morning Sentinel, both owned by Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc., a corporate division of the Seattle Times Company, which publishes the Seattle Times, the Portland Press Herald, and the Maine Sunday Telegram.
Cheever had written an opinion editorial advocating acceptance of the thousands of Somali immigrants imported to the U.S. by the State Department. Looking for the best welfare deal, many Somalis settled in Lewiston, Maine, burdening the small town's social welfare system and modest tax base and school system. The colonization of Lewiston soon triggered political conflict between the taxpayers and average citizens on one side, and local elites and left-wing organizers on the other side.

Cheever made the mistake of printing a guest editorial by a local citizen, Ken Miller, himself a retired journalist, who disagreed with Cheever's pro-immigration editorial.

That's when the big bosses came down on him.

"I was gone that day," Cheever said.

He had worked for the paper for more than six years.

Executive Editor David B. Offer fired Cheever immediately, saying the guest editorial was "blatant racial intolerance" that "should not have been printed."

Miller's editorial questioned whether the Somalis being admitted had undergone thorough enough background checks.

"Somalia is even now identified as a growing stronghold and training area for Islamic terrorists, he wrote. "Some in our government believe Osama bin Laden could be there now, rebuilding and reforming his worldwide terrorist network. How thoroughly were our Maine Somalis screened?"

Miller also questioned why the people of Lewiston must endure transformation.

"But why Maine, where life is still the way it used to be?" he asked.

Frank A. Blethen, chairman of the Blethlen group that publishes the paper where Cheever worked, "has become known for promoting diversity in the news business," according to the newsletter of the Accuracy in Media organization in Washington, D.C.

Whether the order to fire Cheever came from corporate headquarters was not reported.