To the editor:

I would like to respond to an editorial by Cal Thomas (Journal-World, Oct. 20). This article states that too many voters lack basic knowledge. I take pride in the fact that I utilize various news resources in order to make my voting decisions. My experience in doing this has been that reports on the same issues do not always agree with each other.

Take the gun ban issue as just one example. I read several articles stating that the gun ban had decreased crime rate and others stating it made no difference. This occurs on almost all issues that I have tried to follow. Let’s face it, news reporters also get the facts wrong or don’t always report the full extent of a story. This is not necessarily the reporters’ faults, as I am sure they receive their information from somewhere.

For us voters who have jobs, families, homes to clean, dinners to fix, dishes to do, lawns to mow and budgets to balance, we have to take the information we get from the media and make our decisions the best we can. We do not have the time or resources to check every news article for its accuracy nor do we have the time to read every article on every issue to try and figure out which one is the most accurate. So maybe the title should be, “Too many voters lack ability to use basic knowledge due to differing media reports on issues.”

Mary Ann McIntire,

Pomona