Understanding a St. Louis Mayoral Candidate's Viral Takedown of a Local Newspaper

The campaign for St. Louis’s next mayor heated up last week when one of its candidates, Tishaura O. Jones, the city’s treasurer, decided to skip a meeting with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board. It appears that she is unconcerned with obtaining the newspaper’s endorsement. We know this because she wrote a letter to a member of the editorial board, Tod Robberson, stating as much. The letter ran in the St. Louis American, the city’s African-American newspaper, and has since become a viral sensation. But for national readers, it might be helpful to add some context and explanation. So we’ve footnoted it for you. Below is the full annotated (and illustrated) text of Jones’ letter.

Two weeks ago, you used some of your ink to outline what questions you would be asking of mayoral candidates. You complained that “decades of sustained, abject neglect by city leaders have allowed a bombed-out graffiti-covered, war-zone image to prevail.” You said you were afraid to walk your dog at night and you called for a plan to “address blight and abate the graffiti that’s killing our city.