ATLANTA – A new tabloid full of unproven theories about the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election is appearing in the driveways of North Fulton, and some residents want the local government to do something to stop them.
Roswell City Councilor and Mayor Lori Henry heard from supporters and critics of The Pamphleteer during a public session Tuesday.
“We are calling for an ordinance against the deliberate spread of disinformation,” said JD Jordan, a Roswell resident. The pamphleteer landed in Jordan’s driveway three weeks ago, he said.
Resident Mitchell Head told Jordan on the forum on Tuesday that some of the opinions in the tabloid are truthful. Disinformation is often wrongly linked to right-wing politics, he said. Head added that he was concerned that critics of the paper occupy a position of authority over disinformation.
“… expressing an opinion seems to be my right as a citizen,” he said of writers in The Pamphleteer. “It also terrifies me that the people who talk – and I think their motives are probably good – that they feel they may be able to decide what is disinformation and what is not.”
Roswell residents say the small publication will be left in its driveway in an orange or clear plastic bag.
A recent four-page issue was filled with opinion columns by anonymous authors advocating conspiracy theories about the right to vote, the ineffectiveness of masks, and fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The publication does not contain any information about who published the paper and little information was found online. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution emailed questions about The Pamphleteer to an email address specified in the publication. In an email response it said the paper started in different cities in 2021 and “anonymity supports its stance” which has no clear meaning.
Jordan recorded his objections to social media, where he sparked a 79-comment debate on the Nextdoor app before his post was removed. He said a group of 48 Roswell residents would like the city to amend the leaflet law and require city approval for publications such as The Pamphleteer so that possible code violations can be prosecuted and enforced.
“I don’t know what prompted us to take action,” Jordan told the AJC during a phone call on Thursday. “I think it’s the fact that my 15-year-old brought it to me. We don’t let our kids use social media. That this showed up in our driveway was worrying.”
Leaflets, which The Pamphleteer appears to fall under, are protected by the First Amendment, and the US Supreme Court dismissed a case in 1938 that required permission to distribute leaflets, Roswell Assistant Attorney Michael Petty said during the forum .
Mayor Lori Henry, who said she was a victim of “fake news,” invited Jordan to meet with her and a city attorney to further discuss the pamphleteer.
Jordan told AJC Johns Creek residents that they would be making public comments at a town council meeting in that north Fulton town on Monday.
John Bradberry, alderman for Johns Creek, said on a call with the AJC that he knew little about The Pamphleteer but supported residents in sharing their concerns. He also said that in his support for the First Amendment, he was not sure whether the city should or could do anything about the publication.
“I’m really not interested in monitoring content unless it breaks a constitutional (threshold),” he said. “I regret that we’ve got to a point where people want them to be banned rather than refuting points.”
Bradberry said critics should perhaps start their own publication.
In an email to the AJC, Janet Mitchell of Johns Creek said The Pamphleteer was upset. It was distributed to every house in her large subdivision, she said. Mitchell said she was not part of a group willing to comment on the paper at Monday’s city council meeting.
“People are so vulnerable, politically needy, and eager to have their dark beliefs supported – no matter what egregious form they may take – that they greedily buy lies in their driveway,” said Mitchell. “So-called politics, including January 6th (riots in the US Capitol), crushed me – in my family, in my neighborhood, in the country I love.”
