A bit of perspective...

Today I saw a comment on Facebook from one of our Westminster history buffs, which read, "I've been going through issues of The Anaheim Gazette from 1870-1880.. It was the only paper in what would be OC at the time. People are going to find out the paper was decidedly anti-capitalist at the time. They were overtly sympathetic to Socialism. The popularity of The Grange testifies to this sentiment being widespread at the time, especially in Westminster. Local historians will not like this, guaranteed."

My reply: 

It's not really relevant whether today's historians like or dislike what happened in the past. We like finding out "the rest of the story," regardless. The past was what it was, and the point is to dig out, contextualize, and TELL the stories. Considering all the stories you've dug out and shared, you yourself are a local historian, and I suspect you're not upset by any of this. (The past was no less complicated and contradictory than the present.)

I'd also point out that local historians already KNOW this stuff. The original city council of my own hometown of Huntington Beach was *entirely* composed of socialists. It was rather in vogue at the time. (Later, there was a Klan majority. H.B. didn't recall them the way Anaheim did.)

There are indeed folks who might highlight this sort of thing entirely out of context, purely for the shock value (a disingenuous/easy way to get attention), but I don't know any actual historians doing that.

Conversely, there are folks who also *use* history as a Chamber of Commerce P.R. tool and will try to squelch anything that doesn't fit their brochure copy. That's also pretty pathetic and I don't see many local historians doing that either.

One final point about early newspapers: Yes, most of them had strong biases toward one political bent or another and they admitted those biases up front. Folks subscribed to one paper over another based on their political views. I'm not sure the modern B.S. conceit of media being "unbiased" has done the media or the public any favors.