Should local politicians respond to negative news stories?

Yesterday - Prince George Mayor Shari Green responding to an upcoming MacLeans' article which says Prince George is #1 for being the 'Dangerous City in Canada' when StatsCan information says otherwise

Watch a video from CKPG-TV below, read a story from CBC-BC here and one from the Prince George Free Press here and the Prince George Citizen here:



For myself - unless media stories clearly do not have their fact straight, then I don't think locally elected officials should respond to media stories which may put their municipality or electoral area in a bad light.

By doing so - they very well may end up giving the story more credibility and thus more people buy the newspaper/magazine then if the elected official(s) hadn't bother to respond in the first place

SBF