What Does It Take

Back in the first decade of the 2000's, I cancelled my Star Tribune newspaper subscription.  The Strib, like most newspapers, had become a hollow shell of its former self, with less and less news content.  They had also become a right leaning paper.  I'm not talking about the editorial page (I'll come back to that) but rather the stories themselves had become unapologetically Republican.  A Democratic politician would do something wrong, and it was top of the front page, above the fold, with three weeks of team coverage, but a Republican politician doing something far worse would be buried deep in the B section, with the reporters and editors themselves making excuses for why they didn't feel the story warranted more coverage.

The reason the mainstream media in this country (mainly regional newspapers and local network television stations) shifted dramatically to a more pro-Republican perspective is due to two things.  Right wing business people were buying up media in the 1990's, closing newsrooms, gutting news staff and pretty much annihilating investigative journalism.  This got rid of quality content, replaced with a shocking amount of GOP talking points reported as 'news.'

The other way the right controlled the news came in the form of advertisers.  Far right wing businesses would advertise, but only if the news reflected their values.  With editors far more obliged to do what the sales department demanded, they drove the news media's direction to the right, ensuring they'd be able to make a buck.

The final straw for me, in regards to the Star Tribune, was a stretch of four weeks of Sundays about 15 years ago.  For those four weeks, the Sunday Editorial section was all FAR right wing garbage, easily disproven lies which mysteriously weren't fact checked by the Strib's editorial board.  All the major editorials in those Sunday newspapers were unforgivable partisan drivel; GOP talking points given validity by the paper.

After the 4th week, I called the paper and asked if this was the new standard.  The perky customer service rep insisted it was okay because the Democrats were allowed to respond in the Monday edition of the paper. Considering the Sunday edition of the paper was read by somewhere in the area of 2.5 to 3 times more people than the Monday paper, this was an admission by the paper their were trying to drive a narrative.  Thanks, but no thanks.

(For the record, today I do have an digital subscription for work, mainly for sports)

For those who think the news media stopped moving towards the right when Obama became President, think again.  They got worse.  I remember when I caught the Strib publishing a 'letter to the editor' from a CEO from a major banking group in town.  They never once identified the banker for his obvious ulterior motives, instead portraying him as a regular guy who happened to drop a letter in the mail.  If I were to write a letter to the editor and try to pass it off as 'Matt from Hopkins,' there's no way the paper would publish it without making sure everyone knew it's the liberal radio host in town.  Heck, let's be honest, they would've never published it period.

I started noticing the comical crowd size double standard in the Twin Cities news media about 10 years ago.  A right wing political event would happen and the coverage was "large crowds, big turnout, more than expected rallied."  The media was usually exaggerating about 100 right leaning people OR LESS.  Sometimes it was just a few dozen rightos.  In the case of the pro-Confederate flag rally, it was six!  No matter the turnout, a right wing rally or event was always a rousing success!  But when a few thousand people would show up for a liberal event, the narrative was "less than expected, smaller crowds, and unknown number of protesters."  Many times the news media wouldn't even cover a liberal rally or event at all.

The best example of this was Scott Walker coming to Hudson, Wisconsin for a rally.  Twenty three people showed up to support Walker.  23!!!  Meanwhile, well over 200 people came to protest Walker.  The Twin Cities news media reported the complete opposite, "big turnout for Walker!"  I think KARE 11 was the ONLY station to mention the protesters, as an afterthought; "a counter protest also took place."

Where the news media in this town is at today is VERY scary.  Over the last few years, there have been multiple stories which are UNDENIABLY NEWS, stories which made Republicans look bad, not intentionally but factually.  Considering the positions of power and places where these stories occurred, the news relevance was clear.

• Former Republican Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt had his credit card debt forgiven (a rare feat in this day and age) and the legal team which helped him with his mysterious debt forgiveness had a lobbying wing in St. Paul.
• Republicans told North Minneapolis' predominantly African American population they were on their own after a tornado hit their community; how they needed to pull themselves up by their own boot straps.  They never seemed to have a problem with emergency tornado relief before the inner city strike.
• Representative Jim Newberger  made a racist comment on the Minnesota House floor, targeting the predominately African American population in North Minneapolis.
• Republicans called a man to testify that he'd stolen months and months of food assistance, just to prove a millionaire could abuse the system.  No one verified the forms he filled out for attaining the food assistance, to ensure he wasn't lying (hence a crime).  No journalist asked why the Republicans were suddenly embracing fraud.
• While the media did cover the accusations of sexual misconduct against former Rep. Tony Cornish, they were shockingly silent when a disgraced Cornish returned to the Capitol a few months after being forced to resign, seemingly there to threaten and intimidate the former Democratic Representative Erin May Quade, who had initially accused him of inappropriate harassment.  
• GOP candidate for Attorney General Doug Wardlow was accused by multiple former classmates of being an extreme bully while in high school.  After Wardlow challenged the accusations, more classmates came forward with more stories of extreme bullying.
• Republican representative Cal Bahr called for violence against Democratic Legislators who were writing common sense gun regulations.  He called for them to be thrown to the curb, stomped on, and then run over a few times.  He made these threats in the Capitol itself.  His excuse was he was only talking about the bills, not the people writing them.  That excuse is counterpointed by the video showing him CLEARLY making the threats to the politicians themselves.
• Republican Representative Tony Jergens, throwing a temper tantrum after an amendment failed in the Minnesota House, verbally and physically threatened Democratic Representative Jamie Becker-Finn in the House annex.  It was a loud threat, heard throughout the House, and reports stated Jergens had to be physically restrained.

Wow!  All of those stories are undoubtedly newsworthy.  Outside of City Pages and Bluestem Prairie, most of these stories got little if ANY coverage in the Twin Cities newspapers (Star Tribune, Pioneer Press), television stations (KARE, WCCO, KSTP, KMSP) or other media groups (MPR).

Why?  I had no idea until the Wardlow story broke.  The reason the story broke was due to a call to my radio show where a caller explained the bullying from his perspective.  I was shocked.  I posted the story online, linking to most of the Twin Cities news media. "Here's the GOP candidate for the AG's office being accused of extreme bullying."  Nothing.  Flabbergasted, I contacted a few journalists I knew directly, saying here's the story, here's the bullied person's phone number, and please do not feel any need to include me or the radio station in the story.

One journalist told me directly: "Matt the story is definitely news worthy, but because it originated from you, I can't report on it without drawing criticism of being the 'liberal media'."

Sweet Lord...putting aside the acknowledgment the story indeed had merit, the criticism would be coming from people who want to see Wardlow as Attorney General, hence their criticism should be taken with a grain of salt.  I'm pretty sure I was one of the first people in town to talk about most of the above stories.  Now I have to ask how many of those stories were buried because I committed the crime of talking about them first?

Now we have an even more damaging story.  Last Monday, the 8th, I was made aware of a young man dying.  Jesimya David Scherer-Radcliff (Jesy) died due to rationing insulin.  As tragic as that story is on it's own, it has added depth when you consider Jesy was working two jobs and yet still couldn't afford the skyrocketing costs of insulin. Jesy was a person the Emergency Insulin Act was designed to save, someone working as hard as he could but still could not afford the life saving medication.  The Emergency Insulin Act was ruthlessly killed by Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka and the Senate Republicans at the end of session, likely due to big Pharma lobbying to kill a no brainer bill.

This would be the first person who would've been saved by the Emergency Insulin Act, instead he was the first (to my knowledge) to die since Gazleka and the Republicans decided it was better to hand a death sentence to the poor rather than 'waste' tax dollars saving these human beings. The merits of the story are undeniable, as Republicans across the state should have to answer why weren't they trying to schedule an emergency special session to fix this.  Instead, nothing...well at least for a few days.  KARE 11 finally wrote a story about it on Friday the 12th, but for the most part, the rest of the media decided to give the Minnesota Republican Party ANOTHER pass for their inexcusable behavior.

I don't know what we can do to fix this, but let me say to all news editors and journalists, if there is a story which originates from my radio show, which is undeniable news which should be reported, then:

LEAVE ME OUT OF IT!!!

My ego doesn't need to be stroked.  Leave me out of it and report the news...you know, do your job!  At this point, your reluctance to look at the Republican Party's indiscretions and mistakes neutrally is getting pretty damn scary (and unAmerican). 

Then again, we're now witnessing the Twin Cities and national news media going out of their way to not call Trump's latest undeniably racist tweets racist, preferring to report on the racism as someone else making an accusation.  If we're the point where most journalists are unable to say "water is wet," then news media may be too far gone to save.