Following that line, we see Opinion Editor Greg Jayne pen Deadly attack on newspaper terrifying – and inspiring where he editorializes on the shooting, pointing out how within hours of the attack, the newspaper in Maryland published their paper in spite of the tragedy.
I have to agree that getting their paper out in spite of such a tragedy, losing five colleagues and undergoing the criminal investigation of the event is a display of dedication on their part.
But then Jayne had to go off on how essential a free press is and pointing fingers about the “Climate of Vitriol” the country is currently embroiled in.
Of course, his finger points only to the right as he mentions a “conservative provocateur” sending a threatening text, mentions a video blasting journalists and naturally, Donald Trump’s anti-media comments.
What Jayne completely ignores is the media’s own culpability in this “Climate of Vitriol” he bemoans.
While I remain no fan of who occupies the Oval Office currently, how does he miss the media’s ongoing slurs and belittling of Trump every day since he was inaugurated?
While President George W. Bush received similar treatment during his terms, culminating on Dan Rather’s now famous memo dubbed “fake but accurate,” we saw no such effort against either Presidents Clinton or Obama throughout their terms in office.
We have even seen what many consider “mainstream media” heavily condemning fellow journalists working for Fox News as they proclaim “we report, you decide.”
Years ago many of us realized how this mainstream media was spoon feeding to us what they wanted us to hear, tainting news reports with leftwing opinion over actual objectivity.
Nowhere has this been more evident than right here in Southwest Washington with our own print media, the Columbian, leading this blogger to dub them the Lazy C for displaying obvious bias in their coverage of two sex scandals, one against a Republican that saw several articles blasting him within a week and another a Democrat that essentially saw appeals to respect his family’s privacy.
But if vitriol is really a concern of Jayne’s, where has the Lazy C ever apologized for former editorial page editor John Laird’s many labels of citizens as “the Hounds of Whinerville,” “NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard),” “CAVE (Citizens Against Virtually Everything)” “Ankle Biters” and “Cockroaches” in his weekly editorials over many years due to the majority of citizens opposing forcing light rail a short distance into our community from Portland, Oregon, a project the paper supported?
How does Jayne ignore former managing editor, now editor emeritus Lou Brancaccio attacking the ones he labeled “the M&M Boys” in nearly half of his Press Talk editorials over four years?
Yet these same editors were silent when it came to elected Democrats slapping heavier taxes on citizens or pushing unpopular positions on us from Puget Sound.
There is little doubt that here locally and nationally we are embroiled in a “Climate of Vitriol” that grows every day with groups like Occupy and Antifa deciding they have the absolute right to takeover whatever they wish, physically attack peaceful rallies with a different position than theirs.
We have seen lawsuits against bakers and florists because they declined to participate in homosexual ceremonies over religious objections applauded by the media, but little condemnation of an employee of the Trump administration ousted from an eatery, then followed elsewhere and faced with an impromptu protest.
We see the media applauding violators of our immigration laws, promoting them as welcome guests and immigrant citizens while belittling most conservative or Republican citizens supporting enforcing our laws.
We see the media time and again speak out against gun violence without a clue how a firearm actually works, blindly throwing support behind any effort to disarm law-abiding citizens, but never editorializing on how to disarm criminals.
Falsely labeling any semi-automatic firearm as “a weapon of war” is only fearmongering and trying to scare voters to support anti-gun legislation.
In the case of the Lazy C, we see bias even in their policy regarding comments left on their site as conservatives are held to standard liberals apparently are not as many conservatives are banned from commenting on their site while liberals post some really vitriolic comments left unchecked.
A “free press” is indeed an essential part of our Republic, but such a free press absolutely must be objective, leaving personal opinion out of news reports, relegate them to editorials and give fair and balanced reporting on all issues, regardless of which side.
First though, maybe we should demand media begin admitting their own culpability in creating this “climate of vitriol” they now complain about.
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