Media Friday: Mr. Hutchins, by their fruit shall ye know them, the Durango Herald gets political, and, because it's Friday the Qur'an and Shakespeare
Mr. Hutchins, when it comes to media, by their fruit shall ye know them.
Recently social media by journalists lit up. Pearls were clutched, monocles dropped from eyes, spit takes were popping left and right.
Why? Well it turns out that the newly-minted conservative media outlet/aggregator "Rocky Mountain Voice" (see the first link below) has hired Brian Porter as editor. Mr. Porter who is also president of the board of the Colorado Press Association.**
All this angst was capped by a lengthy rundown I got in my email inbox a week ago. This was the newsletter by Corey Hutchins (CO College Journalism Professor) and I linked to the relevant edition second below. Incidentally, if you are interested in media matters, his newsletter is a good one to subscribe to.
Why the fuss? The contention by the reporters I saw on Twitter, and which is covered by Hutchins, is that Mr. Porter is the concern that Mr. Porter cannot serve two masters.
That is, it's not appropriate for him to work for a partisan news organization, one with ties to the Republican party, while at the same time acting in an official capacity for all the media in the state. Media which supposedly has no outright and explicit political lean or affiliation.
When I first read of this, my reaction was, and still is, "oh please". I remain staunchly unconcerned. Frankly I think that it's about time. Any and all conservatives possible in news are needed as far as I'm concerned.
As for whether or not it's appropriate for someone to work for a partisan/ideologically motivated news organization while at the same time representing media in general, I have no problem. I mean it's not like that seat hasn't been held by people with left-leaning views. Why is this special?
You see there is a fundamental disingenuousness here in both the way the reporters blanched and also in Mr. Hutchins' turning a blind eye: whether or not the association and the political orientation is open (as in the case of Mr. Porter), or subtler as in the case of nearly every single other reporter and editor in the mainstream media of this state, the bias is there. The idea that the media we have now doesn't serve an agenda and, frankly, the party that goes with said agenda, is ludicrous.
As it has been said: by their fruit shall ye know them; I and nearly every other thinking Coloradan knows full well the difference between appearances and actions.
Whether or not a reporter or editor in this state has expressed open support for the Democrats verbally, their actions are filling in all we need to know (and we should also note that the revolving door between PR, government, and media is alive and well both locally and nationally).
We have openly progressive outlets which do not disclose their donors. We have a growing list of news outlets becoming nonprofits and (sometimes) not disclosing who funds them. I'm sure, though, that they are ensuring a mix of funding from all parts of the ideological and partisan spectrum.
We have Rocky Mountain PBS telling its reporters that if they feel a pull to do so, they should openly advocate for abortion on social media. We have reporters like the Sun's Michael Booth whose social media feed is basically a series of hyperpartisan screeds. Why nothing in the world demonstrates the fact that you are politically neutral like rants about Trump/conservatives or taking a public position on abortion.
We have story after story after story whose sources and experts are, if you follow up on who funds them and read about their philosophy quite clearly show they are anything but neutral (and are just as often funded by dark money). And their political lean is always in one direction.
We have reporters doing articles about how Colorado's wage transparency law is working as intended. Their source is an organization which worked on the law and is currently advocating for more of the same. And all of this done without (until I asked) noting this in the article.
So no, maybe none of them are expressing allegiance to the Democrats or openly advocating, but is their behavior far from it? Do you think you're getting neutral viewpoints with the above?
When I have written in the past about how people don't like the media in part because they pee down our back and tell us it's raining, this is EXACTLY what I'm talking about (and if you're a fan, you'll recognize the screengrab above from The Outlaw Josey Wales with it's associated quote).
Don't complain about one form of partisanship while engaging in another yourself.
**Note for full disclosure, I have run a couple op-eds in the RM Voice.
https://rockymountainvoice.com/
https://coloradosun.com/2024/03/23/climate-change-2024-election-colorado-analysis/
Related
The Sun article linked first below is related to something I touch on above.
This article was written by a group called "The Conversation" and shared by the Sun. I attached a screenshot of the bottom of the article and you'll note that the little explainer lists The Conversation as "...an organization we [The Sun] trust to adhere to high journalistic standards."
This is common practice--the Sun and others reprinting things from other organizations. I often wonder at the accountability involved here. I mean, who is minding the store? Who chooses which other organizations get reprinted? Who vets them and their content?
I reached out via email to Mr. Larry Ryckman (Sun editor) to ask him about how they define high journalistic standards and/or what kind of checking they do to ensure their contributors meet those standards.
The responses I got were (respectively and with embedded links left intact):
"We expect them to adhere to SPJ's code of ethics." and "We routinely fact check."
In keeping with what I wrote above, however, I'm like to check. One of those checks is to note who's paying the bills. I went to The Conversation's "About" page (linked second below) which took me to their donors page (third) which led me to look up one of their funders, the Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation (Influence Watch page fourth) which led to the Influence Watch page of one of Gordon's funders, The New Venture Fund which is a liberal dark money group.
In other words, we have a group getting stories in the Sun that were at least partially supported here by liberal dark money and yet they're posted as being trustworthy. Above reproach.
I ask you what fundamental difference there is here between this dark money supported journalism and that of the RM Voice. The rhetoric and sophistication of those who print it? How hard you need to look to find dark money?
https://coloradosun.com/2024/03/23/climate-change-2024-election-colorado-analysis/
https://theconversation.com/us/who-we-are
https://theconversation.com/us/partners
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/gordon-e-and-betty-i-moore-foundation/
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/new-venture-fund/
The Durango Herald says that former CPW appointee Skiba's confirmation "turned political".
As has happened before, left-leaning outlets turn to saying something "turned political" when the reality is that (esp if you ask someone who doesn't share their values) it already was.
The Durango Herald article below is a profile of recently-resigned CPW commission appointee Mr. Skiba. I have written about him, his statements, his beliefs and the associated drama related to his eventual resignation prior to a Senate Ag committee hearing. I will not retread that ground.
The point I want to make in this post is more about the media and others and how they frame these sorts of things. The folks that opposed Mr. Skiba, of course, have their framing and you've seen plenty of it here.
The folks that support Mr. Skiba or are sympathetic to him (and I think it's fair to say the Herald is at least sympathetic) have their framing and you can see plenty of it in this article. It starts with the description you see in the Durango Herald's FB page. I took a screenshot and put it at the top of this post so you could see it.
It characterizes the Senate Ag committee hearing where Skiba was raked over the coals as having "...turned political."
Further on in the article, the Herald says with regard to an effort to block his confirmation,
"A hunter’s advocacy group called Howl for Wildlife created an easy form with which residents could submit pre-crafted letters to their senators opposing the nomination of Skiba, and the two other appointees. 'To their credit, they did a great job,' he said. 'It was very effective. … I didn't appreciate it, but it was.'"
And then the Herald article ends with a last Skiba quote discussing the political divides in this state:
"'However you want to look at that divide, whether you look at it in Colorado as rural-urban or you’re looking at it as red and blue or Republican-Democrat or liberal-conservative – whatever it is – there is a divide,' Skiba said. '… This would have never happened five years ago.'”
As I say at the top, it is common for left-leaning media outlets to label a controversy they fail to see or one they disagree with as something having turned political.
They're welcome to that opinion, but I think it misses something. What it misses (and perhaps this is because there are no or not many conservatives working at the paper and they don't bother to actively seek out/understand such voices regularly) is the fact that this was already political long before the Senate hearing.
Go back 5 years. The political makeup of the state was different. The demographic too. But we also didn't have 4 years of Polis' political crony appointees. We didn't his "Colorado For All" which ignored whole swaths of the state. We didn't have single party control of the entire state which became heavy-handed and ignored the needs, desires, and wishes of whole swaths of the state.
Attend any legislative committee hearing or any board hearing and guess what you'll hear, especially if that hearing is about air quality or etc.? The same canned testimony and form letter reading that the Herald mentions by those that wish for tighter regulation.
Canned testimony is not new folks. Maybe it's new and noteworthy if you're the Herald and you want to paint Skiba in a good light, but groups on the left, right, and center do this and have done it for years now.
No, this didn't BECOME political. This already was and what happened here was not outside the realm of politics we've already seen plenty of in this state.
Perhaps if the Herald took the time to consider other points of view and push them as much as they did Skiba's we'd have a fuller exploration of the dynamics here.
P.s.
One last thing. One of the concerns about Skiba was his alleged sign off on a letter by animal rights group WildEarth Guardians while he was a member of the Stakeholder Advisory Group which was figuring out how to reintroduce wolves. Skiba claims this is a "total, complete fabrication" and the story goes on to say that "Emails reviewed by The Durango Herald show that Skiba declined an offer from WildEarth Guardians interim Conservation Director Greg Dyson to sign onto the alternative proposal."
Not saying this is not true, but I find it sets off my skeptic's alarm when they include an example of the letter written about Skiba but no actual evidence of the emails where he turned down declining WildEarth's offer. Why not include those emails?
https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/how-did-a-durango-wildlife-biologist-end-up-in-colorado-senators-crosshairs/?fbclid=IwAR0uanuFMlhOBVMtfca7-BdPDfykOdttd1oGKIRV2IVooESsqrmTNd1FnAk
Related:
Mr. Skiba's thoughts on resigning his appointment (prior to likely losing it) in an op ed he wrote for the Sun.
Straight from the horse's mouth. Presented without comment.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/03/20/opinion-colorado-wildlife-commission-resign/
Can one book, one author, have such an outsized influence as to change the language itself?
Hit that point in the week again--the last post of the week--and that means something interesting and not related to politics. It will also be the last post til Monday. I am taking Easter off.
I was watching an educational video series on the Qur'an,* the Muslim holy book, and it the lecturer made an intriguing comment.
There is a theory among some scholars, and seeming evidence for, the idea that the Arabic alphabet was refined and shaped by a need to take the Qur'an from a spoken religious "text" to a written text.**
The theory goes that as Islam spread, as the originally-spoken Qur'an was being passed around the Arabian peninsula, eventually there was a need to standardize it and put it in written form. Up until this point the only written forms of the Qur'an were similar to what you see in the screenshot attached--not Arabic in its full spoken complexity, but a series of symbols that acted as a kind of crib sheet for the reciters.
In order to faithfully render the Qur'an and its meanings to written language, a broader palette of symbols were needed to capture the sounds of Arabic. Thus the Qur'an was instrumental in helping shape the written Arabic language.
This idea is not without precedent. As was mentioned in the lecture, similar arguments can be made for Shakespeare and English. His plays were so popular that the structure and syntax of English owes a huge debt to the way he wrote, spelled, and structured his language.
Interesting theories. I put a couple reference links below if you'd like to read up more on English or Arabic (or both).
Have a good end to the week. Back at it Monday!
*Not sure why there's a change in the transliteration there, I've always seen it as Karan before. Also not sure why the apostrophe and how that affects the pronunciation. If anyone knows, please fill us all in!
**Part of this video lecture series included recitations of the Qur'an and, while I speak absolutely no Arabic, it is clear in listening to it in its original language that it was originally spoken and transmitted that way as opposed to via the written word. There is a "flow" or a "music" to the verses when said out loud in the original language.
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-the-english-language-is-shakespeares-language/
https://smarthistory.org/quran-arabic-scripts/