Editorial
As I sat down to write this week’s editorial, preparing to chastise the weakness of state legislators that had protestors escorted from the capital as transgenderrelated bills were up for discussion in Austin, a system crash and computer restart sent me momentarily wandering through the digital landscape, where I discovered questions whose answers I fear could be to true for human consumption.
While I prefer to keep the span of my editorial commentary as close to local issues as I can, when I read a brief email from the Texas Tribune about what I saw as an oppression of the First Amendment, I had to write something. Anytime the government goes out of its way to not listen to people, it just ticks me off, and I was tamping down a blunderbuss of rhetorical wit.
That is until I needed to restart my web-based word processing platform — a Microsoft product for those who are interested in such things — which opened using the company’s browser. Microsoft Edge opened, taking me to a news carousel of pictures with corresponding headlines.
I was already ticked off about Bob Daemmerich from the Tribune’s picture of four DPS Troopers taking down a single protestor in the House gallery — although partly out of jealousy of the fantastic shot. I was further aggravated at the news shared by reporters Alex Nguyen and Sneha Dey.
The brief took me to the entire story, which was thorough, balanced, and accompanied by thoughtful and meaningful photos that captured images of opposing viewpoints. For context, Dey is a general assignment reporter and Nguyen is a fellow at the Texas Tribune.
None of that quality was what I saw at the top of the Microsoft Network’s news carousel. After being bummed to hear a member of the M.A.S.H. cast had passed away, I clicked on a picture of Trump with the headline: “World reacts to brutal Donald Trump news.”
This top-of-the-MSN newsfeed story was authored by Kevin Harrish, a regular contributor to The Comeback, which is where the story is originally linked. I skimmed it, then I read it, then I questioned whether reality even mattered much anymore.
If you lie about being a police officer or pretend to be one, then you can be charged with a felony.
Pretending to be a journalist or presenting unsubstantiated opinion is that of a credible news agency is just fine. In fact, we will put you right at the top of the news feed if it scrapes a few pennies away from Good AdSense.
According to its website: “www.TheComeback.com is a sports fan website and is in no way affiliated with any professional sports team, league, or its Properties. This site is for informational and entertainment purposes only.”
Harrish isn’t a journalist either, nor does he normally cover politics for The Comeback. He typically writes sports stories with headlines like: “Experts reveal horrifying truth about college gambling scandals,” and more familiar-sounding ones like, “NFL world reacts to brutal Tennessee Titans news.”
… at least he’s economical with the words he uses. Which is good, especially when around 160 of the roughly 300 words used to craft this Trump-insider news came from the Citizens for Ethics website, which is a non-profit watchdog group known on the internet as the CREW.
“CREW counters corruption, exposes dark money, and fights for accountability for the insurrection. We’ve had real success in holding insurrectionists accountable, but 2023 will bring our biggest fight yet,” is what the organization states on its website.
Then they ask you for donations. After all, there is a lot of time and effort that goes into government watchdogging, and filing civil cases that get dismissed due to lack of evidentiary merit takes funding.
At the end of it all, I felt pretty silly about being so upset about the repression of speech. I realized the Texas House Speaker and those nice officers were simply giving that outspoken man the grace to go home and take his daily dose of anti-truthtamines.
Once the Rupert Zukerberg Times Google launches its media network under the new journalism motto: “Like you have any choice but to believe us,” I’m sure we will all have much less to protest. I know I will feel much better about the ethical dissemination of accurate information when the next shelter-in-place orders are given.