(This may just end up being our final piece on "The Examiner." But follow to the end to see some good news about who I will be writing for starting tomorrow.)
This is not a "news story" in the strict sense of the word. This is not "satire" either. In newspaper parlance, an article of this nature would be called an "op-ed" -- a piece in which a writer offers his or her opinion on a news story or an issue facing the readership writ large.
In this piece, we will discuss a certain atmosphere of manufactured paranoia and freshly-constructed faux outrage we see across the conservative blogosphere. And we would be guilty of hypocrisy if we didn't take a moment to examine ourselves in the process.
But worry not. We will follow the rules as they were explained to us and allow the chips to fall where they may.
Have you noticed it? If you are open minded, how could you not?
Conservatives, realizing they have nothing to offer in the 2012 election other than "more of the same crap that got this country in the mess that President Obama hasn't been able to clean up yet," have turned to the time-honored tactic of manufacturing outrage and fomenting anger to divert your attention from the real issues, to confuse you, and to convince you -- once again -- to vote against your own best self interest at the behest of the millionaires and billionaires who benefit from low taxes and high unemployment.
This morning, we read a story about liberal columnist Dan Savage talking to the National High School Journalism Convention in Seattle.
Dan Savage. He's the guy who changed the meaning of the word "Santorum." If you don't know what we're talking about, send us an e-mail and we'll explain. Anyway, Dan Savage is an angry gay man who also happens to be an atheist. And, as one would expect in a speech given by an angry gay athiest, Dan Savage said some pretty angry, atheist things.
One of our writers draws on this appearance and uses it as an excuse to bash Savage -- not only for what he said to this group of young, would-be journalists, but for other things this writer finds "shocking" and "offensive."
Our reaction? Don't we expect journalists to be exposed to differing viewpoints? Shouldn't we applaud the people who organized this event for providing a diverse group of speakers?
Apparently not. Dan Savage used "profanity" in his speech that was inappropriate for high school students. This writer is appaled that Savage used the word "bullsh*t" in his remarks. Horror! High school students! Scandalized! Where do we BEGIN to be outraged by this?
But let's not dwell on this single instance. Let's look at other instances of manufactured outrage.
There's a recent story about how the liberal organization "MoveOn.org" said, in a video, that using the word "illegal" in the context of immigration is equivalent to committing a hate crime. Oh, the outrage! Where's my congressman's address? Who is my congressman? Never mind that when one actually watches and listens to the video in question, nobody in the video says that using the word is a hate crime.
The video in question contains a clip of Robert Smith, a professor at Baruch College, saying:
“’Illegal’ functions like a racial epithet. It’s a way of legitimizing violence against a certain group of people because of what they are. That’s the definition of a hate crime.”
We understand that subtle distinctions are lost on many conservatives and shades of grey are all one single black blot for them, but the professor was not saying the use of the word constitutes a hate crime. He was saying that using the word is a way of legitimizing violence against a group of people. And that resulting violence is a hate crime.
But why let the truth get in the way of a good whipped-up outrage?
Why let the fact that there are about 12 members of the New Black Panthers, according to an expert on hate crimes seen on cable news recently, keep us from writing a couple dozen stories about the dangers to decent white folk presented by these thugs and "gangstas?"
Why wait until after a trial to declare George Zimmerman innocent in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager because, as we've stated as fact in our stories, Zimmerman was only trying to defend his life against a brutal, hoodie-wearing black thug with murder on his mind?
Why let things like "facts" keep us from writing stories and getting you good and angry about a poor old man getting his butt kicked for the crime of being white when, days later, the actual cops who handled the actual case said the incident did not happen as reported. Why write a retraction when the original story is still there in our file and we don't have enough respect for our readers to be truthful with them?
Why let "facts" interfere with a good story about how the media across the nation is ignoring an outbreak of black-on-white crime, all in the name of "avenging Trayvon Martin"? One of these stories about how the media is ignoring such cases includes a link to a local TV report in which the local TV station reports the story that the writer says they are ignoring.
We here at Baltimore Liberal Examiner HQ have actually spoken with one of the "victims" of one of these invisible, unreported "black-on-white" crimes and his story has more holes than a well-aged Swiss cheese.
Bottom line. There is a difference in opinion writing and hard journalism. In hard journalism, the reader should not be able to tell what the writer personally believes about the subject. In opinion writing, which is what we do, we expect you to know from which side of the aisle we are reporting. In fact, look at our title! Baltimore Liberal Examiner. Self-explanatory.
But being from one side of the aisle or the other does not give us the right to lie to you and get away with it. We are allowed to, yes, even expected to offer our opinions on things that actually happened. We are expected to link to our sources, although we promised that we would not link to any stories written by any of our in-house colleagues to avoid the appearance of "calling them out."
We should not be free to make things up out of whole cloth, to misrepresent facts, to mold and shape them to fit a preconceived notion that we are trying to get across to our readers. As honorable and decent people from both sides of the aisle, of which there are plenty at this organization, we are free to share our opinions on the issues of the day. But we should not be allowed to use the bandwidth of an organization to invent facts, to foment racial hatred, to misrepresent actual news, to shape it into something it is not.
People who do things like that have no business writing, as independent contractors or otherwise, for any kind of organization that would call itself a news source. That's what blogs are for. One can tell any sort of lie one wishes to tell on his or her own blog and only the blogger is responsible for those lies.
When racist, misogynistic, homophobic and Islamophobic nonsense is given respectable cover by being published under a once-respectable name, and the people who write respectable copy for that organization are threatened or punished for pointing to this fact, this indisputable fact?
There is a problem with that organization.
One can also ask questions about the fairness of an organization that in its top 100 independent contractors, by its own rating system, has only two liberal writers and 15 conservative or Christian religious writers; an organization that in its top 100 list of independent contractors has 52 white males, 40 white females, three black males, one black female, two Hispanic males, no Hispanic females, one Asian male, no Asian females and one male of indeterminate background.
But that's an issue for another time, another column, and probably another writer.
Under our system of laws, an organization is free to offer "independent contractor" status to anyone it chooses. One can form an opinion about that organization based on the diversity of the opinions offered and the diversity of the persons given -- honored, if you will -- by having the opportunity to write for such an organization.
Thanks for your interest. As our father once told us, if you are true to yourself, if you are true to your beliefs, if you are honest and forthright in your dealings with others, you will never have anything to worry about from any honorable person.
We would love to believe he was correct.
*********
In case this is the last time we get to chat with each other, we're hoping that you will take a moment to consider the importance of unvarnished, unpurchased, free progressive thought. We invite you to visit us here and learn more about just what that means.
Thanks again.
++++++++++++++++++
End of sermon. As of tomorrow, I will be a featured writer for Borderless News and Views. (Check out the link at the end of my story... they could use your support!) I have also written an extensive piece on what it's like to be a liberal writer at the Examiner that I am shopping around. Sent a query to "The Nation." Will wait to hear from them. But I'm open to any respectable and well read progressive print or online organization that wants to learn more about what's really going on at this ubiquitous organization with the once-respectable name.