The Hill is a reliable publication for, as the name suggests, Congressionally-relevant news. Though not as nationally renown as the Washington Post, robust as Politico, or as inside-Beltway as Roll Call, it’s a DC publication that nonetheless offers a lot of great content.
Unfortunately, it also offers a lot of space to not-so-great content. While reporter Timothy Cama’s numerous pieces are always solid, the opinion section has a reputation for having a fairly low bar for entry. Case in point from the last couple days- Cama covers the DoE pushback, Zinke pick, and the prominence of oil allies in Trump’s cabinet. But on the opinion side, it’s published a couple of doozies.
For example, yesterday we mentioned the Politico piece that asked if Rick Perry is dumb. Today we happened to come across his college transcript, which shows more D’s than A’s, suggesting an answer. In contrast to Politico’s in-depth reporting, The Hill published a fawning op-ed on Perry, and how great he’ll be for the Department of Energy. Putting aside the (poor) quality of its argument, it reads more like the sort of thing one might expect to receive from a flack at a sleazy PR shop than the careful analysis expected in a savvy political outlet.
After reading through to the end, you see it was, in fact, written by founder, president and CEO of a Texas-based public relations firm Crosswind Communications. Though a brief scan for connections between the company and Perry didn’t turn anything up, the piece reads as little more than a pitch for his patronage.
In an even more nauseating and just as fawning op-ed, Doug Domench talks about the Heritage/TPPF all-day-denialthon as though the insular event was “Speaking Truth to Power.” Though his byline acknowledges his position at TPPF, for some reason he neglected to mention that his daughter prepared Rep. Lamar Smith’s remarks (a detail we reported last week.)
It’s pieces like these two that make it hard to get excited about other quality content there, like Cama’s reporting or NJ Rep. Frank Pallone Jr’s op-ed about how Pruitt is bad for the EPA. There’s no doubt that there are well-written and cogent conservative views they should publish, but all too often it seems less like intelligent opinions and more like, literally in this case, shameless PR.
Despite already having a reliable outlet in Breitbart, this may be an indication that the Trump team will make it a priority to use this outlet and attempt to become King of The Hill. Let’s hope not though, since we’d hate if the Hill turned into Pravda-light. That would force solid reporters like Cama choose between finding a more respectable outlet or staying there and risking (Mike) Judge-mental mutterings of “That boy ain’t right.”
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