There’s an old saying in journalism that a reporter’s job is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. Every J school grad worth his or her salt knows this central tenet describes how media should hold the powerful accountable while lifting up the voice of the disadvantaged. The importance of this saying has grown in sincerity since its origin: the Chicago Evening Post satirist who first penned the phrase in 1902, intended it to be taken as a criticism of a press who fawn over the powerful and attack the weak.
A hundred and fifteen years later, it looks like the satirical version of this journalism golden rule may be a better way to describe the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page choices. Yesterday, the Journal’s opinion editors gave a Valentine to Rebekah Mercer, allowing the billionaire funder of Breitbart who has a direct line to the President she funded to defend herself in their pages.
Apparently Mercer feels like the calls for her ouster from the board of the American Museum of Natural History are unwarranted--she claims she is “deeply committed to research and the scientific method.” She laments how she has been described as “supporting toxic ideologies such as racism and anti-Semitism.”
But it’s hard to look at her support for Breitbart and take her words for face value. That outlet has, after all, sought out editorial advice from neo-Nazis, espoused misogyny and anti-Semitism, and featured an entire vertical labelled “black crime.” In the op-ed, she says Breitbart will be better without Bannon as a way to distance herself from his toxic ideology. But it’s also worth remembering Mercer disavowed Bannon after he badmouthed President Trump.
In addition to Breitbart and the climate denial organizations we know and love (Heartland, Heritage, Cato, etc.), the Mercers also fund the Media Research Center, which exists to attack the mainstream media for supposedly being liberally biased. (Note: mainstream media outlet Washington Post just hired Koch brothers mouthpiece Megan McArdle.)
Unlimited donations like Mercer’s contributions to Breitbart and fringe denial organizations--and like the $36 million the Mercers have given to the GOP--are only allowed because the Citizens United decision set the precedent that donations are a form of protected free speech.
If money is speech, then what Mercers fund under First Amendment protections can be considered their speech. And since the Mercers also fund Citizens United, they are likely well aware of this.
Through Breitbart, which sent reporters to Alabama to discredit the Washington Post’s reporting about the Roy Moore despite believing the accusations were credible, and through MRC, Mercer money is directly contributing to the deliberate delegitimization of the free press which informs our democracy.
Free speech means you’re free to say anything. It doesn’t mean you’re free from social repercussions. Through her donations, Rebekah Mercer has said millions of things, many of which are patently untrue and intended to muddy the waters of what facts are real and what are alternative facts. Only now that her efforts have been exposed does she appear worried about paying the price.
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