Do Wisconsin newspapers need to be occupied?

I mentioned before how the pro-Walker nature of Wisconsin media is destructive in this ongoing debate and recall, but we saw a couple more flagrant examples of it in the last week, and it needs to be exposed and discussed.

First, The Wisconsin State Journal's Clay Barbour and Mary Spicuzza wrote a pathetic column blowing off the video showing Scott Walker lying to the Oshkosh papers before the 2010 election. I understand the State Journal is run by Lee Enterprises and went against 2/3 of Dane County voters by endorsing Walker in the 2010 election. But to say that showing the current Governor lying about the benchmark move that he was planning to do - he claims in the video that "you have to negotiate" changes, which Walker never did with the state or local public employees' union - is "underwhelming" is the mark of a newspaper that cynically wants the story to go away instead of performing real journalism. It's a pathetic, cynical copout by Barbour and Spicuzza to not compare Walker's words to his later actions and hold him accountable, and it shows that they value their paycheck more than doing a public service.

Of course, this leads to another question on that video. Why was Jud Lounsbury on Uppity Wisconsin the one to reveal this deception when the Oshkosh Northwestern did the interview 17 months ago? Where the hell was the Northwestern when Act 10 blew up and tens of thousands of us were protesting the bill around the Capitol? They had this tape in their possession where Walker says negotiation is a major part of working with public sector unions, and then Walker went back on that word? Did the Northwestern choose to bury the video because it was an inconvenient truth, and to whom? The editorial board also endorsed Walker over Barrett, and a non-cyncial reading of their endorsement shows that they were absolutely tricked into doing it.

A few cautionary points have emerged on the campaign trail as well. Walker's ultimate success as governor will depend greatly on his ability to work constructively with state employees. He must not fall into the trap of demonizing state employees. Additionally, steps that would undermine Wisconsin's burgeoning biotechnology industry would be a blow to an economic growth engine for the future.

Uh yeah, looks like you guys in Oshkosh missed on that one. Walker DID demonize state employees and has never stopped for the last 13 months. And how's that technology sector working out for us when Walker has cut the hell out of education and the UW System that is a main reason the state had a "burgeoning biotechnology industry?," and the state has lost 1,900 jobs in the "Professional, Scientific and Technical Services" sector of the economy over the last year. So why aren't you showing some pride and being PISSED at this, and why didn't you respond by releasing the tape and admitting you made a mistake by endorsing this bum? Was that an inconvenient truth to Walker, to your owners at Gannett, or to the corporations that pay for your ads? What media chooses not to report on is every bit as important as what they choose to report, and the State Journal and Oshkosh Northwestern's dismissal of a clear deception by the sitting governor is dereliction of their duty to the public.

(By the way, they weren't the only ones who have Walker pre-election interview where he lies about his plans to "drop the bomb", as Lounsbury is back again with a Wisconsin Eye video where Walker mentions negotiations and furloughs, but never mentions the removal of collective bargaining rights. Why is it bloggers like us that have to bring these things to light when "professional" media is pulling down a nice paycheck to allegedly find these things out?)

Now let's turn to the Walker-endorsing Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, who pulled another of their classic cop-outs by saying it wasn't Walker's fault that Wisconsin's jobs picture is so bad. I'll let you read John Peterson's excellent takedown of that bullshit for a deeper look into it, but I'll add a couple of other notes to it.

First, the J-S claims the budget "is in balance." That is an absolute lie, as the J-S themselves covered last month's LFB memo which indicated Wisconsin had a $208 million deficit in the Walker budget due to low revenues and job growth, and there was a J-S editorial written by GOP Rep. Dale Kooyenga complaining about the state's $3 billion GAAP deficit. Does the J-S editorial staff read their own damn paper? Or is it because Journal Communications' CEO Steven Smith lets his fellow officers on the Board of Directors of the pro-Walker Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce write the editorials instead of J-S writers? Peterson also rightfully calls out this passage:

Politicians are always eager to offer simple solutions; voters sometimes are too eager to believe them. The real reasons elude such mushy thinking. Whatever is the matter with Wisconsin - if, indeed, anything is - has a whole lot more to do with business conditions here and elsewhere than it does with the actions of any single politician.

Except that any breakdown of the last 12 months would tell you that Wisconsin has fallen backward while the rest of the country's job growth has picked up, and that we have the worst economy in the Midwest since Walker's budget was signed. So the "business conditions" are unique in Wisconsin, and few places have had the radical changes in funding of public services and worker rights that Wisconsin has. So yes, we should be correlating it to a single politician (Scott Walker) and a party (the GOP) that backed these devisive measures. And you know who agreed with that sentiment? The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board when it endorsed Walker in 2010. In their endorsement, the J-S gives a ridiculous theory that Walker wasn't responsible for any part of Milwaukee County's "persisting dysfunction" and that he had somehow put the County on the rght track when the same newspaper reported 2 weeks prior to the editorial that the County was on the brink of bankruptcy after 8 years of Walker. But also check out these couple of passages from the bilge they spewed to back up the MMAC's and WMC's boy.

Scott Walker has said repeatedly during his campaign for governor that he will develop strategies to create 250,000 new jobs during his first term.

It's a big promise - one that has been derided by his critics. But for the sake of Wisconsin, Walker had better be right....

There can be no more kicking the can down the Wisconsin road. If there is one thing Walker has shown in his tenure as county executive, it is an abiding intolerance for the failures of business as usual.

But now that Walker's failing on an historic level when compared to the rest of the nation on jobs, and now that our budget deficit still persists and in fact will expand in later years due to excessive borrowing in 2011 and 2012, Walker somehow shouldn't be held to account for it. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. You know, J-S, 90% of this state isn't stupid enough to listen to your company's right-wing propaganda on WTMJ, and unlike the listeners of 620, it's insulting to us when you think we'll forget what you said in the past. And you wonder why I haven't paid a cent for that newspaper in over a year, and the same for the WSJ?

When you see developments in the last week where the State Journal, Oshkosh Northwestern and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel clearly cover up for Scott Walker despite having mounds of evidence that counteract the Governor's claims, how can you not question who's calling the shots? It doesn't seem like the reporters are doing it to me, it looks like the corporate bosses and advertisers that's telling the paper what to say...and more importantly, what not to say. It angers me that I and many others across the Cheddarsphere feel we have to constantly publish on sites like this in order to get truth and reality out, because the MSM refuses to do their job. And unfortunately, a lot of people still believe the corporate media has legitimacy in Wisconsin, when a lot of them are nothing more than moutpieces for the WMC and other oligarch organizations that couldn't give a shit about the average Wisconsinite.

It tells me that not only do we have to step up the strength and volume of our work here and in other blogs over the next 3 months, but we also need to be actively drawing attention to the corporate puppetry that has taken over the editorial boards in many of our state's largest and most influential newspapers. In addition to occupying banks, I think we might have to start occupying Journal Communications and 1901 Fish Hatch in Madison, to let these people know that we're onto them, and we will make them pay if they assist in allowing this destructive administration to keep perpetuating this fraud on the Wisconsin that we care for a lot more than Scott Walker and Friends ever will. Either they shape up and start telling the truth, or we'll take them out every bit as much as we're going to take out Walker and his enablers at WisGOP over the next 8 months.