In Sunday’s “Cheesehead Revolution” story, you described the role of Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation as a breeding ground of these GOP policies. But what it failed to mention was Journal Communications’ role as the megaphone for those policies, as the owner of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has consistently favored the GOP when it comes to coverage and analysis of political issues.
A typical Journal-Sentinel editorial page includes numerous Bradley and WPRI mouthpieces such as Christian Schneider, Rick (“I’ll Approve the Redistricting Maps, Just Send 'Em Over") Esenberg, Mike Nichols and John Torinus ample column space every day on the editorial page, without their clear conflicts of interest being revealed. Two times, the Journal-Sentinel has endorsed Scott Walker for governor, and it stood silently while their fellow members at the Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce’s PAC gave over $437,000 to Walker and other GOP campaigns. Journal Communications gave TV and radio shows to factually-challenged Bradley Foundation member Charles Sykes, and also gives 6 more hours of right-wing hate radio every weekday, without anything resembling response time from liberal broadcasters in a County that gives 2/3 of its votes to Democrats. Journal Communications’ executives allow this one-sided programming to air on their stations, and we deserve to know why they chose this road when their radio and TV licenses require them to broadcast in the public interest.
Not only do these shows offer hundreds of hours of free air time for WisGOP politicians, but open records obtained by online media reporters showed that they include scripted interviews with Governor Scott Walker and other WisGOP politicians, with the questions and talking points chosen ahead of time by the staff of politicians. Journal-Sentinel writers have to know some of this “propaganda as opinion” is going on inside their company, and given that there is supposed to be a wall of separation between the newspaper and the radio station, you would think they would jump all over such a juicy story. But your paper's writers don’t go after this story, and we have to wonder if they are being ordered not to report it.
It wouldn’t be the first time, as Journal Communciations has made conscious choices in which stories it will cover during the “Cheddar Revolution.” For example, the newspaper couldn’t print enough stories about alleged voter fraud charges in the Racine Senate recount when GOP party hacks complained about minorities and young people voting. But when real evidence surfaced last week that State Rep. Robin Vos’s wife may have indeed committed voter fraud, the Journal-Sentinel did not investigate the story. The Journal-Sentinel produced several articles detailing the alleged corruption of Milwaukee County Supervisor Johnny Thomas (who ended up being acquitted of all charges), but said next to nothing when a newly-appointed top state official was assaulted by her husband, allegedly because she was having an affair with the man who hired her from out of state, DHS Secretary Dennis Smith. (Smith denied the affair this week, saying he hired Spear because she's a close friend ...which really isn't any better on the cronyism front.)
Critical consumers of media should ask why the Journal-Sentinel made those choices, just like we should ask why the Journal-Sentinel refused to be skeptical of Scott Walker’s alleged job gains during the recall campaign when the official federal figures showed Wisconsin leading the nation in job losses. Your newspaper went as far as to say the national figures were “disputed” when the only people disputing them were Walker and his appointees at the Department of Workforce Development. Allowing Wisconsin Republicans to get away with these lies and deceptions while holding Democrats and liberals to account goes a long way toward explaining how Republicans could gain power so suddenly in Wisconsin over the last 4 years, and institute radical policies that go against the fabric of what used to be a unique and respected state.
With that backdrop, it is not surprising that Wisconsin Republicans such as Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, and Reince Preibus tried to spin so many lies at this week’s Republican National Convention. When the Wisconsin Republicans tried their deceptive spin on issues such as the closing of the General Motors plant and acceptance of racial dog-whistles such as jokes about President Obama’s birth certificate and false claims about Obama’s welfare policies, they thought it would work like it did in America’s Dairyland. After all, Journal Communications allowed them to get away with similar falsehoods and inconsistencies for years as they worked their way up in the ranks in state politics. They found out the hard way when all were humiliated and called out by national media at the RNC who decided to do their jobs as fact checkers, causing Wisconsinites to become laughingstocks for electing such dishonest, foolish people to office. In addition to Chris Matthews' "McAvoy moment" where he turned Reince Priebus into a blubbering fool (mentioned here), Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Al Sharpton let Scott Walker have it for lying about the Janesville GM plant.
The JournalComm-approved “Cheddar Revolution” is also damaging our state’s economy, as other people do not wish to locate in such an anti-services and anti-intellectual place, and many well-qualified state residents are packing their bags and looking elsewhere due to the GOP’s destructive policies. Wisconsin leads the nation in jobs lost both over the last 12 months, and since Walker was retained in office in June’s recall elections. An Aug. 31 manufacturing survey for Southeastern Wisconsin shows the sector shrinking in our part of the country, and the Philadelphia Fed also shows Wisconsin to be in recession while the overall U.S. economy continues to grow and create jobs.
Political power gained through such dishonest methods (both through spin about failed policies and the media’s help in covering up the effects) cannot last for long, and eventually will lead to the fall from power being louder and all the more spectacular for WisGOP. But this state is suffering greatly in the meantime, and wounds have been inflicted that many of us will never forgive or forget. It has turned this state into somewhere many of us do not recognize and are not proud of, and it is in no small part because your paper refused to hold to account the politicians and media members that led to this situation.
Instead, you at the Journal-Sentinel are laughing all the way to the bank, as Journal Communications made huge amounts of recall-related ad money from the controversies generated from GOP policies in the last 18 months. And JournalComm stands to make much more in the next 2 months if it can make Wisconsin seem like a close swing state in November's presidential election. Therefore, I have little doubt you will choose to stay silent on matters where real journalists would call out Paul Ryan for his failed policies and statements. You sure did that on Wednesday, when you waited a full day to start discussing Ryan's and Walker's lies blaming President Obama for the Janesville GM plant closing (the last GM car to roll out of the plant was 1 month before Obama even took office).
Since you have been full accomplices in the "Cheddar Revolution" that threatens to damage this state beyond repair, you at Journal Communciations deserve to be punished over the next few years every bit as severely as Ryan, Walker, Priebus and the rest of the “Cheddar Revolution” thugs will be. And you did it to yourself.
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