USA Today finds papers fall prey to an industry-wide woke culture.
Recent podcast appearances on the Lie-Able Sources Podcast, Gannett Company (publisher of USA Today) announced that it would be removing its opinion pages content. This publishing company was reducing the number of feature days or removing all op-eds and syndicated columns. It also eliminated political endorsements, letters of the editor, cartoons, political cartoons, and letters to the editors.
Cost-cutting efforts were a part of the reason. With an eye to revenue, they won’t be spending free on national column writers or other content. The announcement was also made. There are some more unorthodox revelations The parent company. The issue was discussed by a committee made up of editors representing Gannett’s network.
Not only are editorials and opinion columns “among our least read content,” the committee said, but they are “frequently cited” by readers as a reason for canceling their subscriptions.
Although it sounds like there may be a moment of clarity for editors, an additional aspect emerged that revealed the true source of the problem. The environment in which journalists are expected to present an impartial viewpoint is biased.
Readers this week reacted to the news by telling the media company to hire ‘writers that aren’t left-wing activists.’ Americans’ faith in the media has nose-dived in recent years thanks largely to the widely left-wing bias of many national publications and news networks.
It is an even more pointed criticism that news organizations have largely overlooked. David Mastio (an ex-journalist at Gannett) confirms that it is true. He recently departed the company – forced out, essentially – after decades of working with them. He wrote (ironically!) an opinion article in the NY Post Mastio describes an infrastructureGannett isn’t just self-destructive, but it has also been seen in major newsrooms lately.
Mastio described a process he went through at USA Today last fall when he dared to make a Twitter post with a controversial position – he said that women were the ones who got pregnant. Mastio’s comment came in reaction to a piece published that said trans men can be pregnant. Mastio received a warning from the journalist that he should delete his comments. His words had caused him physical harm.
“My bosses told me that if I was to retain any position at USA Today I would have to remove these abusive tweets. They were hurtful to LGBTQ activists as well as journalists.”
In our modern society, this silence has been tiresome. Disagreements are now “personal attacks,” political positions “create an unsafe environment,” and divergent opinions are “threats of violence, or cause pain.” This is an infantilism that is not only taking root, it is being fed and encouraged in newsrooms, for some damned reason.
Mastio was finally expelled for the hateful act of speaking out on a subject.
Now, I have been an opinion journalist for 30 years — I thought I was authorized to have opinions. In a flash, the idea that pregnant women are scientifically proven to be false has been relegated to mere opinion and thrown out of the public eye.
This reality is equally sad and humorous. Look at the rapidity with which this new anti-science positioning become mandated — and the position of the paper as well has shifted with it. When an opinion writer wrote a column and received backlash, the paper would reply with a shrug. Instead of expressing an opinion, they would express their view. It would not have been accepted by everyone. After all, that was the starting point for the op-ed.
But not anymore. Newsrooms now have to adhere strictly to a set of thought rules. Look at how Gannett addressed Mastio’s crime of thinking independently. He was required to attend a session on corporate struggle.
But the LGBTQ Employee Resource Group and the newsroom “diversity” committee thought I should be fired. This makes me anxious. No, I don’t worry for me. I’ll be fine. As a hetero-cis cis white man, I enjoy all of the privileges that come with being a cis cis. I learned this in my Gannett-mandated diversity course. It would be microaggression to complain about me, which I have also learned through Gannett training.
While this could be dismissed as a lone opinion, Mastio’s words take on real heft when balanced against stories that have emerged from other newspapers in recent years. Bari Weiss has left The New York TimesBecause the young, woke journalists were against the idea that she was a centralist member of the staff. She was an obvious threat and her sophomoric attitude that the paper should be inclusive made it impossible for the paper to continue.
Don McNeil (a highly respected journalist in health reporting) was dismissed after using a racial epithet. The incident occurred in conversation between McNeil and students regarding an episode at their school. McNeil tried to determine what was said to give his opinion. Staff members exploded into outrage, claiming all kinds of threats, offenses, and pain. McNeil made these remarks years ago in an inoffensive manner in another nation. The matter had been addressed by management before he spoke. So it was his apology.
It was necessary to end his 47-year tenure at the Times. Of course, this did not prevent the Times from lobbying the Pulitzer committee to not punish the paper over the incident and it did eventually win, on the strength of much of McNeil’s work.
The Washington Post also experiences many of these unbalanced attitudes. Editors have tolerated Taylor Lorenz’s ethical failings on a regular basis, even though she exhibits the same behaviour in her work. The episode with Felicia Sonmez typified this mentality, as she sought to cancel Dave Weigel over a retweeted joke, and proceeded to lash out at the paper’s intolerable permissiveness for a week.
The news industry is facing a major environmental challenge. The woke mentality that has impacted news delivery has been known for years. We now see this with Gannett to give you an idea of just how wide-spread it is. Beyond USA Today, Gannett There are more than 250 news media outletsIt is widespread across the country, especially if it affects its newspaper networks.
Mastio is only confirming what Gannett’s editorial conclave determined: This woke intolerance is repelling the news audiences. The wrong solution is to eliminate opinion content. It is clear that America is split. So why not serve both ends? Gannett instead resorted to homogenized opinions that permeated hundreds upon mastheads and repelled readers.
This is a typical example of flawed thinking within the news media. They choose not to appeal to everyone and draw in more people. Instead, they eliminate all alternative views, appealing ultimately to none. This only results in more journalists leaving the sector, as polls repeatedly show. This perpetuates their irrelevance.
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