There IS NO First Amendment right to media funding

That's why, per Axios, the Public Broadcasting System and a Minnesota PBS station, and per Corey Hutchins, National Public Radio and member stations in Colorado, are suing over Trump's executive order cutting of public broadcast media funding.

Now, per the Axios story, and Hutchins', cobbling together the details on both, Trump's executive order does reference my header, near the start of the order, before going on to call both organizations, and the funding parent, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, biased.

The question is, what burden of proof, beyond my caveat and Trump's, lies with the plaintiffs?

If the suits have breach of contract and/or executive arrogation of legislative powers in their language, they're probably in better standing.

As for biased? Public broadcasting has done no better job than MSM broadcast journalism on covering third parties, Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war and other things, so this non-duopoly leftist says maybe they are biased, just not in the way Trump claims. As for biased? PBS whoring itself to the David H. Koch Fund for Science has led to its pulling punches on things like the climate crisis.

Related? I recently finished Steve Oney's "On Air," a very interesting look at NPR, from the start, and including its Reagan-era funding reduction, and how they tried to handle that, which was less than totally productively, but without suing the government.

Euphemism creep and the media

 

First, "euphemism creep", or the "euphemism treadmill," per Steven Pinker is a real thing. James McWhorter has also written much about it.

It's when a euphemism replaces a no-longer acceptable term, but soon enough becomes no longer acceptable itself.

Think "handicapped" being replaced by "disabled," then that becoming not acceptable and it being replaced by "differently abled." Some day in the not too distant future, because of the word "differently," that will be replaced as well.

This is a field with enough to mine that I am going to write about this on various spots, including my philosophy and critical thinking blog. But, there as here, I'll use the same starting point — Substacker Corey Hutchins talking about how different media outlets in Colorado struggle (or maybe "struggle" with scare quotes intended) on how to talk about "people who aren't supposed to be here," or if I need scare quotes inside that, "people who aren't 'supposed' to be here."

Or, per old friend Brains, who used it non-disparagingly? "Ill Eagles." 

Here, it's not just ground-level, but, in media, an official style issue, as the Associated Press long ago said both "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien" aren't allows.

I agree for sure with the word "alien." That said, quoting Hutchins, I disagree with the AP already trying to get ahead of euphemism creep three years ago.

“We don’t use the terms illegal immigrant, unauthorized immigrant, irregular migrant, alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented (except when quoting people or documents that use these terms),” the AP wrote. “Many immigrants and migrants have some sort of documents, but not the necessary ones.”

As I said in a comment to Hutchins, why not just add "allegedly" in front of "undocumented immigrants"? 

Per that Shitter link, the AP does offer alternatives. But? Most of them are kind of cumbersome, which undercuts the usefulness of language.

The AP also says that if an official statement has "illegal immigrants" and it's being quoted, quote as is — no bowdlerizing.

However, that's print media. Political interviews, or everyday oral communication, political or otherwise, the issue is not so avoidable.

And, it will get politicized within the media. The story Hutchins writes is about a Fox station in Colorado Springs, which actually wrestled with the issue and edited a website headline. Fox nationally on Fox News? Probably still using "illegal immigrant" and much of its staff not caring. For the likes of Newsmax? Absolutely.

Also, per the authors I cited at the top of the page, this issue tends to get politicized. And, it's usually "conservatives" vs "liberals." Setting aside L/libertarians and some Green types who claim to be neither right nor left, the politicized polarity also ignores friendly skeptical non-liberal leftists.

And, it gets politicized within the media, not just this phrase, but larger issues and related ones.

In my first comment, Hutchins noted that I had used the word "roundup" and he had edited it out of his post, when thinking about using it, as dehumanizing. I noted that I've seen "roundup" in places like a "kindergarten roundup" at a local school district.

I also commented, in a short bit lower in his post, about a Denver TV news anchor wearing a tie from a Soviet journalist to make a statement about the Russia-Ukraine War. I first noted the fact that, pre-invasion, Zelensky was already restricting press freedom in Ukraine. I then referenced Gaza. Hutchins didn't refer to either one.

And, with that, it strikes me that he's probably framing this in a politicized sense, and within the conservative-liberal axis, or, within the two-party duopoly axis.

To me, right-thinking (NO pun, intended or unintended!) people in general should step outside that box. And, media shouldn't step into that box in general. 

(It's also a reminder that we don't have leftist media in the US.)

This leads to another issue, even if not technically euphemistic.

Let us take the "word" (that's a scare quote, not a reference quote, folks) "trans."

I don't use it. It's either a prefix missing a referent noun or adjective, or the first name of an old GM car.

We can talk about "transsexual" or "transgender." 

The final, big picture?

We all should move beyond language that's harmful, but at the same time:

• Recognize the euphemism treadmill is real;
• Avoid politicization;
• Accept we won't please everybody, including readers and listeners as members of the media;
• And, per Humpty Dumpty, never let language be the master. 

And, that's that.

Gainesville Register hits new low

I thought their regional editor, since they no longer have a local editor, has more brains than this, but I stand corrected.

In the ongoing saga of 235th District Court Judge Janelle Haverkamp, defense attorney Michael Lassiter's filing of a writ of habeas corpus for client Michael Newberry, district attorney John Warren signing off on that writ, visiting judge Lee Gabriel officially recommending to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that it order a new trial for Newberry, and Eighth Judicial Administrative District presiding judge David Evans ordering a mandatory recusal of Haverkamp from active and future criminal cases brought by Warren ...

Last week, county judge John Roane decided he had to row his oar.

He wrote a LONG open letter to all local media. The last two paragraphs not only threw Warren, and also County Attorney Ed Zielinski, under the proverbial bus, they had Roane at least approaching, if not sticking his toes over the border of, a certain legal issue.

The local radio station, which really doesn't do news reporting, posted the letter in full on its Facebook page an hour after it came out.

The local shopper-plus paper, which got the letter before its press deadline, unless that deadline has been moved up with a change in its printers, did not. (We will see if it runs this week.)

The CNHI-owned Register, currently a semiweekly in print?

It not only ran the letter in full, it also referenced it in a news story.

The Register does not have a local editor, and has not for almost a year. Instead, it has a regional editor overseeing the CNHI papers in Cleburne and Weatherford as well as Gainesville. Even before Sally Sexton took over Gainesville, she — and CHNI in general in this area — were stretched so thin that (Aledo) Community News owner Randy Keck started an online-only competitor to Weatherford.

The Register has a local staff writer, a Gainesville native in their first journalism job out of college with no journalism degree, whom the regional editor wouldn't allow to touch anything on the matters at hand.

There's additional issues, which happen when you have non-local editors.

There's a number of backstory issues behind Roane's letter, among them that his claims to be trying to mediate two sides aren't true, per comments that may be running around elsewhere. There's also backstory behind the county's would-be original legal contract for a law firm to write an amicus brief for Haverkamp. But, nobody is talking off the record to a rookie reporter, and don't have the relationship with a non-local editor to do that. I don't know if anybody is doing that with either the reporter or the owner of the shopper-plus.

Anyway, I am not linking to any Register coverage nor quoting from Roane's letter.

The decline of audited — and unaudited — circulation accuracy

 We all know in the print bureau that the old Audit Bureau of Circulation's newspaper audits have long ago gone by the boards, and that what counts as paid circulation is more and more a matter of framing and public relations.

That's true enough of a conventional newspaper with a second-class USPS permit.

But, what of a shopper, which was free, like most of them are, but gradually converted more and more of its ZIPs to paid and finished the process about 18 months ago?

I hear things about a "bulked-up" shopper in my area, which did exactly that. I would whack one-third off their circ claims now that they've gone paid. And, as far as I know, they're still on a third-class permit, so they don't have to run an annual postal statement in October on their pages.

RIP to Texas Tribune founder John Thornton

Per this piece, I didn't know that much about Thornton.

To start at the start? Please, get help for mental health needs. (Reading between the lines, it appears to be suicide, and one that perhaps had been looming for some time, sadly.)

On the professional side? This illustrates that philanthropy journalism isn't a savior.

Thornton was a venture/vulture capitalist. Graduated from a "citadel," if you will, for things like that — Stanford Graduate School of Business with an MBA. Worked at McKinsey. And, like many of the modern venture capitalists, though not Hucksterman or Peter Thiel, a techbro, by his investments.

People like him might back a "safe" general interest nonprofit online newspaper like the Trib, but they're not going to back, say, Jacobin. Or Counterpunch. Or Mint Press. 

And, per their political background, they'll be OK with their ventures pulling punches to appease some business interests, as the Trib has before, as I have written about.

Already at the five-year mark, in 2014, the Trib had ethics-type issues.

Jim Moore, former journalist, now political consultant, explains why the Texas Tribune's "pay to play" idea of "journalism," kind of like Politico but on a much broader front, is ethically wrong and more, in a four-part series. (Link from my original writing is dead.)

Arguably, rather than becoming more ethically responsible now that it's theoretically past its teething troubles, the Trib is worse, if anything. 

Moore notes this in Part Four:

In less than five years, the Texas Tribune has gone from being an exciting startup to a hypocritical, money-grubbing promotional operation wearing a coat of many colors that it wants desperately to convince everyone is actual journalism. But it is not. There is no reason to any longer take the Tribune seriously as a news organization. They simply cannot be trusted.

The big brains of the Texas Tribune were supposed to save journalism. Instead, they are busily speeding up its extinction.

And they ought to be ashamed.

Of course, they're not.

Much of its sellout is to largely right-wing big businesses, who make "donations" and in exchange get puff pieces about themselves and their industries. 

The type of businesses Thornton hobnobbed with and vulture capitalists with.

Hell, two years before that, Editor and Publisher has a great synopsis (dead link) of why they're not good for journalism. Three main points.

1. Their news coverage is restricted by wealthy donor interests and pressures. (E&P has specifics in the TT's case, re John Sharp/Texas A&M.) So, no "probing" journalism, if told not to. (That said, I've experienced that at for-profit papers, too.)

2. "Freeloading" by for-profit papers, with the possible result of further salary depression, etc. (We're going to see yet more of that with the Trib's new newsrooms in selected cities. The Waco Trib of Lee Enterprises will be fine with the Texas Trib starting some sort of site in Waco, as long as Lee's paper still gets Waco, Waco ISD and McLennan County legal notices.)

3. Back-scratching for friends. Evan Smith's $315K salary as the Trib's executive editor — in 2012! — has been mentioned by me before. I consider it out of line in general, especially since one of the Trib's "sponsors," Texas A&M, gets taxpayer money.

The first point is something I've seen coming down the point for some time. Rich funders of nonprofit papers, whether individuals or foundations, can steer these papers into boutique journalism, spike or lighten negative stories and more.  

With the Trib?

Especially when it comes to talking Earl, Black Gold, the Texas Tea? The Trib has always been light in the loafers about calling Big Oil to account, let alone following fellow light-in-the-loafers Politico to write something about climate change legal liabilities.

And, successful? As in profitable? Well, maybe. It depends on what metrics and how you analyze them, as we look at Evan Smith's hoorah piece, back in 2019.

OK, first, financials.

$10 million intake and $9.7 million expenses. Yes, you're in the black.

At 3 percent.

A total haul of $76 million over that decade?

How much of that haul is from your "sponsors" in what Moore called pay-to-play journalism? Or that, since that, you demonstrated was pay-to-pay with advertorial journalism?

Let's also not forget that in 2023, the Trib actually laid off people, canning 11 editorial staff.

We start internally, as Trib tries to spin its editorial staff gutting. It is worth noting that part of the cuts are on podcasts; print and digital-print media that "pivoted" to podcasts a few years ago, in yet another version of the tragedy of the commons, oversaturated the market.

The Austin Chronicle has two posts about the layoffs at the Texas Tribune. The first is a big one, for multiple reasons. It notes that, first of all, there will be no more prisons and criminal justice desk at the Trib. However, there are six new hires — none in editorial. All in either general development positions or directly in sponsorship.

Per what I've said elsewhere, the Trib doesn't go in depth on many issues, either. Take a good example of bad, or stereotyped, religion writing. There's no investigative journalism of their own, only what's partnered with Pro Publica.

 

Somehow, I doubt the Texas Press Association will hear from Sam Houston again

About 21 months ago, TPA's monthly newsletter, The Messenger, ran unadulterated, unedited and uncut, a column from the owner of the newspapers in Granbury, Azle and Springtown, about how he was merging the latter two and this would be so incredible.

Incredible, beyond TPA running the column as is, was the braggadocio — and worse — that was in it, as I noted at the time.

But, 21 months later, the Tri-County News (whose name was itself a bit of braggadocio) — is no more, per Austin Lewter's column on page 3 of the March Messenger. Per Austin's reflections in general, yes, rises in postal rates continue to have a bite. But, I don't think that's what happened here. Rather, he had a "unicorn" of sorts who relatively recently retired, and I think that, whether money, job details, a mix, or whatever, he couldn't really find a replacement, for whatever reason didn't really try to sell, and so just pulled the plug to focus on Granbury and Gatesville.

Update, April 4: Azle and Springtown have been resurrected, and Houston's old right-hand person, Kim Ware, is coming back out of the retirement she entered into before the closure. There's surely a backstory there. That said, this brings to light a problem with TPA's website — no search function.

Once again eff the Texas Press

 I DO NOT LIKE the switch made, already last year if not two years ago, to contest divisions in the Better Newspapers Contest.

My weekly newspapers should NOT NOT NOT be PUNISHED — and that's exactly what's happened — by being lumped not only with semiweeklies but