WaPo’s Margaret Sullivan profiles Harrisburg, PA’s WITF, a public radio station devoted to news:
The journalists at WITF, an all-news public radio station in Harrisburg, Pa., made a perfectly reasonable decision a few months ago.
They decided they wouldn’t shrug off the damaging lies of election denialism.
They wouldn’t do what too many in Big Journalism have done in recent months: shove into the memory hole the undemocratic efforts by some Republican elected officials to delegitimize or overturn the 2020 presidential election. …
But Harrisburg’s WITF has gone a different route: They want you to remember. …
The deadly culmination of that anti-democratic lie, the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, solidified their thinking. In late January, the station — whose newsroom includes six reporters and two editors — posted an explanatory story stating that they would be regularly reminding their audience that some state legislators signed a letter urging Congress to vote against certifying the Pennsylvania election results, and that some members of Congress had voted against certifying the state’s election results for President Biden, despite no evidence to support their election-fraud claims.
While some might argue that this constitutes a journalistically impermissible bias in WITF reporting, I find that position hard to credit: the deliberate actions of conspiring to obstruct the confirmation of President-elect Biden in the face of 60+ failed lawsuits, most of which were little more than obstruction, is not a rumor or opinion, but a fact that should be considered an important part of the next election, especially if the members involved run for reelection. In other words, it’s ongoing news that needs to be considered over the long term.
And this is a direct blow at one of the defects of a democracy, one that the Republicans are depending on, if Erick Erickson is any authority:
Continuing down the path [Democratic strategist James] Carville wants of tying the GOP to the January 6th insurrection may make Democrats feel good, but it won’t actually work because (1) the GOP will control redistricting in most states; (2) voters generally like their own congressman; (3) most of the GOP has plausible deniability on the issue; (4) memories are short; and (5) 2022 will be about Biden and Woke-O Haram, which Carville knows isn’t going away and is regularly now amplified by the media and corporate America to the seething resentment of the American public.
[My bold.]
The seething resentment of the America public should be that their Republic was endangered by the emotional five year olds who were manipulated into an attack on the US Congress on January 6th, and Erickson, I note without surprise but great sadness, acknowledges this happened and then proceeds to assert that the Democrats are still more evil than his own cohorts.
If the Republicans howl foul, tough shit. You talked the talk, now you walk the walk. The only part missing will be the heads down in shame. Kudos to WITF!
For the record, Minnesota Representatives voting not to accept the Presidential election results: Michelle Fischbach (R) and Jim Hagedorn (R). Current National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Emmer (R-MN) did not join his Minnesota colleagues, so color me a little surprised that he’s now chairman of the NRCC. The list of Minnesota Representatives who signed on in support of the ludicrous Texas v Pennsylvania lawsuit is comprised of Hagedorn and Emmer.
