The decade long hipster trend among the print dinosaurs involves the rebranding of weekly publications, as bastions for the micro-geographical news cycle.
The trick has worked somewhat, as many of the smaller independent publications still survive thanks to the contributions of repeat advertisers from the surrounding business community. While the printing operations and distribution logistics prove costly, the most obvious detriment is in the quality and experience of the writing staff, as the organizations cannot offer competitive wages in attracting seasoned journalists. As the “fake” news movement continues to sweep through newsrooms like a janitor cleaning up the hair at Fabio’s beauty salon, the reality that borderline news professionals are penning front page articles, creates a toxic combination.
The Bellevue Reporter, which serves the tech heartland and old money affluent community across Lake Washington from Seattle, recently published a news story that throws into question the very basic tenets of journalism. How the piece did not appear in the oped section, instead of the front page, is a complete joke of a mystery and ultimately falls on the shoulder of the newspaper’s editor and publisher. Stunningly, the reporter Raechel Dawson, was able to include her own personal bias, accusations of racism, and a commentary on “white privilege” in simply describing a conflict between two individuals at a Yoga conference. The most startling aspect of the article, is that an egregious act of rudeness and unprofessional conduct is escalated to the level of a racial incident along with a completely one-sided perspective by Dawson. So much for fair and balanced journalism. The reporter did not even bother to contact the individual, who instigated a series of controversial events, which involved limiting the public speaking time of an event attendee.
The editor of the paper, Carrie Rodriguez is clearly at fault for allowing the article to be labeled as a headline. Of course Dawson shares the bulk of the responsibility in attempting to pass off an oped as a news story and dangerously intermixes the concepts of rude behavior and racism. The whole narrative plays out like this; a white person shows disrespect to a minority and suddenly call the ACLU, as the victim mentality emerges, so there must have been bullying and of course some level of bigotry. The extremists literally wait in their parent’s basement for a situation like this to emerge and then pounce on it with fingers pointed in the air and yapping in nonsense, as The View opening theme blares in the background. Dawson chose to cherry pick specific F*&%book comments as quotes in the story. Yikes. Again, the article would have been an acceptable addition to the oped section.
While the Bellevue Reporter will not win any Pulitzer prizes, the newspaper exemplifies just how low the purveyors of drastic political ideologies will go in creating something out of nothing in eliminating the basics freedoms in society.
Read the Bellevue Reporter “News Article” if you dare.
