By: The Family Policy Council of West Virginia
Jan. 29, 2018
Too Much Liberal Bias Ends Charleston’s Biggest Newspaper
West Virginia’s Most Liberal Paper, The Charleston Gazette, Files Bankruptcy
For decades The Charleston Gazette newspaper has been the most liberal media print partner of progressive causes in West Virginia. Now after moving so far left that the average citizen could no longer stomach the blatant political bias, the paper comes to an unceremonious end.
While holding themselves up as the lead voice for social justice warriors in the Mountain State, the Gazette’s bias became so distasteful that not only did readers abandon them, but so did key vendors and lucrative advertisers. The Mayor of Charleston, Danny Jones, said today the Gazette filed for bankruptcy and they announced layoffs of perhaps 200 employees in March.
Allen Whitt, President of the Family Policy Council of West Virginia, said, “Rarely was the Gazette capable of, or perhaps I should say, was the Gazette willing to, write a fair story about The Family Policy Council.
Nor were they willing to be fair about other pro-life groups or about pro-freedom politicians in West Virginia,”
The Gazette was an attack dog against any public figure or business that backed a pro-life cause. Like when the West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, publicly investigated claims against a local abortion mill, he was excoriated and mocked by the Gazette for defending the unborn.
Any Republican or any Democrat for that matter, who stood up for religious freedom during the 2016 legislature fight for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, were called bigots and hate mongers. In article after article first amendment defenders and lovers of innocent babies were attacked by multiple Gazette reporters. At the end they didn’t even attempt to hide their role as the mouthpiece for the Democrat party and progressive political causes.
During the 2016 elections cycle, one Gazette reporter, Erin Beck, openly mocked a Republican candidate for the House of Delegates. She did so for no other reason than he was a hard working guy who owned a scrap metal salvage business and he got dirty every day at work. She did so in the comments of a Gazette story online while defending one of the state’s most liberal politicians. That was typical of the holier-than-thou attitude of the reporters and the editorial staff in general.
This day of reckoning has been coming for a while for that paper.
Some sources reported that the Gazette’s market penetration had already dropped to only 17%. So the loss to the local media market won’t really matter all that much. The pain will be felt the most by Charleston’s progressive activists as their bullhorn perhaps falls silent. Or at least it’s about to get a good scrubbing with corporate Lysol. A larger paper chain is eyeing the Gazette as a possible acquisition out of bankruptcy.
Whitt also said, “We feel for the children. We share concern for the families of the guys running the presses or the delivery drivers or the type-setters. But there is no mistaking that the editorial board and the progressive owners of the Gazette are to blame for the coming hardships of the 200 plus employees that are soon to be laid off.”
The paper’s bias, against voters who elected President Trump by the widest margin of any state, just reached an unbearable level and it cost them their company. If they had given the reader a fair and unbiased newspaper then just maybe they wouldn’t have been tossed into the Chapter 11 car-smasher. Where if they exit the other side, they will likely do so as a McNews outlet of some kind.
*The Family Policy Council of West Virginia is The Mountain State’s leading conservative policy group championing social issues. The group positively influences state laws, state lawmakers and state elections to defend the constitutional right of religious freedom for the state’s families and churches.
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