The Enemy of the Free Press is the Free Press

Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is convinced that freedom of expression and freedom of information help to ensure an informed public.—Nobel Prize Committee

As a political ideology, diversity, equity, and inclusion, has proven time and again to be against freedom, reason, and truth. Proponents of the ideology tend to be hypocrites and anti-white racists, and as unoriginal as it gets, as unquestioning and unchallenging as it gets. Sadly, the top priority for Anne Brennan, new editor of the Gannon corporate-media-controlled Cape Cod Times, is … diversity, not “free, independent and fact-based journalism” (see above quote). Brennan serves as an example of a general trend.

How to rise to the power-position of a newspaper editor? Well, just follow the prime rules for how to be a loyal lackey. Rule #1: do not make waves. Rule #2: do not buck the system. Rule #3: do not go against the grain. The same rules, of course, apply to how to become a favored newspaper columnist or tenured professor or poet laureate. And so society ends up not with courageous, truth-telling individuals at the helm, but rather with in-lockstep conformists, the kind the local chambers of commerce adore. Money rules and always has ruled. Money controls the corporate press, certainly not truth.

Brennan boasts: “Last year, I shared my plans to increase the inclusivity of our coverage and to diversify our newsroom staff so that Cape Cod Times reporters, editors and photographers mirror the demographics of the Cape’s population by 2025.” She does not at all mention striving towards unbiased, rude-truth reporting as a goal and covering stories that her corporate bosses might not like, nor does she mention providing a platform for all those on Cape Cod! For example, Gannon, as well as Paul Pronovost, her predecessor, refused to publish, let alone respond to any criticism I sent their way. (see here, here, and here.)

In fact, I have yet to see any criticism at all regarding those editors published in their newspaper. Both refused to even publish the fact that I, a local Cape Cod writer, had been permanently banned from my local library, Sturgis Library, without warning and without due process. Well, I suppose at least now, Brennan has openly stated precisely why. For her, I do not matter because of my skin color, though I also suspect that the autocrat librarian in question, Lucy Loomis, has relationships with the Brennans and Pronovosts of Cape Cod. Why don’t the Times’ professor-columnists Brent Harold, Dan McCullough, and Lawrence Brown write a column, as in “Local Senior Citizen Banned for Life from a Cape Cod Public Library”? Well, back to rule #1 … and more vapid columns like Brown’s latest, “The failure of love is our central problem.” Actually, the “central problem” is journalists like Brown who choose career over truth. Now, here’s an interesting comment from, I suspect, one of Brown’s love students regarding the cartoon I sketched on Brown and posted on The American Dissident website (see above link):

hey your a dumbass to go at mr.B like that. greatest of all time. he is ten timee smarter then you and if you got a problem then my email is [email protected] if you trying to catch these hands. [sic]

But the “greatest of all time” somehow failed to teach that student how to write coherently! Why didn’t Mr. B teach the student the prime importance of vigorous debate and freedom of speech? Sadly, Brown and the other systemic cogs do not seem capable of even wondering how many stories their beloved Times editors have refused to cover over the years because of corrupt friends, bias, and groupthink party-line obligation. All newspapers and publications ought to have the cojones to publish the harshest criticism received. And yet almost none of them will do that! Certainly, that’s been my experience. Contrary to that sad MO, The American Dissident, which I publish and edit, not only encourages harsh criticism, but also publishes the harshest received in each and every issue! That’s called democracy and the free press!

Innocuous fluff inevitably results when the same columnists write columns week after week after week. McCullough, who recently announced his retiring from the Cape Cod Times, for example, boasted of writing 1,768 columns! Quantity always seems to be far more important than quality in the coopted writing milieu! Democracy is not represented at all when the same person is given a platform over and over, while denying others any platform at all. When the press sinks into the mire of ideological adherence and ineluctably rejects harsh criticism with its regard, it inevitably becomes a propaganda machine. Stories that reflect the ideology are ineluctably given preference, no matter how unimportant … or dubious.

Brennan boasts: “I am proud to say we have made substantial progress toward those goals over the past year. Our newsroom staff is more diverse, I created a Diversity Advisory Council, made changes to our race and social justice reporting, and changed how we cover criminal justice.” Now, why not a Truth Advisory Council? Brennan’s staff is more diverse perhaps, but is it more honest, more inclusive, more courageous, and more open to alternate diverse viewpoints? Certainly not! Diversity does not by any means imply higher integrity and courage. It is absurd to believe that it does. And why should higher integrity and courage not be far more important than skin-color and sexual-orientation quotas?

The press continues to rot away, thanks to editors like Brennan, who choose to be in-lock step with the reigning diversity ideology. “I am grateful for the talented news team I have the privilege to work with and for you, our readers and subscribers, for your continued support of our local news mission,” concludes Brennan. Talented? Or rather backslapping and self-congratulating! “Times makes progress on diversity promise” is the title of Brennan’s self-congratulating op-ed. How about “Times remains entrenched in a dubious ideology”? Well, I sent this essay to Brennan, as well as to the columnists mentioned in it. Not one of them deigned to respond. In essence, they incarnate today’s un-free press.