Category Archives: Media

Washington Post Gotcha’s Another GOP Candidate

by Victoria Snitsar Churchill

Despite The Washington Posts attempts to paint him as an anti-woman radical, Republican nominee for the House of Delegates 21st District John Stirrup of Prince William County makes a compelling case for his District to elect him to the open seat this November.

According to The Washington Post, “Stirrup told a woman who had approached him after a Republican primary debate on May 18th” … that he would … “support a 100 percent ban,” according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post. In another recording, made June 20, he told a man he met outside a polling place that “I’d like to see, you know, [a] total ban.”

Made surreptitiously by two abortion rights supporters posing as abortion foes, the recordings seem intended to pin Stirrup down on an issue that Republicans in some swing districts would like to sidestep but Democrats hope to make a rallying cry in Nov. 7 General Assembly elections.

Balancing one’s personal views with the views of a constituency is a game that elected officials have to play often and well.

Stirrup’s remarks shouldn’t be seen as a backtrack, regardless of the attempts to paint him as a flip-flopper by The Post. Continue reading

A Bad Poll, Like a Blind Hog, Finds Some Acorns

By Steve Haner

The myth of the climate catastrophe is an easier sell to younger people with their shorter memories. A recent poll of Virginia adults 18 and up showed a marked difference of opinion based on age, with older voters less likely to claim they had personal experience of “impacts from climate change.”

The poll was a recent one conducted by the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government and Public Policy, released in two parts. The first part dealt with election matchups and the second with issues, frankly using some ridiculous questions. They were not so much biased as just worthless. Other examples will follow but here is the climate issue question: Continue reading

An Investigation… into an Alleged Attempt to Discredit a Student Newspaper… that Criticized the VMI Administration

by James A. Bacon

There appears in the minutes of the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors meeting of July 13, 2023 an abbreviated mention of a very hot topic:

Mr. [Thomas E.] Gottwald raised concerns about the administration’s continued conflict with The Cadet newspaper. Five news articles have been written regarding a challenge to the Virginia Press Association’s awards given to The Cadet. [Board President Thomas R.] Watjen suggested a conversation be had to better understand the administration’s involvement with the news articles.

That would be the same independent student newspaper whose denigration by The Washington Post we have chronicled here on Bacon’s Rebellion. Although Superintendent Cedric Wins has publicly praised The Cadet for its prestigious award, allegations have been circulating that negative stories about The Cadet were prompted by the VMI administration itself. I have refrained until now from reporting on those charges, but they have surfaced in the VMI board meeting, in an online petition, and again in an article appearing in Cardinal News. Continue reading

Example Number 3,632 in the Decline of Local Newspapers in Virginia

by James C. Sherlock

The newspaper business in Virginia continues its rapid descent into well-earned oblivion.

It is fair to disdain Donald Trump and hope that he is not our next president. Indeed, I have gone on record on BR with my views supporting that conclusion. This is an opinion blog.

But there is, or should be, such a thing as standards in newspapers. News here. Opinion there.

Many local newspapers now go too far as policy in a desperate attempt to survive. Or because the few remaining personnel simply don’t know any better. Or both. Continue reading

Youngkin Bans State Endorsements of Websites Targeted at Kids’ Sexuality That Do Not Require Parental Consent — WAPO Oobjects

by James C. Sherlock

The Washington Post editorial board, like its news pages, has stubbornly and selectively ignored a lot of big news:

  • the ongoing emergence of testimony under oath of whistleblowers recounting the IRS and Justice Department’s handling of all things Biden;
  • evidence like strings of single-purpose bank accounts used by and for current residents of the White House to launder and distribute to the family a great deal of foreign money; and
  • the collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea deal.

Such things do not rise to be the subjects of editorials. Except one on June 20 that was not a proud moment. The title:

Why Hunter Biden’s plea deal is justified

A quote from that editorial:

The outcome appears similar to what other defendants might have gotten for similar violations of the law.

Another editorial praised the Justice Department as “steeped in a tradition of political noninterference.” Seriously. They wrote that.

But the same board is in full dudgeon today about Glenn Youngkin taking “vital resources away from LGBTQ+ youth.” So, did he cut funding to some important program? Did he ban something?

No, he:

quietly authorized the removal of a resource page for LGBTQ+ youths on the Virginia Department of Health website.

“Quietly”? Clearly not.

But for very good reasons. Continue reading

WaPo Eats Crow, Students’ Journalism Award Stands

Credit: Bing Image Creator. Journalist eating crow.

by James A. Bacon

It is sweet indeed to read the latest Washington Post article about the Virginia Military Institute: after calling into question a top journalism award bestowed upon The Cadet independent student newspaper, media reporter Paul Farhi found himself gulping down a serious helping of crow in a follow-up story headlined, “VMI student paper award upheld after plagiarism, conflict-of-interest probe.”

The series of Cadet articles, which were critical of the VMI administration’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives, won the Virginia Press Association’s top community service award — the first for a student newspaper in Virginia. Rather than praising the young journalists for their accomplishment, Farhi criticized them. He contended that the series of articles contained plagiarism and that the Cadet had failed to disclose a conflict of interest to judges.

But Conrad M. Shumadine, a retired Norfolk attorney hired to determine if there were grounds for canceling the award, wrote that the honor was made “in accordance with applicable rules and regulations and is not subject to an after-the-fact challenge…. An award should be a celebratory event not an invitation to disparagement.” (Read his report.) Continue reading

Occupational Hazard, 4 of 4

by Joe Fitzgerald

Two recent signs of the deterioration of journalism. One is this comment from President Biden to a gaggle of reporters:

I hear some of you guys saying is, ‘Why doesn’t Biden say what a good deal it is?’ Why would Biden say what a good deal it is before the vote? You think that’s going to help me get it passed? No. That’s why you guys don’t bargain very well.

The second is this, from Harrisonburg Patch, a news aggregator:

A 33-year-old teacher at James Madison Middle School has been accused of soliciting inappropriate pictures from a student, leading to criminal charges against him. The alleged incident involved the teacher requesting pictures from a student at the school where he was employed, according to the police. The teacher has been arrested.

The first is obvious. Biden mocked the press corps for its reporting skills, and the press corps reported it as a Biden idiosyncrasy instead of as a failing on their part. The second, a little less so. The algorithm saw James Madison and thought Harrisonburg, even though the school is in Maryland. And it showed up in my email as a local story, which is a little jarring considering my wife, Deb, chairs the School Board.
Continue reading

Occupational Hazard, 3 of 4

by Joe Fitzgerald


In “A Pirate Looks at Forty” Jimmy Buffett describes the dilemma of one for whom the cannon doesn’t thunder: “My occupational hazard being my occupation’s just not around.” He could be describing journalists as well.

Journalism and piracy aren’t the only occupations disappearing, of course. The Chronicle of Higher Education and other pricey academic newsletters report regularly that universities are turning out more English and history doctorates than there are jobs to accommodate them. The magazine isn’t as worried about the loss of journalism jobs, possibly because journalists aren’t their audience. A site search of The Chronicle turns up 59 mentions of “journalism major,” mostly in job listings, and 268 mentions of “English major,” including this one:

Becoming an English major means pursuing the most important subject of all — being a human being. We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

I’m allowing for the possibility the search engine’s comments may be involved in that response. Still, something has gone wrong. The Daily News-Record is running stories about the Warren County sheriff to fill space with seemingly local stories. Six Virginia dailies will soon publish only three days a week, and by mail. The kid that started out delivering papers and wound up as a reporter will have to go back to the lemonade stand for spending money.
Continue reading

Occupational Hazard, 2 of 4

by Joe Fitzgerald

A perceptive friend recently spoke to me about press releases his outfit would send to the Daily News-Record back in the day. He said they always wound up in the paper with small inaccuracies, and his perception was that the releases were handed to the least experienced reporters to teach them how to type and rewrite.

I know it looked like that from the outside, I explained, but what actually happened was that I gave them to the least experienced reporters to teach them how to type and rewrite. I was happy to be able to clear that up.

We ran Valley Briefs, Business Briefs, Real Estate Briefs, not to mention the ones in non-news sections of the paper. They piled up on my desk until a reporter needed make-work, or mild punishment, or until I got tired of looking at them. They came back and went into another pile, from whence I’d compare them to the reporter’s efforts to see if they — the release or the reporters — had improved. Nine out of 10 were improved, either in AP style or news sense or clarity, and I caught the errors in half of the remainder. That success rate may not have been as obvious to someone who saw “attorney” changed to “lawyer,” “firm” changed to “company,” parentheses changed to dashes, or John Smith changed to William Johnson.
Continue reading

Occupational Hazard, 1 of 4

by Joe Fitzgerald

Harrisonburg police rescued a possible abduction victim one day last month after shooting the apparent perpetrator. A city press release said a domestic dispute on Old Furnace Road around 6:30 p.m. turned into an abduction. Police pursued the suspect’s vehicle to downtown, where they shot the suspect, who was apparently armed. The suspect was flown to UVa hospital and the victim was safe.

At least that’s what I got out of a Daily News Record story that included the line, “The pursuit ended in front of the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office following an officer-involved shooting that ultimately injured the suspect.”

Journalism is dead. Or, in the same jargon as the press release, “Journalism ended following a Craigslist-involved financial loss that ultimately ate the newspapers’ lunch.”
Continue reading

Lee Enterprises and the Newspaper Business in Virginia

by James C. Sherlock

Lee Enterprises, about whose frantic search for cash I wrote yesterday, owns a dozen newspapers in Virginia.

For now.

  1. The Daily Progress – Charlottesville
  2. The Free Lance-Star – Fredericksburg
  3. Register & Bee/Go Dan River – Danville
  4. Bristol Herald Courier – Tricities – Bristol
  5. Martinsville Bulletin – Martinsville
  6. The News & Advance – Lynchburg
  7. The News Virginian – Waynesboro
  8. Richmond Times-Dispatch – Richmond
  9. The Roanoke Times – Roanoke
  10. Culpeper Star-Exponent – Culpeper
  11. SWVA Today – Wytheville
  12. The Franklin News-Post – Rocky Mount

Lee’s current nationwide total of what it calls news “brands” is 85. It is a small and highly leveraged business.

This morning its stock (LEE:NASDAQ) market cap is about $81M at $13.37 per share at yesterday’s close. With $433M in debt, the enterprise value is $524M (Schwab).

Lee is teetering financially, and has been since it successfully but expensively fought off a late 2021 hostile takeover bid from Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund.

Alden owns The Virginian-Pilot, the Commonwealth’s largest daily, and the Daily Press on the Peninsula. It has been written that Alden’s business model is simple:

gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring out as much cash as possible.

We have already seen Lee Enterprises gut the staffs of its Virginia papers.

I haven’t tracked the real estate transactions, but now it is jacking up subscription prices to avoid selling its inventory or trying to obtain additional financing.

We’ve seen this play before. Continue reading

Lee Enterprises Newspapers in Virginia Combine Huge Online Subscription Price Increases with Difficult Cancellations

Notice from The Roanoke Times subscriber services. https://subscriberservicesdsi.lee.net/subscriberservices/Content/Leaving.aspx?Domain=roanoke.com&_mather=2864cc43d3f9efd3

by James C. Sherlock

Lee Enterprises, in a bold move, has massively raised prices for online subscriptions to its Virginia newspapers, to some of which I subscribe.

Lee’s “brands”  here include:

  1. The Daily Progress – Charlottesville
  2. The Free Lance Star – Fredericksburg
  3. Danville Register Bee/Go Dan River – Danville
  4. Bristol Herald Courier – Tricities – Bristol
  5. Martinsville Bulletin – Martinsville
  6. The News and Advance – Lynchburg
  7. The News Virginian – Waynesboro
  8. Richmond Times-Dispatch – Richmond
  9. The Roanoke Times – Roanoke
  10. Culpeper Star-Exponent – Culpeper
  11. SWVA Today – Wytheville
  12. The Franklin News-Post – Rocky Mount

I have for years subscribed to the ones in bold above.  Online ad sales must not be going well.  Lee in a sudden move has roughly tripled online subscription prices.

It also has made it very difficult for customers to cancel.

Perhaps someone should look into this to see if the difficulty of the cancellation is legal. Continue reading

Post Attacks Homeschooling Because It Succeeds

Derrick Max

by Derrick Max

Over the last few years, homeschooling has grown in Virginia by almost 40 percent. In fact, homeschoolers in Virginia now account for almost 60,000 students — making homeschooling the fifth largest school district in the Commonwealth. Because homeschoolers are self-funded, this saves Virginia’s state and local governments almost $800 million per year.

More importantly, homeschoolers outperform public school students in almost every measurable category. Homeschoolers score significantly higher on standardized tests, have higher college graduation rates, lower rates of depression and anxiety, and succeed at higher rates as adults.

Yet, The Washington Post reported in The Revolt of the Christian Home-Schoolers (May 30, 2023), based almost solely on one couple’s experience, as a “conscious rejection of contemporary ideas about biology, history, gender equity and the role of religion in American Government.” The article, with scant evidence, concludes that there is an “unmistakable backlash” of formerly homeschooled children denouncing homeschooling.

Riddled with references to “indoctrination” and “abuse,” homeschooling is painted by The Washington Post as a fringe and dangerous educational option. These homeschoolers “could not recover or reconstruct the lost opportunities of their childhood” as “there were so many things they had not learned.” Continue reading

Political Correctness More Important than Accuracy in News Reports of Slaying

by Kerry Dougherty

Is it too much to ask the news media to put accuracy ahead of their political agendas?

We asked this in March when activists were more obsessed with pronouns than the fact that the trans Nashville school shooter, who killed three little kids and three adults, was occasionally referred to as a female. That’s what she was, by the way.

Now this from the local newspaper:

This is not true. The accused is a biological man. The slain man’s son. Continue reading

VMI’s DEI Chief Resigns — “Vitriolic” VMI Critics Implicated

Jamica Love

by James A. Bacon

Virginia Military Institute’s chief diversity officer, Jamica Love, has resigned nearly two years after taking on the job of implementing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the military institute.

While Superintendent Cedric T. Wins noted that Love served with distinction and professionalism, VMI gave no reason for her resignation. She has issued no statement and turned down an interview request.

My purpose in writing about Love’s resignation is not to highlight her role in the ongoing controversy over DEI at VMI — my sense is that she did exactly what was expected of her — but to explore how The Washington Post has framed her departure. Writer Ian Shapira takes the opportunity once again to recite the litany of racism allegations against VMI and cast the controversy as a good guys/bad guys melodrama with the black hats worn by “a political action committee of mostly White conservative graduates called The Spirit of VMI.” Continue reading