Daily newspaper columnist who defended NRA quits after suspension

First, her op ed couldn't have been published without passing the approval Tod Robertson the Editorial page editor; was the editor also sanctioned? No.
As for resorting to insinuating I may be a 'commie' for quipping she was denied the first for defending the second says more about you than me and reveals your anger and your bias.
As for knowing her, she is a fairly well known Black conservative commentator with well known conservative views that would have been as well known to the paper as her being black. I knew who she was before this incident, she had commentary regarding the Ferguson incident that angered some. She, according to her and the NRA, has never been paid by them.
As for reviewing her bias, her suspension reveals the Paper's underlying bias which will never be disclosed. All media sources carry a bias...every one. Everyone has a bias and if you think the news media in the US is not biased, you have consumed coolaide along the way.
I suspect there is more to the dispute than has been made public thus far. A black woman conservative defending the NRA... a heretic.... get out the stake. But, the Paper revealed the hypocrisy so often exhibited by the left.
But one of my questions is, why wasn't the editor sanctioned?

By the way, I speak several languages, including Russian... does that make me a 'commie'? I support the Second Amendment, does that make me a 'commie'?

 

I had lots of Russian friends in NYC, we would have parties and music, food, wine, Vodka, Russian folk songs.
Lots of fun.

 

What is curious about this episode, is that there is zero evidence that this newspaper was either ignorant about her opinions on the second amendment before this piece was written, or remotely unhappy with quality / ideological nature of her work. This is not the New York Times, or the Chicago Tribune (not that we can assume they could not handle conservative editorials there). It is the Kansas City Post Dispatch. I suspect they knew exactly what they wanted to bring to their readers, when they employed her, had read examples of her work and she sure does not seem the type to hide her strong conservative views under a bushel to get a job. Why does anyone think there were any surprises in the content of this editorial for the newspaper, or that the Dispatch was les than happy when they read this article? Me, I'd guess this was precisely what they bargained for when they asked her on, and probably had been getting prior to this suspension. She did not suddenly become an arch conservative gun-toting editorial writer the night before this was written. Who's to say whatever controversy this may have created, was just more of what the Dispatch expected and wanted and had calibrated their readers for, long before this one was showed up at their desk.

Maybe this woman does her job well. Maybe she helps sell newspapers in Kansas. Maybe the Dispatch was delighted with this editorial as producing more of what she was hired to do, and that is why they published this editorial and they really are unhappy about the issue that they claim to be unhappy about.

Another possibility is that maybe they are unhappy about something else other than the content or tone of this particular editorial or this disclosure issue. Maybe this disclosure issue is the 'last straw' in what has been an unpleasant work relationship for any number of reasons that also have zero to do with her conservative gun-toting content. To me, the least likely reason for her to be suspended, is content based. That is the one that makes less apparent sense, without evidence.

 

Off topic a bit, but I visited Russia in the late70's... it's the reason I don't drink vodka anymore. Their shots were the size I'd drinking glasses... cured me of drinking vodka or would have killed me had I stayed. It was an interesting experience. The Russians I was with were military, they were always armed, even after consuming copious amounts of the liquid. A saying often attributed to the Irish is the God created whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world... a Russian friend I made at the time quipped to me that Russians created their weaker brands as a weapon. Flood other countries with it and foreign groups would be unable to fight the Russians who were trained to be able to fight under its effects.
When I went, I was advised at the time to take blue jeans instead of converting Pounds to Rubles; I sold them for many times the price I paid in an open air market. At the market, weapons of every kind, including full autos, RPGs were being sold openly, and though I don't remember AKs, I do remember M16's. I was offered a gun rather than Ruples by one vender, but declined. It seemed a lot of people I met had access to guns despite what I have heard regarding their restrictions. It seemed to me there were two economies, the official one which was the poorly run and supplied stores and the quasi barter economy where virtually anything could be illegally, but tolerated, acquired, particularly if you had western goods to exchange. BTW, at entry, a pair of jeans was confiscated that I was later told by friends my unofficial entry fee.

 

She has to report that obvious bias to not only her editor but her readers as well. She broke the first rule of journalism

 

Her conservative leanings were well known and obvious. Should she have informed people she was black?
So, all journalists should report to their consumers their Biases? The majority don't, and I have yet to see a section following any news article or op ed purposed for declaring biases. So, I call BS on VG... nothing unusual in that.
But it's not that difficult to sort a bias. Everybody has them, few admit to them. I have in the past actually declared mine and those of posters like VG are easy to figure.
In Ireland, every media source is biased and politically aligned and their biases well known. While op eds are obvious, most know even news reports are written from a point of view. Most Irish buy multiple rags a day to get the various takes on the news, it is a necessity for being well armed when attending pub debates. In the US, people seem only to seek out media sources that reinforce individual biases, pretending their preferred sources are unbiased, and many are oblivious to the biases of their sources. In Ireland bias of news sources is a well understood thing while here drinking coolaid seems to be the predominate practice. Ms Washington committed the offense of not preparing the proper flavor of coolaid that the Paper was selling. Still, back to my question, given anything she wrote would have to pass an editor's approval, why wasn't the editor sanctioned?

 

I think it is because your premise is wrong. The flavor of the coolaid was delicious and everyone is very happy that she made the coolaid and that the editor it poured into the paper cups. The problem cannot be in the coolaid at all.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

There is more to this story than we are being told.
The hand writing was on the wall, I am sure they were already looking for reasons to fire her and gave her another option, Resign.

 

I agree... ''twas my earlier point. A Woman, Black, Conservative commentator... as I indicated, heresy. Many on the left would be intolerant. Personally, I'd be for having a beer with her, probably has a good bit of substance.

 

See my post number 103. The editorial itself was fine, and that is why the editor is not being disciplined. Nobody is being disciplined for the actual content of that piece. It is exactly what the Dispatch has been getting all along from her considering her conservative leanings, completely predictable, and fully anticipated when she was selected for her position.

 

I emailed Stacy, and she responded to me.

I didn't ask her permission yet to post her reply, so I won't include that.

She did indicate that she has a column answering some of the questions, you can find it here:

https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/...uble-standard-explained/#.WRHl9TU0FM8.twitter

Another one here:

http://nypost.com/2017/05/06/columnist-who-defended-nra-quits-after-being-suspended/

 

She wrote a wonderfully defiant response:

"Progressives must shut down truth-tellers, particularly the conservative ones, because the opposing view proves how badly their policies and ideas really stink. “Shut down” is where I find myself after taking Professor (emeritus) George Kennedy to task over his ridiculous comparison of the National Rifle Association to the Islamic State. Kennedy compared the influence of the terror group to the political lobbying influence of the NRA in a Columbia Missourian op-ed titled “ The NRA’s Influence is Dangerous to Us All.” How ominous.

My column said, among other things: “When has a member of the NRA ever decapitated, set on fire, tossed from a rooftop or otherwise terrorized another American? The linkage is not only rife with improper context; it is false on its face. This failure to represent the opposing, especially conservative, view is an increasingly apparent deficit in the news reporting apparatus in our country.”

My column, titled “Guns and the media,” was published on Friday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Email notification of my suspension was sent to me that afternoon. The Post-Dispatch opinion editor accused me of “failing to disclose” what he called “advocacy work on behalf of the NRA on ‘Cam & Company.’” After a bit of email back and forth with the editor demonstrated shifting and unsupported reasons for the suspension, I chose to terminate the contract. If the same standard that the Post-Dispatch applied to my writing were applied to Kennedy, he never would have had the platform with which to impugn the NRA and its members.

Are other opinion writers held to the same standard? Not if we look at Kennedy’s past work. If the same standard that the Post-Dispatch applied to my writing were applied to Kennedy, he never would have had the platform with which to impugn the NRA and its members. Yet instead of banishing him from the Missourian, editors there have added a correction in a text block above his NRA hit piece stating: “George Kennedy is a retired professor and writes an unpaid column for the Missourian. His views are his own and not necessarily those of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. — Mike Jenner, executive editor, Columbia Missourian.”

Apparently this clarification excuses the journalistic malfeasance of an editor permitting an opinion column to posit that law-abiding Americans exercising their constitutional rights are akin to murderous barbarians practicing terrorism in order to establish a “caliph.” Thanks for clearing that up, Mike!

Is Kennedy’s slanderous article about the NRA and its members an anomaly? Not in the least. He regularly writes predictably leftist screed for the Missourian, and alas, that isn’t even the worst of it. Back in May 2012, Kennedy wrote an op-ed about Food Bank Director Peggy Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick testified in support of Columbia’s Blight Decree/EEZ, for which Kennedy gave her high praise: “To me, the most persuasive speakers Monday were Peggy Kirkpatrick, who heads the Food Bank for central and northeast Missouri, and Tim Rich, her counterpart at the United Way.” He went on, “Ms. Kirkpatrick said that the Food Bank’s pantry on Big Bear Boulevard, the largest local source of free food, has seen an increase of more than 10 percent in its clientele, to 22,638, in the past year. The increase in hunger demonstrates the urgency of job creation, she said.”

At no point in his writing did Kennedy share that he sat on the board of the Food Bank. This was an actual ethical misstep. Should he have lost his unpaid writing gig for the Missourian? Perhaps, but he did not. Since the Food Bank board members aren’t pundits or public figures as I am, and don’t regularly appear in print, television and terrestrial radio media forums, it would be difficult for readers to know that Kennedy was a sitting board member. Not so in my case, as I have bios all over social media and do not hide (in fact, critics accuse me of promoting) my appearances, which are not exclusive to the NRA or its media properties. We have no paid or unpaid affiliation—my support of the Second Amendment and gun owners stems from my background as a fourth-generation veteran, concealed-carry certified gun owner and Bible-believing Christian.

Thomas Sowell once said: “Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts, but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.” If my appearances were an issue because readers might mistakenly believe they were paid advocacy, a simple correction box of the type journalists used to be known to employ would have sufficed. But my sin wasn’t advocacy as an opinion writer with an outsized social media presence and thousands of appearances on national and local TV; that assertion is ridiculous on its face. No. This action is about my direct assault on print media bias and the logical takedown of Professor Kennedy’s horrifying comparison. Should the good professor ever have to choose, which do you think he would prefer: an afternoon with 20 members of ISIS, or lunch with a handful of NRA members?

Should the good professor ever have to choose, which do you think he would prefer: an afternoon with 20 members of ISIS, or lunch with a handful of NRA members? We know what he would decide; he can only survive one of those events.

And that is why Kennedy will continue to write for the Columbia Missourian, while conservative writers will never have a permanent place at the Post-Dispatch. Kennedy doesn’t have to prove progressive ideas achieve results; he need only hew to the progressive dogma to guarantee his place in print media—where the pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment perspective is vehemently opposed.

Stacy Washington is a decorated Air Force veteran, Emmy-nominated TV personality and host of nationally syndicated radio program “Stacy on the Right,” based in St. Louis. She loves God, guns, and is a member of the NRA, obviously. "

One of my favorite parts:
"Back in May 2012, Kennedy wrote an op-ed about Food Bank Director Peggy Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick testified in support of Columbia’s Blight Decree/EEZ, for which Kennedy gave her high praise: “To me, the most persuasive speakers Monday were Peggy Kirkpatrick, who heads the Food Bank for central and northeast Missouri, and Tim Rich, her counterpart at the United Way.” He went on, “Ms. Kirkpatrick said that the Food Bank’s pantry on Big Bear Boulevard, the largest local source of free food, has seen an increase of more than 10 percent in its clientele, to 22,638, in the past year. The increase in hunger demonstrates the urgency of job creation, she said.”
At no point in his writing did Kennedy share that he sat on the board of the Food Bank. This was an actual ethical misstep."

 

Yeah she broke the first rule of journalism. She should have been fired

 

the first rule of journalism? bash conservative values and constitutional rights or lie about the Republicans?

 

Since when do journalists have rules?

 

when I was a kid, I thought lawyers were arrogant and Doctors were worse. I was wrong, very wrong. No profession is more arrogant than journalists. lawyers think they control your wealth, doctors your health, but many members of the press think they control what you think.

 

Other than Fox news they all do. LOL

 

Like with all the meltdowns they had when Trump was elected?

 

What is the rule against meltdowns? And what is a meltdown? LOL

 

Rachal Maddow. That's just a start. Ugly.

 

Rush Limbaugh. Mr beautiful. LOL

 

He didn't melt down. Next.

 

Neither did she then. LOL

 

How desperate are you that you must be this dishonest.

"The St. Louis Post-Dispatch asserts that Washington was not suspended for the views expressed in her column, but for failing to disclose her promotional work and professional affiliation with the NRA. Washington has appeared several times as a co-host and commentator on “Cam & Company” on NRA TV and contributed to an NRA documentary in August 2016. However, she has never been paid by the NRA."

Hiding that affiliation is dishonest on her part as well as yours.