Put your hands together for Chris Quinn, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, for telling the truth about the dark threat of MAGA tyranny, and for telling his paper’s MAGA readers that if they can’t handle the truth, then “so be it.”
How refreshing it is to hear a mainstream media editor state plainly that “balance” and BothSideism are no longer workable in an asymmetric political climate where one party stands for democracy and the other is an authoritarian cult.
I’ve been saying that seemingly forever – in a column eight years ago, I wrote: “‘Objective’ journalism at its most reductively banal seeks to ‘balance’ the unbalanceable. We pull the wool over our eyes when we practice false equivalence. Conscience calls us to do better” – but that was easy for me because I was a freelance opinion columnist who didn’t have to worry about losing subscribers. In a red state, no less.
Quinn, by contrast, runs a mainstream outlet that depends, for its financial health, on readers who are willing to pay for information. These days, it takes cajones and a conscience to risk the loss of any paying readers, most notably those who can’t abide being told what they don’t want to hear.
But, the other day, Quinn did so. Bravo to this Temple University journalism grad for writing the equivalent of a journalistic manifesto:
“This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who (defend Trump). No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.
“The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends…The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.
“This is not subjective. We all saw it…Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.
“The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.
“As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.
“Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it?…
“These are the people who take offense to the truths we tell about Trump. No one in our newsroom gets up in the morning wanting to make a segment of readers feel bad. No one seeks to demean anyone. We understand what a privilege it is to be welcomed into the lives of the millions of people who visit our platforms each month for news, sports and entertainment. But our duty is to the truth.
“Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany. I hope not. In our newsroom, we’ll do our part. Much as it offends some who read us, we will continue to tell the truth about Trump.”
How refreshing!
Quinn surely knows he couldn’t sway his MAGA readers; they’re impervious to reason. But another crucial slice of the paper’s audience – sane Republicans – are still reachable. And, indeed, one such reader, from a Cleveland suburb, posted a letter to the editor: “Articles like Mr. Quinn’s empower us to speak up…I implore more Republicans to continue to talk about the truth…Conservative ideals have a valuable place in our political landscape, but their merits must be based on truth and reason, not falsehoods and conspiracies. Thank you again, Mr. Quinn, for your column.”
We need more conversations like that. Assuming there’s still time on the clock.