Brennan did not, as expected, respond to the above cartoon or email and essay below. Brennan clearly is NOT an advocate of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy and, once upon a time, of the free press.
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From: George Slone
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2020 1:11 PM
To: abrennan@capecodonline.com <abrennan@capecodonline.com>; letters@capecodonline.com <letters@capecodonline.com>
Subject: Brennan criticized and featured in a new P. Maudit cartoon
To Anne Brennan, Editor, Cape Cod Times:
Please publish the following critique, as well as the attached cartoon. Of course, it is highly likely that you will choose NOT to publish them, let alone respond. Please then, for your sake, at least contemplate the hypocrisy of such an eventual decision...
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone (PhD—Université de Nantes, FR), aka P. Maudit, Founding Editor (1998)
The American Dissident, a 501c3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence
wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com
A Wrong Focus for Journalism
Journalists seem to focus on anything but why they are so distrusted today. Extreme bias, general intellectual corruption, inability to brook criticism, let alone encourage it, constant virtue-signaling, and suppression of stories that don’t fit the narrative have led me to distrust them. Moreover, a “successful” journalist like any other professional—academic, political, literary or whatever—is one who always puts career above truth telling.
Anne Brennan, the new editor of the Cape Cod Times, part of the Gannett media corporation, wants to focus, unsurprisingly and quite unoriginally, not on those faults, but rather on diversity. “Our newsroom diversity promise,” the title of her editorial, begins with “The Cape Cod Times has a history of telling stories about the diverse members of our community…” Well, it sure hasn’t told my story about being permanently banned from my neighborhood library on Cape Cod, despite a number of attempts on my part to interest it. Why would a local newspaper not want to publish an account of that particular suppression of citizen freedom? Intellectual corruption is the only response. Likely the library director was and is friends with journalists at the Times. The latter also refused to publish anything critical I sent to it over the past decade. Clearly, its focus is not on TRUTH and issues of FREEDOM OF SPEECH, but rather on the PC-identity politics of thought uniformity.
“Where we fall short is by not seeking diverse voices in the daily course of covering Cape Cod and the people who live and work here,” proclaims Brennan. However, “diverse voices” is really nothing but code for uniformity of voices from people of different skin colors. Then, surprise, the editor echoes: “The egregious death of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers forced us all to think about the inequality and, yes, racism, that is an inherent part of the American story.” Actually, it did not force me to think about that or anything else… because I am a staunch individual. It did however remind me of the three black youths who attacked and robbed me in Baton Rouge, and the local newspaper, The Advocate, that refused to report on that incident. Perhaps the Floyd incident should have further encouraged us not to simply open wide and swallow anything journalists push. As far as “uncomfortable truths” go, Floyd was a black drug addict with a long criminal background and was high on drugs when arrested. Why does Brennan purposefully omit that information? And what about the statistics that clearly disprove the MSM “systemic racism” narrative, especially regarding cops?
As mentioned, the real egregious problem—the elephant in the room—confronting newspapers like the Cape Cod Times, besides rejection of criticism when they’re concerned, is bias, not racism. It appears, and one must underscore the word “appears,” that the new editor is at least aware of that core problem, as indicated in a different editorial, "A note to readers: The Cape Cod Times will no longer take editorial positions, endorse politicians": “The decision for the Times to no longer take a stand on issues, unless they are of major importance, is driven by our desire to reduce the growing confusion over the difference between opinion and commentary and nonopinion news content.” One must be suspicious, however, because clearly Brennan has endorsed the political position of identity politics. She states, “Despite no longer taking positions on local issues, the Times will continue to be an unbiased authoritative source of information and community action.” She also notes, “The goal of journalists and editors at the Times is to collect information and report the facts of a situation without bias in stories, photos, video and social media posts.” But those statements seem to be examples of virtue-signaling, not reflections of reality. A number of Times stories, for example, do NOT follow that recipe at all! My bringing that to the attention of the editors, past and present, was of course futile and simply ignored. For examples of my attempts, examine “The Whitewashing, uh, Blackwashing of BLM: Questioning and Challenging the Parrots,” “To Herring or Not to Herring: Protected Species for Some, But Not for Others,” and “To Noose or Not to Noose: In the Haze of Legal Vagueness.”
Rather than address real problems confronting journalism, the Times is going to create a Diversity Advisory Board, yet another addition to the vast “diversity delusion” (Heather MacDonald’s book title) and ever-expanding diversity bureaucracy. Anything but the rude truth! “Rest assured, we are committed to fostering the already civil debate that occurs on our pages on a daily basis,” states Brennan. “I look forward to reading what you have to say.” Now, do you think she looks forward to reading what I have to say? “Finally, we want to hear from you, our readers,” states Brennan, as if teaching a course in BS 101. Oops, that’s incivil! Here come the journalist censors, uh, moderators…
