Why, oh why, is the media still suffering us to watch the likes of Asa Hutchinson in New Hampshire when we face our own local elections in mere weeks?
While it’s true that NH possesses the hard-fought power to elevate previously unknown presidential candidates to national importance, the regional media is focusing their attention on obvious losers like Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum at the expense of local election coverage. As Foster’s Daily Democrat—Dover’s hometown paper, now a servile subsidiary of USA Today—hosts dismally empty town hall events featuring these two goons, the local candidates for the November election are wholly absent from coverage.
For the first time in years, Dover has brought forward conservative candidates for a City Council, which has hitherto remained the uncontested territory of liberal Democrats (as the tax bill well proves). Like other seacoast cities, Dover has experienced a rapid explosion in urban crime, prompting the outcry of many residents who are increasingly eager to vote against the trend.
What do we hear from the media in these communities facing the steady erosion of their way of life at the hands of drugs and homelessness? A meaningless mélange of GOP primary pleas and the rhetoric of USA Today’s corporate editorial policy.
By reading the coverage in USA Today/Foster’s, one might even be so fooled as to believe that gun violence is the cardinal problem of our New Hampshire cities. If the candidates they platform are to be believed, the war in Ukraine is the second greatest.
While there is clearly a measurable interest in breaking local news, the USA Today papers run stories on condo developments, public sculptures, racism, and Asa Hutchinson. Despite the nearly nonexistent rate of gun crime on the seacoast, Foster’s has nonetheless published no fewer than eighteen stories on the subject since the beginning of April (many within the space of a month), while the word “fentanyl” never appeared in a single headline over the same period. The word “overdose” did occur once, but only in connection to a laudatory story about a van that provides free needle exchange.
In many cases, this dullness results from local reporters deriving their content from press releases rather than actual investigation. But the problem is more inveterate than mere negligence or mercenary drive can so easily excuse.
Indeed, it seems that Foster’s editorial policy proceeds along two tracks: pro-development stories which generate advertising revenue and overt political hackery. The surplus firearm opinions and desolate Hutchinson town halls are intermixed with a heady brew of stories on infrastructure investment and the welcoming progressive ideals of the seacoast, evincing their constant attention to attracting sponsors with upbeat pseudo-newsworthy pablum.
But their pieces on the many virtues of the Dover Children’s Museum neglect the ubiquity of human excreta and castaway heroin needles in the park immediately adjacent to it.
As we are living in the ‘20s and thus brazen to blatant media collusion, it’s no surprise that progressive city governments and local news are naturally acting in ideological concert. That the Dover City Council happens to have instituted a ‘stolen land pledge’ for their meetings at the same time as their adoption of $20+ million waterfront development budget is a mirror image of the press’ bizarre mix of shameless greed and performative progressivism. The USA Today papers seem to be engaging with the leftist government in an act of mutual self-anointing to the detriment of both effective law enforcement and public information.
New Hampshire communities will have the opportunity to throttle back the actual criminal justice, tax, and zoning policies that are harming them in November, but on this, the papers remain mum.
If you wish to see another reason why mainstream media may be turning a blind eye to local politics, look no further than the Northwood special election, where out-of-state Democrat organizations spent over $5,000 to flip the district’s State House seat. Conservative control of the lower house now hangs dangerously in the balance.
It’s clear that the media policy is to dismiss local elections, ignore invidious outside influences, conceal crime, and distract from any pesky national candidates (like Trump and even Kennedy) who threaten the delicate status quo.
While one can’t blame them for preserving their domain of comfort, one can surely detest them for it.
Wary voters ought to continue voicing their protest against this trend by ignoring artful distractions, attending important local events, and rejecting media outlets that seek to sow unending complacency.
