Way back when, GraniteGrok had a digital subscription to the Union Leader. For non-Granite Staters, this is the state’s largest (as in most widely circulated) daily print newspaper. Many years ago, it was the nation’s most conservative daily newspaper, but after William Loeb died, it modernized but didn’t change too much journalistically, not until after his wife, Nackey, passed away.
It was still a decent newspaper, but post-Nackey Loeb, it is increasingly likely to pander to New Hampshire’s rhetorical Five Families, the ruling-class connections who give us small (r) republicans like Chris Sununu and Kelly Ayotte, or soy-boy beta-male dems like John Lynch and Chris Pappas.
Anytime anyone actually penetrates the establishment perimeter and threatens to shut down the tractor beams (money) or the shield generator (also money, but add the umbrella of media influence), they are magically railroaded out of politics or, in some cases, the state. The Union Leader may not always play a role, but in recent years it seems more inclined not to rock the establishment boat, no matter who is at the helm.
Instead of testing or contesting this cabal, it has become a useless clone providing nearly zero balance to the progressive outlets that pepper the rest of the state. It pretends to be unbiased as well, but the tale is in what they don’t report or refuse to correct.
Most of the media in New Hampshire, including the digital outlets, can be relied on to put access and dollars ahead of real reporting. That’s what makes GraniteGrok special and different. We don’t care who we piss off because the only thing we need “them” to do is follow the law and the Constitution, which they refuse to do, and the old Union leader might have called them out on it.
The current one is a pale pretender.
Enough preamble. Everyone wants to add subscribers, and the UL is no different, but this made me laugh out loud.
Email Subject: What real reporting looks like
I didn’t need to read the rest, but I’ll let them hum a few bars to see if you can name that tune.
Rumor says, “something changed.”
Reporting tells you what changed, who it affects, and what it could cost people.That is what Union Leader subscribers get.
No, it isn’t.
Real reporting looks like what we did on these pages during the pandemic. We questioned everything using the state’s own dashboard, as or more qualified experts, and a relentless demand for proof that what they all said we needed to do was based on anything but fear, ignoring their own science, and an exercise in tyrannical and often unconstitutional political power.
We did the same thing during the 2020 Summer of Love. We challenged the mainstream stories on J6, and the various Biden-inspired Trump prosecutions. Before that, we challenged the Steele dossier, its motivation, the facts in evidence, and much more. We challenged Obama, Hillary, and Governor Sununu. Throughout the Biden years and into Trump, we questioned the establishment message, but if you search the Union Leader, you’ll be hard-pressed to find two things. Actual reporting in real time or retractions, corrections, or apologies for any of the reporting they did that got it wrong or all the things that turned out to be true that they left out.
They are under no obligation to do either, nor does sharing Reuters wire pieces on what the “antivaxxers” in the Trump Administration are doing hint at balance. Maybe the odd op-ed, but that might be the old make the other side look crazy stunt. More on that in a moment.
You’ll find a similar problem over at WMUR, the local ABC affiliate. Likewise, just about every print newspaper in the state, all of whom claim to be reporting news when, in fact, they are cherry-picking stories and angles that favor the political establishment, while avoiding anything controversial that might allow their readers to consider any side but the one they’ve been spoon-fed and make a decision for themselves. That includes a journalistic commitment to avoid stories altogether if they might introduce information that could undermine any approved narrative.
Thankfully, the internet allows people to do much of that on their own, with the downside that some of them get stuck down rabbit holes and begin to resemble their own version of today’s so-called news media. Their one defense is they aren’t pretending to be anything but partisan.
We don’t pretend either, but I am more than willing to publish op-eds or letters challenging our authors’ opinions or premises. Newspapers do that too, but quite often their opinion pages are little different. A place to showcase ideas they find ridiculous by sharing the most absurd expressions they receive.
The UL gets points for sharing cogent long-form arguments from private citizens, but it is not frequent enough to balance the daily drone of approved messaging.
They are not the edgy Fourth Estate they once were, or we’d have seen more balanced reporting on a wide range of issues for COVID to J6 to BLM to Trump 1.0 or 2.0. Sharing establishment anti-change pablum isn’t edgy.
My advice to readers is to get your sports and weather someplace else. There are also plenty of places to get Sudoku, Crosswords, Jumbles, and other puzzles. Don’t just get the newspaper to get the newspaper, print or digital. It’s a waste of your money, and it makes them think they are doing real reporting when they are not.
Just my opinion, but maybe until they (at the very least) apologize for all the crap they got wrong during COVID, or honestly and seriously share the science or evidence from the other side with journalist eye rolls, you should maybe not give them the satisfaction of thinking what they do is real reporting.
