Rebecca of Partisan Farm

"Wouldn't it be great if they told the truth?"
- Pres. Trump, at Turning Points' Tuesday Student Action Teen convention.

It would. But many in today's press seem far too devoted to ideological mission, to concern themselves with professional ethics.

Case in point: Rebecca Klar, of The Hill.

Klar penned a 7/22 article about the recent Publix grocery conflict between Erica Thomas and Eric Sparkes.

The headline: "Georgia State lawmaker defends allegation white man told her to 'go back.'"

Klar's racial-obsessiveness matched Georgia State Rep. Thomas' own. Her opening paragraph noted the office-holding complainant was an "African-American." 

So far, so good. That was a story factor.

But in that same first sentence, Klar repeated uncritically Thomas' unsubstantiated charge that a "white man" had told her "go back where you came from." 

No 'alleged' qualification. No healthy journalistic skepticism of an uncorroborated tale. Thomas' claim was suspicious, in both its sensational character and convenient rise on the heels of a related presidential tweet and ensuant crowd chant.

Add to that Thomas did hold state elected office, and would have that much more reason to spin a media-attractive yarn. What good reporter's antenna wouldn't go up?

The Hill's Klar evidently thought it unimportant that the accused Sparkes was Cuban, a longtime Democrat, had often posted venomously against Pres. Trump and his supporters (falsely slurring us as "Nazis"), and told interviewers he intended to vote Democrat for the rest of his life. 

Klar ignored those inconvenient facts. Instead, she exploited her capacity at The Hill to promote a false narrative serviceable to Thomas, potentially injurious to the president, and harmful to social welfare.

Klar did quote Sparkes refuting the supposed "go back" remark. But she gave Thomas the last word. The implication was, the Thomas position prevailed.

And Klar herself called the grocery dust-up a "racist attack." An objective reporter shouldn't employ partisan rhetoric as if such were established reality.

State Rep. Thomas later retracted the "go back" allegation -- and then reasserted it. Klar did not appropriately update the original piece. It remained on The Hill's site. A moments-ago check found it still accessible, uncorrected and unreflective of permutations.

In a student column from her Binghamton, NY college-days, Klar showed her zeal to push partisan interests:

"The 'alt-right,' white supremacist wing which the Trump campaign and now presidency ignited...[has] created a society in which everything has become political because the hate spewed directly impacts the everyday lives of millions of people."

"The hatred for minorities that has been facilitated by the Trump administration...outlandish acts of hostility displayed by the Trump administration..."


Klar did at least allow that voting for Trump "in itself is not a crime or immoral act..."

Now, I'm not a believer that our pasts define us for life. I am in 2019 a stalwart Trump supporter. But in the 1980s, I was a Democrat. In 2000, I helped found the Iowa Green Party. And in 2004, I was Ralph Nader's paid Iowa coordinator. 

People do change. That's life.

And there are different rules for opinion columns and straight news articles. But Klar's straight news account for The Hill was laced with the feverish partisanship on display in her college column. 

In that, she's hardly distinctive. The line that traditionally separated news from editorial began to vanish around the time Donald Trump announced his candidacy.

This isn't the first time I've criticized a heedless tyro on The Hill's payroll. By themselves, they are not significant.

But as writers at a prominent news site, they do potentially have some influence. And with power comes responsibility.

They typify a rabid media bias against America's president. One that eagerly jettisons professional propriety, when ideological interests stand to gain.

"When I say, 'the enemy of the people,' when I say, 'fake news,' when I say these things, I'm not kidding," Trump told the Turning point audience. "They have become...totally unhinged."


(Full disclosure: The present author has, occasionally, submitted essays to The Hill. None were accepted. That is unrelated to my criticism, which has persisted throughout that time. The Hill does
feature several fine writers whose work I appreciate. Jon Solomon and Joe Concha, for instance. But many who write for The Hill recall the late Alexander Cockburn's dismissal of modern journalism schools as "feedlots of mediocrity.")