By Savannah Glasgow
On Thursday, POLITICO’s daily newsletter, Playbook, was authored by frequent YAF speaker and New York Times best-selling author Ben Shapiro.
Staff at POLITICO immediately pushed back against the decision, causing Editor-in-Chief Matt Kaminsky to hold a zoom call for the staff to share their outrage. It’s been reported that nearly 225 members of POLITICO’s newsroom joined the call that proved the intolerance of conservatives is not a problem confined to campuses where such outbursts are plentiful. When criticism of their decision to feature Shapiro as a guest author spilled out of the newsroom and onto social media, POLITICO defended its decision to include Shapiro as a Playbook guest author in a statement, saying “we rise above partisanship and ideological warfare.”
Kaminsky also addressed staff concerns and has, so far, refused to back down from requests for POLITICO to apologize: “We’re not going to back away from having published something because some people think it was a mistake to do so.”
But this absurd episode shows how anti-conservative intolerance in the media has—now repeatedly—turned newsrooms into little more than a liberal campus’ safe space. Therapy dogs, coloring books, and play-doh is all that’s needed to complete the silliness.
Each situation like this confirms that the Left is not interested in a free and open exchange of ideas, but rather their illiberal aim is to silence intellectual diversity. There was hardly pushback when leftist pundits, including MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet co-authored POLITICO’s Playbook newsletter earlier in the week. Bennet was head of the editorial board when Times staff were triggered by an op-ed from U.S. Senator Tom Cotton.
As an anti-free speech culture attempts to silence conservative voices, the National Journalism Center is actively working to combat media bias and train truth-seeking journalists.
Reasonable people cannot expect the media and those who contribute to it to value opinions from all sides. The outrage expressed in reaction to Shapiro’s one-off guest spot in Playbook demonstrates the damaging impact of the tyrannical Left’s attempts to shut out dissenting opinions. It also reinforces the importance of honest and fair journalism.
The reality of today’s media makes it more important than ever that mainstream outlets filled with social justice warriors are countered by an alternative. It’s why YAF’s National Journalism Center exists—to equip the rising generation of writers, editors, pundits, and editors with the tools to battle corrupt and feelings-obsessed media, stand for the principles of freedom, and protect the First Amendment.
Savannah Glasgow is program manager of YAF’s National Journalism Center. To learn more about NJC or apply for upcoming semesters, visit NJC.YAF.org.
