(2021-05-02) The Politicians Who Tried To Overturn An Election And The Local News Team That Wont Let Anyone Forget It

The politicians who tried to overturn an election — and the local news team that won’t let anyone forget it. The journalists at WITF, an all-news public radio station in Harrisburg, Pa., made a perfectly reasonable decision a few months ago. They decided they wouldn’t shrug off the damaging lies of election denialism. (cf 2021 Storming of the US Capitol)

The station has stuck to its pledge in its day-to-day coverage ever since, by simply and without fanfare including boilerplate language about how lawmakers conducted themselves during the attempts to overturn the election whenever they are mentioned in the course of regular news coverage.

*For example, a recent story about a state legislator’s efforts to get Pennsylvanians vaccinated was accompanied by a sidebar of text about the lawmaker in question.

“State Sen. Ryan Aument (R—Lancaster) was one of 17 Republican state senators who signed a Jan. 4 letter that asked Congress to delay electoral college certification because, it said incorrectly, SCOTUS ‘is to hear Trump v. Boockvar in the coming days.’ On Jan. 11 SCOTUS refused to fast-track the case. The election-fraud lie led to the attack on the Capitol.”*

“We’re out on a ledge here,” Lambert remembers thinking. Both he and Blanchard hoped other news organizations would join them. “But it’s been radio silence,” Lambert said.

If it were up to him, Kruse would prescribe a simple rule for network TV producers thinking about putting election denialists on-air: “Don’t book them, as long as they haven’t publicly retracted.”

*“Elected officials are going to run on this,” Blanchard said. “This is an example of their judgment.”

In other words, no memory hole. No “let’s just move on.” And, sorry, no amnesty.*