All the news
that’s up for sale
A local daily paper has launched a sparkling apparition on its front page – news sponsored by an area business. Or, as the standing logo puts it,”… Good News of the Day.”
The special stories are bought and paid for daily. Whether this news is actually good or otherwise is not for the reader to decide; it is good because the corporate sponsor says so.
There is something ominous and unhealthy when a corporation underwrites an article in a publication of general – if dwindling – circulation. It is not about the old and common phenomenon of advertisers trying to influence editorial content; this has been around for a long time, usually in a subdued or non-threatening form. This is about selling a seat at the editorial table and putting a sponsor’s label of approval on news – good, bad or in-between.
A publication that offers its news judgment up for a sponsors’ auction is a publication that invites corruption and abuse. The temptations are great, with opportunists behind every sales pitch. Funded articles are tempting morsels for any publication, particularly for those having a hard time meeting an owner’s demand for profits.
Sponsorship is especially attractive to buyers who, for one reason or another, feel an urge to penetrate the editorial columns after being so long pent up in the advertising pages. These temptations are real, and if more barriers are let down, news pages will be crawling with articles stamped with sponsors’ approval, and fact and the truth be washed over.
We can count on one hand the Kansas news outlets that remain fiercely independent, providing a core of integrity and an example that others may steer by. The funded article is not evil in itself, but it is the beginning of serious trouble, and an invitation to more perversion of fact and truth.
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Serving the country,
or something else?
Roger Marshall, the First District Congressman. has joined the scrum of Republican primary candidates for the U.S. Senate seat of Pat Roberts, who will not seek reelection. Among the other four or five candidates at this point are Susan Wagle, the acidic president of the Kansas Senate and former Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a legend in the annals of voter suppression and other atrocities.
It would be startling if Mike Pompeo, Wichita’s former congressman and Trump’s former CIA director, joins this cage fight. As seen from Pompeo’s current status as the president’s Secretary of State and chief foreign policy advisor, the Senate is a lower wasteland. Pompeo is likely to hang around the Washington power scene to enchant and expand his following, to make a lot of money, and to run for president if or when he chooses.
Until recently, Kansas campaigns for federal office were about the interests and concerns of constituents, and who would best represent them in Washington.
But the Republicans’ campaign so far is about who would be the purest wholly-owned subsidiary of Donald Trump. Whatever Trump believes they believe – siphoning military funds for a border wall, choking farm exports with tariffs, throttling affordable health care, insulting Europe, playing footsie with Putin, it doesn’t matter. Trump’s word is their word.
The Democrats, including former Congresswoman Nancy Boyda and former U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom, see things differently. It seems they would rather hear about infrastructure needs, education funding, health care, a better farm bill, tax reform for the middle class, immigration reform, among other concerns. They are not after fawning tweets from the White House. They want to hear from Kansans, address their hopes and fears.
So far the Republicans seem to be addressing their own fear – of a cold shoulder, or worse, from Trump.
Roberts, who turned 83 in April, is retiring after more than half a century in Washington. He is among the state’s most popular federal legislators, nearly a match with Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum.
Until recently, senators were elected to represent states in service to country. They were to be the legislative filter between the emotion of the House, the cravings of a president and the event of law. In their mission, Senators were to balance the desires of constituents with the good of the country. They were to serve the people’s nation, not the interests of cause lobbies and think tanks, and not the ego of a president.
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