California Post fills media void – Latest News
For as long as I can bear in mind, the New York Post has performed one thing most main newspapers no longer even attempt: it has advised the reality plainly in a political atmosphere dominated by the left.
It has held highly effective officers accountable when others wouldn’t, challenged modern narratives with information, and refused to confuse advocacy journalism with precise journalism.
In New York, The Post has formed debates, uncovered corruption, punctured spin, and given readers an unfiltered view of what their leaders are literally doing.
California has needed that sort of establishment for a long time. Now it lastly has one.
The arrival of the California Post fills a void that has grown more harmful with every passing yr.
In a state the place Democrats control the governor’s workplace, the Legislature, regulatory businesses, and practically each main metropolis — and now dominate the courts as nicely — significant checks on energy no longer come from within authorities. They should come from exterior it.
That is the place the California Post is needed most.
Until now, the media has failed in its watchdog position. Yes, there are occasional good reporters — normally hemmed in by liberal editors. Yes, there are particular person columnists who typically break from the herd.
The arrival of the California Post fills a void that has grown more harmful with every passing yr. Getty Images
But institutionally, California’s media class has turn into an extension of the political class it’s purported to cowl.
That issues as a result of California is no longer ruled by competing branches checking each other. The governor and Legislature operate in lockstep. Regulatory businesses reply to the identical political pursuits. And six of the seven justices on the state Supreme Court have been appointed by both Gavin Newsom or his ideological predecessor, Jerry Brown.
When energy is consolidated this fully, journalism is meant to get more durable. In California, it has gotten softer.
Consider a latest telling episode. When Newsom and legislative Democrats rushed via a controversial plan to position Proposition 50, a partisan congressional redistricting measure, on the poll — raising severe constitutional and procedural considerations — legal challenges requested the state Supreme Court to intervene.
The courtroom declined even to carry a listening to.
No rationalization. No engagement with the substance. Just a quiet rejection.
In a healthy media ecosystem, that call would have triggered scrutiny. Instead, it barely registered.
This is why the California Post exists.
The identical sample is unmistakable in finances protection. When Newsom unveiled his newest spending plan, he declared that California confronted solely a modest shortfall — roughly $3 billion — regardless of starkly completely different warnings from the state’s impartial Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Here is how a lot of the mainstream press dealt with it.
The San Francisco Chronicle led with the headline: “California faces a $3 billion deficit in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s final state budget plan.”
The Sacramento Bee adopted go well with: “California projects $2.9B deficit in Newsom’s $348B plan.”
Both headlines took the governor’s quantity at face worth and framed the story across the administration’s most well-liked speaking level, whereas the Legislative Analyst’s far more sobering projection — roughly $18 billion in crimson ink and structural deficits stretching for years — was handled as secondary.
That just isn’t an oversight. It is a sample.
Time and again, California’s dominant media shops amplify the governor’s narrative first and ask onerous questions later — if in any respect. The result’s a public that’s misinformed not as a result of info is unavailable, however as a result of it’s constantly downplayed.
That just isn’t journalism serving the public. It is journalism serving energy.
The California Post exists to interrupt that sample — not by pretending to be “balanced,” however by being sincere.
The Post pairs aggressive, no-nonsense information protection with a sturdy editorial web page that offers voice to viewpoints routinely excluded from California’s mainstream press. Not slogans. Not caricatures. Serious arguments about governance, economics, public security, tradition, and the direction of the state.
That one-two punch issues. The information explains what is going on. The opinion explains why it issues — and whether or not it ought to concern you.
Like its New York counterpart, the California Post’s protection goes past politics. The paper covers business, technology, Hollywood, sports activities, and tradition, as a result of media bias doesn’t stop on the Capitol. It seeps into each beat.
The Post is right here to change it.
At backside, that is about citizenship.
Self-government relies on an knowledgeable public. A democratic republic can’t perform if voters are pressured to decode spin earlier than they’ll perceive actuality.
Regular people shouldn’t need a media research degree to determine what’s actually taking place of their own state. They shouldn’t need to reverse-engineer headlines to get to the reality.
That has turn into the norm in California.
California doesn’t simply need one other information outlet. It wants a watchdog.
That is what the New York Post has been to New York.
And that’s the reason California lastly has a Post of its own.
Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.
