Posted on 07/14/2017 11:11:08 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Not on the face of it, no. With the national news media missing out on the dynamics of middle-American populism, critics have challenged them to pay more attention to voters outside of the Acela media bubble and the urban enclaves. CNN responded by hiring Salena Zito as a contributor after her singular focus on Rust Belt disaffection and frustration got missed until it was too late for others to catch up.
If HuffPost’s editors want to spend some time traveling those same roads in order to learn something about life outside the bubbles in order to improve their reporting, then that can’t be a bad idea. But the report from Politico’s Hadas Gold casts doubt on that intent, and suggests this may be a safari of sorts rather than an engagement:
Having made its name as a home for liberals and the blog posts of coastal elites, the recently renamed HuffPost is seeking to reinforce its new, less partisan image with a seven-week bus tour through Middle America to “listen and learn what it means to be American today,” the site will announce on Thursday.
Starting in September, a traveling party of rotating HuffPost staff members led by editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen will visit more than 20 cities, eschewing the coasts for the likes of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Oxford, Mississippi and Odessa, Texas. At each city, the site will host events, roll out planned stories with local media outlets, send out reporters to write about the communities and collect stories from residents “in their own words.”
So far so good, right? Maaaybeee. Right now, it looks like the buses will pull over mainly in Hillary Country:
Though many of the cities the group is visiting voted for Hillary Clinton in last year’s election, all but two of the states went to Trump. But Polgreen says they’re not visiting “Trump country,” pointing to a reason for each city or state on the tour like an interesting community college system in Fort Wayne or Detroit’s large Arab-American population.
That doesn’t look like an effort at establishing a less-partisan-progressive image as much as it looks like reinforcement of its existing identity. They aren’t going places that challenge their partisanship as much as it might challenge their expression of it. (Even that seems pretty doubtful if they’re focusing on demographics that overwhelmingly favor Democrats.) Their purpose in doing so seems more inward focused than outward, too:
“This would be identity defining for HuffPost,” said Polgreen in an interview. “We are in a moment for [determining] our own identity and the role we play in the overall news ecosystem and what the next iteration of that looks like. And this felt like a great way to go out and … report out the story of who we should be in the world.”
Er … shouldn’t the purpose of an exercise like this be to report out who others are in the world? “Listening tours” tend to be more about the listener than the speakers anyway, especially in a political context, but it’s rare that it becomes the explicit mission.
Gold says the cost of this seven-week tour could run as high as a million dollars, which might make it a good public-relations effort, but hardly an efficient use of resources to better understand middle America. (HuffPost disputes the cost estimate, Gold notes.) One could hire a few good reporters for a million dollars, especially local reporters in places outside the progressive media bubble who understand those communities and can report on them without condescension, and especially without turning the whole thing into an anthropological exercise. “Here are middle Americans in their native habitat, performing their strange and inexplicable rituals like square dancing and hunting for meat …”
Done properly, that kind of investment and effort can pay off. Salena Zito proved that over the last few years. I did something similar with my book, Going Red, by traveling specifically to counties that Barack Obama won to discover what Republicans had missed. There’s nothing wrong with the idea, but at least from Gold’s report, HuffPost’s execution may leave a lot to be desired.
But I heard they are only going to counties that illary won. What’s to be learned by that?-)
The question is...will these people get off their high horses and actually try and learn about so-called flyover country, or are they on a lecture tour?
YES!!!
From what I heard, they are only going to liberal cities where Hillary won. What are they going to learn from that?
Hillary’s “Listening Tour” didn’t changer her skewered view one bit.
I doubt the HuPo ‘journalists’ on the expedition will have any more ‘open mind’ than what we think they will do - cherry picking on those ‘yukkie’ red-blooded Americans to make fun of, hence reinforce their own sense of superiority.
Otherwise, they will find kindred spirits in Austin, TX, or Madison, WI.
The result of the trip will be that the coastal journalists even more entrenched in their ideology.
“But Polgreen says they’re not visiting “Trump country,”
Well then, the odds of them learning anything are Zero, zero percent that they will actually learn a damn thing...other than no one really gives a damn about your skinny vanilla frap a latte chino...Most of the people they would have met drink their coffee black and very early in the morning.
Advance team of journalists left literally shaking after scouting run for #HuffPoInTheHeartland tour
These people will not be able to see the truth. They are so biased and paid off they will spin things to fit their handlers wishes for propaganda to reinforce their anti Trump agenda.
Not a safari, more like a mission trip to encourage the faithful that remain behind the red lines.
Is Sally Struthers coming along?
Yep.
I was downtown sitting outside having some lunch when this safari wagon full of Liberals showed up.
They started taking pictures and their tour guide says,
“Here we see Conservatives in their natural habitat. Look at their bad table manners!”
So I looked at my wife and said,
“You know all about proper etiquette. Which fork do I use to stick up his ass?”
They drove off in a hurry.
High horse LOL..... Reminds me when Obama told us to get off our high horse because of violence done in the name of Christ during the Crusades. See liberals are all about getting off the high horse........
Maybe they’ll take a National Geographic crew, like they’re going to some f’n uncivilized 3rd world country.
If they DO-I hope they cover the US fly over ‘natives’’ as*&s with at LEAST as much of their fawning kisses and unconditional deference they dole out for people in third world countries, where National Geographic religiously whitewashes the fact that THOSE natives (here in the 21st century) STILL engage in tribal violence and sustain themselves with grubs that live in dead tree trunks.
They don’t want to understand us. It would keep them from feeling superior in every way.
Based on the itinerary published by HuffPost, I describe the tour as “visiting blueberry spots in a sea of strawberry red.” A phrase I may have seen on either Breitbart or Gateway Pundit’s Disqus comment system first.
I for one will scoff. I just saw the tour’s itinerary, and they’re not coming to Kentucky. Not even to our liberal strongholds, Louisville and Lexington, or to Berea, the environmentalist paradise down the road. If the Huffo was serious about learning how we think, the reporters would visit the state that voted for Trump first, last November.
Of course I’m not surprised. Barack Obama has only come to Kentucky twice since 2008, and both visits were stops in one place that only lasted 2-3 hours before he flew out again. Hardly enough to get a good look at the state.
More than a few laughs there — thx 4 the link.
Those are hilarious!!
My guess is the Huff Post knew someone who offered his couch for the night. Unfortunately, Motel 6 is not in the Huff Post budget.
With a nice chianti...
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