After the self-inflicted grief the Daily Sun got from the Tom Paul controversy, Roger Harnack must have felt the need to write an editorial justifying the paper’s existence and extolling his position. The result was so over the top and so easy to have fun with. Please, please read the original Oct 20 editorial because we don’t want anyone to think we actually write like this.
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As a Sunnyside Daily Sun News reader, nothing irks me more than its tabloid soaked, conspiracy laden publisher pointing at other media outlets and screaming ‘fake news’.
Like many, I wake up in the afternoon, grab a copy of the Daily Sun News and turn the pages. But for me, its more delusional fear mongering than news.
It’s ridiculous to read a so-called journalist describing his own publication during National Newspaper Week, telling readers its the best news source. Maybe he has visited some source other than Breibart and can honestly claim to understand the difference between fact and fiction. Perhaps he really does know the difference between a possessive pronoun and a contraction.
Yeah, right.
Then there’s the confusing reference to a weathergirl reporting on the cold and advising a coat. Is he mocking the accuracy of her prediction or the logic of her advice? And what about the constant Trump excuses that leave every concerned reader evermore incredulous.
Is Roger Harnack giving you real news or really unnecessary and unwanted drama?
I think it’s the latter.
I find the same thing on the Daily Sun’s opinion page. Yes, I check the editorials like far too many Sunnyside residents do. But I find myself enjoying the fanciful bombast less and less because of a “wannabe” publisher who feels the need to inject his extremist ideologies into issues and the lives of others he has never met.
With the commentaries, comes the fake outrage from those empowered by a pundit moniker. From the Cagle columnists’ righteous rants, to the cartoons depicting Saint Patrick expelling the Mexicans, and the publisher, himself, using the editorial page to avenge personal indignities suffered from an acrimonious divorce.
While I do tune in, I mostly black out – as my blood pressure reaches dangerous heights.
Given the state of this publication, while “Real Newspapers, Real News” may apply to most small town beats, it certainly does not for those working at the Daily Sun News.
When Roger publishes a story on, say, high school graduation, the fact of a record number of students earning academic scholarships is ignored to report the suspensions of two. To evoke salacious speculation, the crowning of a new Miss Sunnyside court is accompanied – not by a picture of the elected court – but of a teen who bowed out for private reasons. And when they write about the failings of middle school internet filters, it is reported as “child finds porn at school” because “teenager googles lesbian sex” doesn’t have the same panache.
Yes, the Daily Sun makes mistakes. A lot of mistakes. But because this is a small community where social capital necessarily becomes a precious commodity, voices are rarely raised to hold the paper accountable. Journalism becomes much easier if you can operate within an opaque bubble and keep your Rolodex of sources to a bare minimum. But it also leaves you clueless to the complex overlapping social connections that evolve in small communities, and leads to the kinds of outrage suffered by the paper when they decided to denigrate the life of a recently deceased resident on the front page. Note to Roger: the enemy of thy mayor may actually be respected by the rest of the community.
Given what I read in the Daily Sun News these days, I much prefer to think of those claiming to be Daily Sun journalists as conspiracy huckster, or possibly diva wanting a spotlight to shine on them, or probably self-aggrandizing narcissistic sociopath intent on destroying the economic viability of this city in the delusional dreams of a right-wing mono-cultural utopia arising from the ashes.
Where am I going with all this? Well, I guess I’m trying to set the record straight when the publisher attempts to inject cred into the very same publication he has drained of all credibility.
Newspapers are dying, especially the Sunnyside Daily Sun News. Sure they have fewer page counts. And far fewer subscribers. And even fewer advertisers. That’s because when tied to a dying medium, it makes sense to concentrate on those most averse to change: ie. seniors and the fanatically hidebound. But that means alienating the vast majority of the local population and insulting the primary customer base of local businesses, making the paper worthless as a marketing channel.
Our hometown newspaper might as well be located on Neptune, as well. Except for its sales staff, no one from the Daily Sun News has ever walked through the doors of our downtown store, whether to buy merchandise, unearth information for its readers, or get the business side of an issue. And I hear the same from my downtown neighbors, though we exist just 2 blocks from the Daily Sun’s headquarters.
When they put byline to whitewashed article about a local white nationalist’s meeting, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that reporter or any representative of the Daily Sun News attended. And if you call them out on such discrepancies you won’t necessarily get a response.
Granted, the Daily Sun News is rarely positive. But it is real. It generates real fear for your new neighbors, real longing for a mythical homogeneity of old, and real disgust towards the imagined perversions going on at your child’s school.
As the Daily Sun’s theme says, “Fake News about all other News Being Fake”.
Keep that in mind the next time you want information on the evils of speaking a foreign language, the dangers of urinating transsexuals, the heroics of the Bundy militia takeover in Oregon, the impending genocide of white farmers in Prosser, the wisdom of eastern Washington seceding from those west coast liberal elites, or just some salacious innuendo towards your teenage daughter.
Take time today and everyday to get informed by reading anything other than the National Enquirer, Infowars, Stormfront, or the Sunnyside Daily Sun News.
~ Ron Fredricks – vezVida