The Ohio Senate GOP on Tuesday pushed back against the media’s “left-wing bias” by launching its own weekly podcast with State Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima).
According to Ohio Senate GOP director of communications John Fortney, Ohio’s main newspapers have an extreme left-wing bias, and their editorials attack Republicans in the General Assembly and read like Democratic Party press releases.
In addition, the GOP claimed it is increasingly difficult to get Ohio’s main newspapers to publish editorials by Republican state senators representing their side of policy debates.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer allegedly refused to publish State Senator Jerry Cirino‘s (R-Kirtland) editorial defending attacks on his Senate Bill (SB) 83 designed to restore free speech to Ohio’s public universities. The Plain Dealer’s editorial director allegedly said she could not publish Cirino’s response to their criticism for “fairness reasons.”
State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) then submitted an editorial on leftist extremism to the Columbus Dispatch. The paper’s editor allegedly insisted that the GOP remove a reference to “the party that thinks men can have babies.” The GOP declined to remove the line.
According to Fortney (pictured above, left), the media has been given so much power by cancel culture that they have attempted to control what elected officials may or may not say.
“We simply cannot allow the media to set the terms for what a free people may say. When editors begin applying woke fact checks to opinion pieces they have jumped the shark. Like you, we are fed up,” Fortney said.
Through the Senate GOP podcast, the public will receive the positions of the GOP supermajority in the Ohio State Senate in all of their actuality and will talk about opinions, remarks on public policy, and legislative updates that Ohioans won’t see or hear in the editorial pages or on the evening news.
According to Fortney, On the Record, the President’s Podcast brings a perspective that doesn’t fit the narrative from today’s newsrooms.
“Today’s newsrooms lack experience, lack staff, and lack objectivity. You’ve heard the term advocacy journalism well I’m here to tell you that the only thing newsrooms should be advocating for are the facts. That is what you will get right here on the President’s Podcast exclusive to our online newsroom called On The Record. The views the news excludes,” Fortney said.
Huffman (pictured above, right) said that it’s easy for these main newspapers to write opinion and editorial pieces because they don’t have to check the facts.
“I think there has always been bias in reporting. I mean you can think about the things that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams said about each other usually anonymously in newspapers. And you know, in the thirties and forties, and fifties there were multiple newspapers and each side had their newspaper but those were the editorial parts. But then there was plenty of reporting. It’s easy to write about opinion and editorial and have that leak into news stories frankly because you don’t have to check the facts. You can sort of decide well there is what I want the story to be about I’m going to go find a couple of quotes that fit it and if I don’t find quotes that fit it I’m going to write the same story anyway,” Huffman said.
The Ohio Senate GOP press release detailed that its online newsroom and podcast will feature weekly content, columns, and podcasts Ohioans won’t read or hear anywhere else.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star, The Star News Network, The Arizona Sun Times, and The Tennessee Star. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “John Fortney” by John Fortney.
