“A classic case of an imbalance of power”

“In Wisconsin, the prosecutors had the [news] media in their pocket”

The news media likes to portray itself as defenders of the little guy. But when it comes to citizen activists participating in our democracy the institutional news media sided with prosecutors because, one suspects, those citizen activists were conservative Republicans.

That is how it came to pass that a John Doe secret probe into the Scott Walker election campaign “somehow leaks to the press complete with innuendo of possible crimes,” the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal told a Milwaukee audience. “But the targets of the probe were barred from defending themselves in public.” 

That Wall Street Journal editor, Paul Gigot, spoke last weekend before the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. (He hails from the Green Bay area and is a cousin of former stater rep Therese Berceau.) Gigot condemned Wisconsin’s mainstream news media — especially the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — for falling hook, line and you-know-what for the Deep State’s line that one group of citizens cannot work with another group of citizens on issues and candidates of mutual interest. We excerpt from the fine account at RightWisconsin:

“The real corruption in this case was not ‘dark money,’ it was dark power. By this I mean the awesome prosecutorial power of the state employing warrants, employing a gag order, to smother the free speech of political opponents.”

“As so often happens with these groups, the Government Accountability Board had been captured by partisans and zealots who wanted to enforce their particular view of campaign finance law,” Gigot said. “And in the process, they were more than willing to trample the First Amendment rights of their political opponents.”

“Especially disappointing in all of this was the role of the press,” Gigot said. …  You’d think the press, of all institutions, would zealously guard the institution of free speech. [Yet] the press, echoing prosecutors, wanted to believe the prosecution invention about ‘coordination.’

“We need need an ideologically diverse press, an independent and fair press that makes an attempt to get the other side of the story. Especially when state power is involved and especially when fundamental rights like free speech are involved.”

What do YOU think?