News Is a Product

(Edited from original post October 22, 2022)

A plea to my Utah friends: please, please, please break up with KSL News and the Deseret News - two of the most damaging political influences in Utah.

 For years, we were subscribers to the Deseret News, and believed KSL to be an unbiased, trusted local news source. Typing that makes me sick to my stomach today. Trusted? Um. No. Unbiased? Not even close.

I cut my teeth politically on the likes of Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams – both syndicated and carried in Deseret News for years. So I assumed what I fear far too many still assume - that Des/KSL, if not conservative leaning, are at least moderate. If they were, they are no more.

The thing that makes Des/KSL dangerous to the Utah political landscape is the fact that so many believe they’re getting their news from a conservative source. Or worse – far too many believe that because of the Church’s connections to these news outlets – these news sources, if not endorsed by their church leaders, are at least unimpeachable. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth; they are reading or listening/watching their news mingled with scripture.

Like the scorpion who stings the frog in the old story, with the Trib, at least you know what you’re getting when you pick it up. But far too many of my friends are regular consumers of Des/KSL, and regurgitate bald-faced lies as truth – lies I know came from these Utah media wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The longer I’m away from regular exposure to them, the more glaring their lies are – often, simply lies of omission. I continue to be astonished, mystified, and even terrified at how successful Des/KSL has been in driving a narrative that is damaging the state of Utah.

Those of you who know me well, know I don’t care at all if we disagree. As I’ve spent the last 14 years of being more wakeful – not woke – about the world around me, this is something I’ve learned from my own experience.

The idea - ‘maybe I’m wrong about Des/KSL…’ led me to look at all the news I consume with a more critical eye. And that idea led to an even more important discovery: news is a product, and everyone who produces it has an angle. You’d best figure out everyone’s angle and assume nothing about anyone’s motives without your own due diligence.

All that has led me to this personal axiom: friends don’t let friends consume Des/KSL.