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When Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s campaign bus came to town recently, the local conservative talk radio station covered the event, dutifully informing its audience on social media that “counter protesters were in attendance.”
The “counter protesters” were the radio station’s employees. They mugged for photos in front of the governor’s bus, held up signs that said, “Fire Pritzker” — then turned around and covered the Democrat’s event.
Since President Biden’s election, the talk radio station Cities 92.9 has upended the traditional media ecosystem in this part of Central Illinois with an unusual mix of hyperlocal news coverage — crime, weather and the like — and election misinformation. Replying on Facebook to a social media post about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, the station turned its focus to the 2020 election results: “What about the insurrection on Nov. 3?”
Cities 92.9 organized a sold-out bus trip to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, supported a man accused of making a Nazi salute at a school board meeting and co-hosted a fall “freedom” festival during which a former Marine and Jan. 6 attendee called for revolution, saying, “Violence is always the answer.” […]
[Catrina Petersen, the station’s program manager] posted a photo of herself on her personal Facebook page last year posing before a banner that said, “Q Sent Me,” writing, “Yeah I’m ‘Q’ what of it.” Asked whether she was an adherent to the extremist ideology embraced by many on the far right, she responded, “As much as you are BlueAnon, I suppose.”
Gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey hired David Paul Blumenshine, who hosts a talk show on Cities on weekends, as his election integrity program director. Back to the WaPo story…
Blumenshine, too, soon had a different story [about January 6], spinning tales of mysterious tour buses arriving and claiming he saw a weak security perimeter at the Capitol — assertions he has repeated to this day. In the interview, he dismissed the police officers who were assaulted by rioters during the attack — more than 140, some who suffered traumatic injuries such as brain damage and crushed spinal disks — as “political theater.”
* Some of Cities 92.9’s Facebook posts…
* WMBD reported on the group’s return from the rally on Jan 7, 2021…
Trump supporters from the Twin Cities returned home Thursday afternoon after participating in the “Stop the Steal” Rally.
The group of 49 said the thousands of supporters were “reminiscent of Dr. Martin Luther King” and said they didn’t see any violence or rioting first hand. Group organizer David Paul Blumenshine said the mood was celebratory and the president promoted peace during his speech.
“There were other speakers that day, but the president was just magnificent, he also continued to preach peace and a peaceful protest,” Blumenshine said. “Upon delivering his message, along Constitution Ave and Pennsylvania Ave, people marched, reminiscent of Dr. Martin Luther King.”
Blumenshine said the group from Normal did not participate in the “small group” that breached the Capitol Building and condemned the group that turned the event into a deadly tragedy. He said all forms of political violence should be prosecuted.
* Legacy media giving up on endorsements could cede public opinion to these kinds of “alt” outlets. The AP…
Some readers have difficulty distinguishing between news and opinion, or flat-out don’t believe that a paper’s editorial stance doesn’t affect its news coverage, said Hunter, whose Iowa newspaper is owned by Gannett.
Gannett didn’t ban political endorsements, but strongly advised its more than 220 newspapers to cut back on national opinion and focus on local issues. The Des Moines Register’s opinion pages, for example, now run twice a week. The Register is being selective in its choices this fall, weighing in on the Iowa governor’s race and a referendum on guns. But the state’s top newspaper won’t endorse in federal races, including U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s bid for an eighth term. […]
Many politicians view the dwindling state of endorsements with a collective shrug. News organizations were once seen as objective, but Republican consultant Alex Conant said many voters his candidates are trying to reach consider newspapers as partisan as politicians. […]
Advertisements — often filled with disinformation — become the primary source of information, she said. By contrast, American Presidency Project co-director John Woolley said, newspaper endorsements “are a good thing in that they model how to think, and clarify to people what the big issues are.”
* This is the Bloomington paper’s main website today
There’s clearly a news vacuum.
…Adding… [From Rich] Speaking of news vacuums, here’s the Tribune…
No part of the Lincolnwood Public Library’s collection will be moved or restricted after a heated group of public commenters forced an abrupt end to an Oct. 24 meeting of the library’s board of trustees.
Library Director Josephine Tucci said more than 60 members of the public attended Monday night’s meeting, where videos show conflict erupted in the audience over the library’s collection and programming.
Tucci said some of the commenters were misinformed about a program they thought the library had held but which had not taken place — “something to do with a drag queen storytime where the drag queen conducted the program, and that never happened,” she said.
Tucci said other commenters were objecting to a book called The Bare Naked Book that the library does not have in its collection. […]
Eventually, the meeting was dismissed by the board and police came onto the scene at the request of library officials. Officers dispersed the attendees from the room immediately upon adjournment, according to Lincolnwood Police Chief Jay Parrott.
And…
New committee: Awake Illinois PAChttps://t.co/VgTzntURhs
— IL Election Data (@ILElectionData) October 25, 2022
* More…
* How ‘pink slime’ journalism exploits our faith in local news: As local outlets have disappeared, many have been replaced by algorithmically managed pink-slime outlets that use the good will earned by news institutions of yore to help push political agendas from outside those communities. […] Poorly paid freelancers replaced staff reporters who had made living wages at newspapers like the Chicago Tribune. Part of my job was to write local news stories for the Houston Chronicle — even though I lived in Chicago — and select fake American-sounding bylines for stories written in virtual sweatshops in the Philippines. A Filipino writer named Junbe, for instance, might be renamed Jimmy Finkel, thanks to a built-in drop-down menu, and Gisele Bautista could instantly become Jenni Cox. These “reporters” earned pennies per story, and much of the content was plagiarized. “It would pay off to have you both write and edit these stories only if you could write the stories in about 90 seconds,” my remote supervisor told me.
* Why false claims about Brazil’s election are spreading in far-right U.S. circles: It’s the latest example of how debunked election fraud narratives are going international. In many cases, the false claims about Brazil are being pushed in English to American audiences by right-wing influencers and conservative media sites who falsely assert that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and appear to be planting the idea that similar fraud will occur in the upcoming midterms.
* ‘They’re not newspapers’: The not-so-mysterious publications in your mailbox: Before reading the articles published in the paper, Yamshon thought it looked like a normal local news operation, with typical advertisements and a back page featuring the names and photos of former high school football players from the area now playing in college. But then, she started to read. A box in the top left corner of the front page read, “Special Sex Education Edition: What are they teaching your child in 2022?” Below that was a reference to an article on page 2 about a Naperville elementary school teacher, with the phrase “Teaching boys to be girls.”
posted by Isabel Miller
Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 11:33 am
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Poor Catrina. If only the other kids would have gone to her birthday parties. On a positive note she was able to get a couple of her own staff to protest. Surprised The Post even cited this nonsensical station.
Comment by Stormsw7706 Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 11:46 am
Did they take down those Facebook posts?
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 11:50 am
=== Surprised The Post even cited this===
Why do so many liberals think that ignoring these people will make them go away?
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 11:50 am
===ignoring these people will make them go away?===
The vitriol only goes away with sunshine, needed sunshine.
Why do you think they take down and remove posts, delete tweets, remove videos.
I don’t want these folks silent to exposure, I want them in the sunshine.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 11:52 am
Cities 92.9 - part of the mainstream media. The only ones talking about defunding the police!
Comment by Jerry Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:13 pm
=Why do so many liberals think that ignoring these people will make them go away?=
I think the issue is that, to a degree, people increasingly equate ignoring someone and deplatforming. Deplatforming can be successful, but typically only when concerning a person who gained their success and platform virtually and they are deplatformed by most, if not all of their sites or media.
This situation is distinct completely. A fake newspaper with the money to send mass mailers cannot be deplatformed. It needs coverage and transparency, not to be ignored. Thank you for your coverage Rich.
Comment by Shibboleth Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:14 pm
- Why do so many liberals think that ignoring these people will make them go away? -
They never leave their bubbles to see what an influence these people have. I drive all over the Midwest and the number of infowars signs and black American flags I see chills me to the bone.
Comment by Excitable Boy Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:26 pm
Exposing disinformation and its purveyors is necessary. But… how much will it help in undoing the harm that disinformation has done? Ninety-nine percent of the people in my community who subscribe to QAnon and that ilk ignore facts. Nothing will dissuade them from believing what they want to believe.
Comment by Luke Steele Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:30 pm
===how much will it help in undoing the harm that disinformation has done? ===
It’s not about them. It’s about informing the majority who aren’t them.
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:33 pm
=== … after a heated group of public commenters forced an abrupt end to an Oct. 24 meeting of the library’s board of trustees. ===
Many people are wondering how many of this heated group regularly use the library for actual reading purposes.
Comment by Norseman Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:38 pm
==counter protesters were in attendance==
Strictly speaking, they’re only counter-protestors if they’re protesting in opposition to other protestors. So unless J.B. was participating in a protest, 92.9’s people were just regular protestors.
Comment by Benjamin Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:55 pm
–Why do so many liberals think that ignoring these people will make them go away?–
I don’t know any who think ignoring them will make them go away. I do know plenty of them who understand sharing propaganda, no matter how well intentioned, is giving them another voice in the chain of exposure they rely on to grow. It doesn’t matter to the stations objective the beliefs of the person *sharing* the info. You can despise them with every bone in your body, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is the person *reading* what has been shared. And once you share it, you don’t control who is reading it anymore. That’s their target, and they will happily use people who disagree with them to further that goal. If they only pick up one more person to their group out of a hundred who read what you shared, their goal is achieved.
Elvis’ manager sold “I hate Elvis” buttons for a reason. His goal above all else was to make money, and he knew he could get the people who hated him to give him money/exposure if he played to their views.
I guarantee that WaPo article will now be shared in these types of groups, and it will be used as an ‘authority’ that proves they are gaining the attention of the elites now. It’s a very similar tactic to using the courts to file frivolous claims, and then turn around and use the court documents to give your statements authority. It’s a bootstrapping method of propaganda, that relies on a third party to make it to the next step.
This group will get larger now because of the coverage. While the hundreds of also-ran AM stations doing the same thing will muddle through at the same small size they are now until they eventually go bankrupt.
The goal should be a general one to inform people how to identify it on their own through critical thinking and source evaluation, not sharing individual pieces of propaganda to ever larger audiences.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 12:56 pm
===This group will get larger now because of the coverage===
Maybe. And maybe it’ll also help shine a light on local advertisers.
Either way, this is a news business, and this story is news.
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:01 pm
I’m assuming the protesters at the library are aghast that a violent book like The Bible is available! Just searched their website.
Comment by Jerry Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:06 pm
Who’s advertising on this station, and would pressure on those advertisers make a difference?
Radio stations seek out a specific market demographic to deliver an audience to advertisers.
Comment by Give Us Barabbas Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:15 pm
–shine a light on local advertisers.–
who already know what the local station is doing, and specifically chose that station to get access to that specific local audience. The advertisers would *love* that exposure too. They aren’t targeting a national audience, they are targeting the local area who are already listening to this station. Next, that WaPo article shows up in one of proft’s local rags as an example of liberals trying to cancel them - bootstrapping their message once again.
It will also attract *larger* donors to the station who never would have heard of them otherwise.
The exposure is the goal, and it’s been accomplished.
I’d love nothing more than to see advertisers drop the station, but I also know what I want isn’t relevant or what will define what happens in this situation. That initial desire of their opposition is exactly what they are playing against their opposition.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:22 pm
===Next, that WaPo article shows up in one of proft’s local rags as an example of liberals trying to cancel them - bootstrapping their message once again.
It will also attract *larger* donors to the station who never would have heard of them otherwise.
The exposure is the goal, and it’s been accomplished.===
1) It is news, these groups and that station as it is.
2) Reporting news, in an unbiased way, the reader needs to make their own conclusions
3) WaPo or not, they still exist, and they still are functioning
4) Lastly, it’s not that it will or won’t help, ignoring its existence is where news and democracy fails because fair and free elections depend on a free press to talk about the good as well as the bad.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:33 pm
==Did they take down those Facebook posts?
Why do you think they take down and remove posts, delete tweets, remove videos.==
All three are still up. Click on the date/time frame that’s directly under Cities 92.9. The “about 2 months ago” and “about 2 years ago” and it will take you directly to that post.
Comment by Make It Make Sense Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:42 pm
As someone who works in Democratic campaigns downstate, I’ve been alarmed by this growing fake newspaper trend replacing legitimate community newspapers for a few years. My instinct is always, “OK, how do Democrats fight back?” It’s always a losing strategy to ignore these trends, wishing and hoping them away or assuming voters are too educated. The hard work of political persuasion is … well, hard work. Thanks to Rich for shining a light on this.
Comment by west wing Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:46 pm
*Sigh* Welcome to my world. The Pantagraph is a shadow of itself with a skeleton crew of reporters covering local news. The paper is a part of the Lee newspaper chain but it is printed in Peoria at the Journal-Star printing plant–a Gannett paper.
The AM radio station WJBC is not as far right as Cities but they used to carry Rush Limbaugh. Their overnight show is Coast to Coast to keep up with the weird and paranormal out there.
Comment by Nearly Normal Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 1:53 pm
–ignoring its existence is where news and democracy fails–
Absolutely agree.
But the solution is to understand that people will fall into it or not based on who they already are. Drawing attention to individual items as they come along does nothing to change that, it simply gives it a larger audience. Not spreading the information is different than ignoring it. In fact it is instead recognizing what it is designed to do, and cutting it off before that happens.
I’d rather see a focus on the larger meta-issue of *why* people are falling into those groups in the first place. Along with how to identify these types of strategies first. That’s a much longer and complicated road though.
One choice is reactionary to their behavior, another is preemptive to their behavior. Which is especially important when their behavior depends on that reactionary response to spread its message to larger and larger audiences.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 2:01 pm
- Next, that WaPo article shows up in one of proft’s local rags as an example of liberals trying to cancel them - bootstrapping their message once again. -
Who cares? Most actual news organizations have been ignoring these extremists forever, and they’ve grown exponentially.
It’s high time people wake up to the reality out there in the base of the right wing. These people believe they’re part of a holy movement to destroy their perceived enemies, and they’re just fine with violence as a means to that end. Unless the rest of us push back they will not stop.
Comment by Excitable Boy Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 2:03 pm
- TheInvisibleMan -
Thanks.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 2:06 pm
What was printed in the Washington Post only scratches the surface. Cities 92.9 has literally plagiarized other news sources and passed it off as their own reporting/writing multiple times. Their morning show host has said on local programming that the suicides of gay people due to their orientation outnumber the Holocaust and that being gay is a deplorable sin. They stir the pot on purpose, all the time, with things that are taken out of context or that are outright fabricated — like when they said litterboxes were in a local high school and claimed that candid pictures in a park they posted were of high school students dressed as furries. They are honestly dangerous to the community, IMO, and I agree with the commenter that said this will likely just make them feel more validated in their mission.
Comment by ColgateComedyHour Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 2:10 pm
I got my “subscription” of the South Cook News the other day. I am sure many of my neighbors were cheering as they read it.
Comment by James the Intolerant Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 2:21 pm
re the radio station, especially the employees and their political action…oh. my. god. which one of their employees is Sybil: The Soothsayer?
Comment by Amalia Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 3:16 pm
In case anyone is not able to access the WaPo article in full from Rich’s link, here’s a gift subscription link:
https://wapo.st/3D3tkhG
While it is bad that Cities 92.9 is in a position to fill a local news vacuum the way that they are, just how influential they really are in local politics remains to be seen.
None of their candidates got elected to the Normal Town Council in the last municipal election. And their subsequent lawsuit to try to end at-large representation on the Normal council was a bust.
Maybe they will be successful in getting the Unit 5 property tax increase rejected this election season. But that could happen even without their activism.
Comment by hisgirlfriday Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 3:29 pm
Hasn’t partisan talk radio been around for years? Or is the difference that they are trying to pass it off as real “news”?
Comment by The Velvet Frog Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 3:42 pm
The advertisers are the same whacks that do Beck or Buck…gold.. dehydrated food…some non drug painkiller…mentioning them allows them to mention the mention as a sure sign they are the real the
news
Comment by Annonin' Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 3:53 pm
The Velvet Frog - This is different because it is talk radio combined with local partisan activism / gonzo journalism antics.
Example: https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2022-08-17/underpass-talk-leads-to-altercation-between-cities-staffer-and-normal-council-member
Comment by hisgirlfriday Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 3:55 pm
Most everyone here is rational enough to dismiss the wacko conspiracy stuff for what it is. Calling attention to it seems like a good idea, because you are imagining people like you would be seeing it. But before sharing it to a larger audience, remember people like the link below will likely see what you shared too…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV9gRFv5Kgc
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 4:13 pm
Are these things (pink slime papers, redhat radio) the disease, or just a symptom? Did they create the base or just find it and cater to it?
Comment by Give Us Barabbas Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 4:35 pm
WMBD-TV needs to answer as to why they’re affiliated with Cities.
Comment by drifter1981 Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 5:09 pm
Looks like the TV station used to be the same ownership but they were sold to separate companies. So despite the call letters looks like they aren’t affiliated.
Comment by The Velvet Frog Wednesday, Oct 26, 22 @ 5:42 pm
You’d think once the library protesters found out they had the wrong library they would leave peacefully.
Then I realized they were right wingers. No one has ever successfully been able to convince a right winger that he or she got some bad information.
Comment by Betty Draper’s cigarette Thursday, Oct 27, 22 @ 5:30 am
Got around the WaPo paywall for the story. In the center of it all is former WMAY host Chris Murphy.
Started Central Illinois radio career working with One Eyed Jack, ending it with Catrina Petersen. That’ll get him a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Broadcasters. /s
Comment by Anyone Remember Thursday, Oct 27, 22 @ 8:47 am