The Runback: Правда on the Patapsco
The Rise and Fall of a Conservative Column at The Baltimore Banner
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News and Politics
The Death Cult's Day Out: Both the Medical Suicide and the Abortion Lobby had their day in the sun. This is not a coincidence
VEIP the First Tax Hike of Moore's Administration: VEIP Reversal shows how Wes Moore will prioritize politics over people, feelings over fact, and raising taxes over the plight of working people.
You Can't Spell Daniel L. Cox Without 2 L's: Two embarrassing defeats for Doug Mastriano's errand boy in one day
Nicole Harris is Stuck on Stupid: What's the worst thing to do in a bad situation? Make it worse!
Three Common Sense Anti-Crime Proposals: Marylanders are waiting to see whether the General Assembly - and Governor Moore – are prepared to tackle the State's crime epidemic head-on.
This Is What Early Voting and Absentee Voting Are Made For: Concerns over the Primary Date for Jewish Marylanders are understandable. But there are alternatives
Maine, Town by Town: Waldoboro: Maine might have a competitive special election soon.
Harris Keeps Digging the Hole: It's already reached the point where the Maryland GOP Executive Committee needs to Remove Nicole Harris as Chairwoman before she kills the party dead once and for all.
Food and Drink
Coca-Cola Move: "If You Like Piña Coladas....": If you are a fan of the mixed drink, Coca-Cola Move may be for you
The Monday Thought
Last summer, shortly after I announced I was disaffiliating from the Republican Party, I was contacted by The Baltimore Banner. They wanted to pay me to expand upon what I wrote for a one-off column for them. I accepted, the column ran, and I got paid.
Not too long after that, I shopped a second column. They accepted, and I came to an agreement with them about running a bi-weekly column at The Banner for a very acceptable rate. Now, for those of you wondering why I would agree to write a column for money for an outlet that I was so hyper-aggressively critical of before it even launched? Simple.
Then came this column. And in case you forgot the line that got everybody mad:
You may see the transgender pride flag as a symbol of tolerance and acceptance. I see it as a flag that denies the basic facts of biology and sex assigned at birth.
Not what I originally wrote, by the way. My original submitted column read:
You may see the Transgender Pride flag as a symbol of tolerance and acceptance. I see it as a flag that denies the basic facts of biology and birth. A person’s chromosomes do not change because they now identify as a gender other than the one they had from birth.
Anyway, you may remember what happened thereafter.
You may have realized that my column has not run in The Banner since. And it never will again.
Two days after my column ran, you may remember there was an apology from the Editor about the piece running in the first place. That didn’t bother me too much, mainly because I understood that it was the need to run a business. The Banner has a far-left, out-of-the-mainstream subscriber base. They were the ones subscribing and they were the ones most offended by the truth……er, my column.
I was more bothered that I was asked not to engage with some of the things “objective” reporters were saying about the column on Twitter.
So yes, there was a certain double standard expectation between employees of the Banner and freelancers of the Banner. That should concern you. Not that an opinion writer, like Streeter, has an opinion about my column. But that “objective” journalists felt it necessary to chime in.
There were also some “objective” journalists at the Banner who were telling management that I had shopped by column to The Baltimore Sun and they turned it down. This of course was complete nonsense: as soon as I agreed to be a regular contributor for The Banner I was only publishing with them and here at The Duckpin, not shopping my other stuff around locally.
Needless to say, I was told at the time that my column would continue.
I submitted my next column on time. Management decided to wait until after the election to resume my column. The column I submitted ran here.
I submitted my next column the day after the election. It was decided to wait until there could be a meeting. That column was ultimately this one.
We get to the meeting. We talk. We figure out what’s next. And then I was told about a “dossier.” It was a “dossier” (though nobody wanted to actually use the word). Anyway, the “dossier” had some “things” in it that were “concerning.” I was not told who submitted this “dossier” to management (though I have some suspicion as to who it was).
That meeting was almost four months ago. I have not seen hide nor hair of this dossier nor have I heard from The Banner in months.
Shortly after the meeting, I had already decided that I would not resume writing for The Banner no matter what happened from then on out. I knew that there was no longer a point: management was not going to stick by their decision to publish my columns and would not just throw me under the bus but also allow their columnists and employees to publicly denigrate me and my opinion. Who wants to be a part of that team?
Now, did I know that this would eventually happen? Of course. I knew who was associated with The Banner. I knew that it was going to be a paper run for far-left Democrats by far-left Democrats. And I knew that, despite the personal assurances made to me by the late Ted Venetoulis himself, the senior leadership of this effort was never going to allow conservative voices to flourish.
After all, there is a reason why The Banner has not replaced me with another conservative columnist. They would rather be Правда on the Patapsco, a news outlet more hyper-aggressively left-wing than even The Baltimore Sun.
This was always going to end in flames, the second I took on one of the left’s sacred cows.
I would rather just keep writing here, on my own corner of the internet, for little to no money, than for a company that doesn’t stand behind its editorial decisions. That is a bridge too far, no matter how much they want to pay me.
The Banner can continue to have their bubble. They’ll just have it without me.