The fight (by Republicans, mostly) to shut down the truth finders is neverending in Oklahoma, elsewhere
Though not here to celebrate any particular media organization, the picture above this column not only denotes stories you might have found on The Oklahoman’s website on Thursday, it tells a story, too.
Not the big headline, a story the subject of which is bound to take Governor Kevin Stitt’s brain for another angry whirl, but the first three over there on the right.
1) “Superintendent Ryan Walters files $4K in 2023 travel reimbursement.”
2) “Proposed bill would make Okla. journalists get licenses, drug tests.”
3) “Law enforcement response to Uvalde mass shooting was a ‘failure,’ DOJ says.”
File the first headline away as a story we all saw coming, produced and made available to The Oklahoman by the non-profit online newsroom “The Frontier,” the lead of which reads like this:
State Superintendent Ryan Walters jetted to Washington D.C. for media appearances and policy meetings, hobnobbed with conservative pundits at a move premiere in Texas and spoke at conferences on education reform in Philadelphia and Denver — all while billing Oklahoma for his travel.
The second reflects the most recent dumb idea brought to you by state senator Nathan Dahm (R-Broken Arrow) and here would be the first two sentences of that story:
A state lawmaker’s bill that requires journalists to be licensed and forced to take quarterly drug tests probably won’t get very far in the upcoming legislative session but it’s already sparking pushback from the state’s news media.
Senate Bill 1837 would create the “Common Sense Freedom of Press Control Act.”
The third headline goes with a story about the U.S. Justice Department’s long anticipated report, issued Thursday, chronicling law enforcement’s abject failure in response to the Robb Elementary mass shooting, occurring May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas, the second sentence of which reads like this:
The report described a chaotic scene where there was no command and control by officers — during a period when children were calling 911 for help — and also put blame on the school’s police chief who tried negotiating with a killer who had already shot his way into the classroom, but also had his officers go search for keys to unlock the classrooms.
A few things.
If not for journalists Dahm intends to “control” we’d not know Walters has been billing the state for his travels and, shocker, found a way to approve those expenses himself.
Not to mention, had a similar bill to Dahm’s previously made its way into law south of the Red River, we might never have known law enforcement’s response to the murder of 19 children and two teachers was screaming to be investigated.
Indeed, given the party in power in our state, but for attorney general Gentner Drummond, whose office is not large enough to uncover every stupidity, hypocrisy and corruption occurring in state government, Oklahomans who prefer being informed and knowing the truth would be nowhere without journalists.
Dahm’s proposed bill may appear to be a troll, yet even if only that, he’s trolling on dangerous ground because when politics are tribal, a party — not Democrats — with an 81-20 house majority and 40-8 senate majority just might, on the right day, stick it to the folks whose job it is to inform the public.
Thanks to The Frontier’s reporting we now know during Walters’ first year in office, “He expensed the trips despite an order from the Governor’s office banning public spending for most out of state travel.”
We also know it was for expenses incurred on trips that have nothing to do with his actual job: to speak at a conference in National Harbor, Maryland, sponsored by The Heritage Foundation; to speak at a Freedom Foundation Teachers for Freedom Summit in Denver; to attend a Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors Summit in Philadelphia.
We even know the person he convinced to approve these expenses was nobody but himself, because here’s another small piece of that story:
State travel request forms require a manager’s signature, but as the head of the Oklahoma State Department of Education, Walters signed off on his own trip expenses. The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services paid the travel claims. A spokesperson for the agency said Walters submitted all the required documentation for the trips.
Dan Isett, a spokesperson for Walters at the State Department of Education, did not answer The Frontier’s requests for more information about the purpose of the trips and why Walters was able to approve his own travel requests.
Of course he didn’t.
The story on the DOJ report detailing law enforcement failures in Uvalde is a horror show and here’s another small piece of it:
Each of the eight chapters — the attack’s timeline, tactics and equipment, leadership, post-incident response and investigation, public communications around the crisis, trauma and support services, school safety and pre-incident planning — ends with a list of recommendations and observations.
One says the reporting of investigative journalists and reporters “became the main source of information, and their reporting served as the accountability measure for the victims, families, and the community due to a lack of open and transparent information from government officials.”
It’s not that difficult to spot the heroes and villains here.
Those who place impediments not only to tracking down the truth, but to getting that truth it into the world once tracked are always, always, always the bad guys.
It’s possible Dahm’s not serious.
If he is, and were his bill to become law, nor could it be very well enforced, for the number of folks trying to get the facts out has never been greater and the platforms available to them, as long as the internet’s standing, cannot be shut down.
Nonetheless, even a dummy bill brought by a dumb legislator can be dangerous because, horribly, there’s no shortage of people willing to believe he’s on the level, willing to believe a government run by people like him really should have the power to choose who can and cannot report the news, no matter how corrupt Ryan Walters may be, nor how incompetent the Uvalde school cops were or how nefarious and felonious Donals Trump is.
Cloaked within the story about the DOJ’s Uvalde report was this priceless piece of reporting.
At [Texas governor Greg] Abbott’s event in the Capitol Thursday to celebrate the Texas Rangers’ first ever World Series victory last year, several reporters were denied access out of concern that questions about [U.S. Attorney General Merrick] Garland’s report would outshine the Major League Baseball club’s announcement. The governor later issued a statement thanking the Justice Department for its work.
Get it?
The Rangers were in Austin on Thursday, inside the state capitol building, to collect congratulations for their World Series victory, but the governor’s folks sought to limit media attending, afraid they might ask a question about 21 murders that occurred on the same day, in the same location, many of which might have been avoided.
What do you want to bet the Rangers would have been happy to stay home had the governor and state legislators promised to sink their teeth into the report, promising to come back with real solutions?
Then, realizing the optics, the governor thanked the feds with the same timeliness it took Trump to request insurrectionists, inspired by him, exit the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
So, if you favor a world in which nobody knows Ryan Walters steals from state coffers to fund his forever right wing heartthrob campaign, or one where schoolchildren are murdered entirely in vain, join the folks trying to shut down the journalists.
Sadly, they’re everywhere.
Why are you and smaller media outlets the ONLY ones calling out Stitt and Walters and the idiots in the republican cult? Stitt is literally getting away with whatever he wants as is Walters. Oh, and OK continues to be in the national news because of idiots like Dahm and the putz who is writing a bill based on liter boxes in school. It is DISGUSTING!
Good stuff, Horning!