‘Trojan Horse For Partisan Media’: Seattle Mayoral Frontrunner Wants To Force Taxpayers To Subsidize Biased News Outlets

With left-leaning news outlets in serious decline thanks to a decade of TDS-fueled propaganda, Seattle Mayoral frontrunner Katie Wilson wants to use taxpayer money to fund vouchers that can be used for “local news outlets” of choice. 

The plan to pass out the $100 vouchers would be funded through “a small property tax levy, a capital gains tax, or a digital ad tax,” journalist Jason Rantz reports.

In a recent interview on the Mostly Economics podcast, Wilson framed her proposal as a response to what she calls the “crisis in the journalism industry.” She lamented that “we do not have a sustainable financial model for supporting local news outlets” and suggested that taxpayers pick up the tab through “a small property tax levy, a capital gains tax, or a digital ad tax.” On The Jason Rantz Show on Seattle Red 770 AM, she admitted that it’s not necessarily a fully developed plan and that it’s intended to help smaller media outlets, like websites, and possibly radio.

Watch:

As Rantz notes, the scheme would allow the government to ‘raid your wallet’ to prop up the same biased outlets that demonize conservatives. 

Wilson admits to flaws in even defining what qualifies as Journalism, saying “There’s a real challenge there of how are you defining those eligibility criteria so that you are as much as possible being fair.”

Rantz continues:

By creating a government-run subsidy system, she introduces the exact opposite of independent journalism: government control of the press. The minute taxpayer dollars are tied to journalism, politicians and bureaucrats inevitably meddle in defining who gets paid and who gets blacklisted.

Wilson pretends her program sidesteps this by letting “individual residents” decide. But those residents can only choose from a list of “approved” outlets. And who approves the list? The very politicians who stand to gain from friendly coverage.

Any resident could choose to support independent media today if they chose. After years of shoddy coverage, The Stranger fell into hard economic times. They asked for donations and received them. Many local outlets do the same now. Wilson dismissed the idea of just giving tax cuts to Seattle residents who would then choose how to spend that money, which could include donating to a local media outlet or spending it in a local shop, which is just as advantageous to the community.

A Trojan Horse for partisan media?

Wilson revealed her ideological motivation in the podcast, praising “advocacy journalism” outlets like The Urbanist, Publicola, and the South Seattle Emerald. These are activist sites pushing the same progressive policies that wrecked Seattle in the first place.

Under “News Notes,” they would rake in taxpayer cash while dissenting voices are either shut out or vilified as “misinformation.”

Wilson tweeted after Cascade PBS cut its newsroom: “Seattle needs a thriving local news ecosystem. That’s why I’ve proposed ‘News Notes’.” Would she make the same post about Seattle Red or any local conservative outlet? I don’t think so. And it explains what this is all about: she wants to use taxpayer dollars to fund left-wing sources of news that benefit her cause.

Read the rest here…