ProPublica Fires Back at Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin for Continued Feud: Not Offering Any Facts
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin kicked off a feud with the Louisville Courier-Journal this week for partnering with ProPublica, and after ProPublica responded he fired back.
Last night Bevin posted a video responding to the “whining liberals,” standing by his argument that ProPublica is not just biased but “hard-left leaning.” And he once again brought up his invocation of top donors to ProPublica, including George Soros (he initially referred to Soros as “George ‘I Hate America’ Soros”).
Part of ProPublica’s initial response noted how Bevin called out donors “who just happen to be Jewish,” Bevin himself says, “I happened to mention two people who happen to have a certain faith tradition, or at least that’s what I’m being told. I wouldn’t have even known that or thought of that. The fact that people are using that as a trigger for excusing their inappropriate collaboration is kind of a sad commentary on the fact that they know what they’re doing is not good journalism.”
He proceeded to accuse ProPublica of working hard to “undermine the values that have made this nation great.”
Well, ProPublica has responded again, this time with a “sigh”:
So @GovMattBevin keeps saying you should look into us.
You definitely should!
Surely he’d be happy if you signed up to get our biggest, best stories: https://t.co/ouJ9tPbjmS
Share this if you agree. https://t.co/WiWZCtOEyt
— ProPublica (@ProPublica) December 15, 2018
[sighs] @GovMattBevin is back. And so are we.
A thread from ProPublica’s president?? https://t.co/GkGQ6SFHkX
— ProPublica (@ProPublica) December 15, 2018
So @GovMattBevin is back, with a defense of why he’s not dog-whistling anti-Semitism in which he can’t manage to use the word “Jewish”, and with all sorts of accusations of partisanship by @ProPublica. What he doesn’t offer are facts, so maybe a few of those are worth adding: https://t.co/jA6yPEkW1j
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
This year, @ProPublica, @ProPublicaIL and the @chicagotribune were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Loacl Reporting for a series that resulted in the electoral defeat of the Cook County Democratic Chairman. https://t.co/XxsgDqKMfx
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
In the last presidential campaign, among the pieces we published was this one, not the Democratic nominee’s favorite : https://t.co/8hAZ9KXK4O
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
We’ve also written about @GovMattBevin’s opposite number in New York, who probably isn’t wild about us either: https://t.co/a3o2az0TCF
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
But it is true that we don’t only write about malfeasance by Democratic politicians. Just this week, our work resulted in the resignation of the police chief in Elkhart, Indiana: https://t.co/d4n7pPPGLP
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
And just this afternoon we revealed what seems like more grafting by a leading member of another party on whom some people think @GovMattBevin tries to model himself: https://t.co/Pr5w9zc3vV
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
“grifting”
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
I run the business side of @ProPublica. Reaction to Gov. Bevin’s first tweak brought in about $25,000 from donors who think politicians who try to bully reporters before they even start work need standing up to. If you agree, we’d welcome your support: https://t.co/5NwmK2JHHr
— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel) December 15, 2018
[image via screengrab]
