Forget The Mainstream Media. The REST Of The National Media Got The Message Just Fine.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that there is no good news is that that’s all the bad news I have

I was born, raised, and lived the first 45 years of my life in Chicago. And I never once bought and read the New York Times. And I never bought and read the Washington Post. Or the Wall Street Journal. I read the Chicago Sun Times. And when I lived in Lake in the Hills, I read the Algonquin Journal for local news. And now I live in Las Vegas. And I still don’t buy or read any of those. With my glaucoma, I don’t read much of anything, but my wife Teri has the Las Vegas Review Journal on her phone, and quotes from it to me quite frequently. My point is that most of the people in this country don’t get their information from the mass circulation Beltway or Mainstream media, they get it from local sources.

This turns out to be a very good thing. Because while the mainstream media got totally bogged down in the ugliness of the sausage making of the infrastructure bills, it turns out that nationally speaking, they couldn’t give a shit less. They deal with local news, and report how federal finagling affects local residents.

Rachel Maddow had a fascinating segment tonight on how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a page from Rachel’s handbook, ignored the national media, and looked at local headlines about the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And what her office posted nationally was as warm and welcoming as a footbath at the end of a marathon.

The largest newspaper in South Dakota had a top fold headline today bannering that South Dakota would get $2.8 billion from the infrastructure bill once Biden signs it. And then they almost lovingly listed and described all of the improvements that those funds would bring to the citizens of South Dakota. And in the second main page headline pointed out that both South Dakota GOP Senators, as well as South Dakota’s at large representative had voted against South Dakota getting all of these goodies.

The same was true in North Dakota. Again, the largest state newspaper proudly proclaimed the amount of money that North Dakota would get from the infrastructure bill, and what it would provide, along with a follow up headline on the main page excoriating GOP lawmakers for voting against the bill. And the madness even seeped into Deathsantisland. A major Florida paper did an above fold headline, touting the new revenue and benefits of the infrastructure bill, and in a next column article,  noted by name the four Democratic Houser members who voted for the bill, and called out the rest of the GOP caucus by name for voting against the bill.

Never forget this one simple fact. All politics is local. There is a natural tendency to gravitate to the big splashy headlines from the national media outlets, but the simple fact of the matter is that, like me, most people get their news from local media coverage, not just newspapers, but local television news as well. And local news tends to concentrate on local issues.

In the coming weeks, Biden, Harris, Buttigieg, Granholm and Haaland are all scheduled to hit the road to tout the benefits of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And they’re taking the word to the streets, read and blue districts alike, with a common message, for once, you win! And while the national news media may not pay much attention, the local news media will. And in the 2022 general election campaign, when Democratic challengers start hammering GOP incumbents for their votes, they’ll find fertile ground in the local media. Pass the Build Back Better Act!

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