Allow Me to Introduce Myself…

I don’t know if I ever believed in the infallibility of a journalist’s objectivity, but I definitely stopped flirting with the notion as a young adult. There is bias for agenda and bias for truth.

Though I work in broadcasting and host a daily radio show, I got my start in print journalism. I’m a weensy-government conservative from the Midwest, Christian, mother of two, homeschooler, and my hobby, profession, and passion is news. I regularly provide political analysis on Fox, CNN, CBS, and ABC, and have been featured before on Big J as a contributor. I’ve blogged since 2001 and was first attracted to the medium by its wild west aesthetic, if simply telling the truth that corporate media wasn’t telling could be so rebellious as to be defined as “wild west.” Now, with the advance of social media, the combination of the mediums in a new era of information distribution are endless. It’s a great time to work in this field.

This past Saturday I sat in a hotel ballroom facing a host of journalists from across the Midwest as part of a panel which discussed reporting on the Tea Party movement. I told them what I believed was wrong with corporate media’s approach, “teabagging” notwithstanding. I was invited by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Political Editor, Christopher Ave, whose attention I caught when I railed against a particular piece the paper published involving a fire at Rep. Russ Carnahan’s office (which the alternative media implied was perpetrated by the Tea Party). He guested on my show after the piece published and we had a healthy discourse on journalism and its objectives. I trust him to deliver fair pieces on the movement, on conservatism – not coddling, kittens-and-sunshine hand-holding and kid gloves, but actual objective pieces designed to inform, not persuade. Perhaps in my lifetime there will be more exceptions to the rule like this

That sentiment is why I was thrilled when Andrew Breitbart unveiled Big Journalism because I knew that we had yet another eye to witness to the media’s dereliction of duty. I am honored to be chosen as Michael Walsh’s successor.

The ideological war in which this country is currently embroiled has many fronts and one of those fronts is media. The media existed as the watchdog for the people but at some point became the attack dog for the government. What is reported in media eventually becomes history. One of the things which spurred my conversion from liberalism in my early 20s was the realization that bias was becoming history, that partisanship threatened to bury truth, and that without knowledge of the past and examination of the causes which led to specific conclusions, humanity risked a cyclical existence, never progressing. Like Groundhog Day, but way less funny.

Citizens had to reclaim the mantle of journalism and a new crop of new media scribes were born with the explosion of Web 2.0. Big Journalism is another way to harness this talent for truth.

I’m honored to have my name on its masthead and humbled to be thought worthy of it. Thank you for the well wishes and for your support.

Now it’s time for business.