by Travis Mateer
When you read local media as closely as I do stuff that might not register with casual readers stands out. Part of the value I bring to my readers is pointing out the ways in which local media facilitates a sly manipulation of local data to give you impressions that might not be as accurate as you assume.
One of the factors that should be considered when reading anything from local media is the TIMING of what is being reported. For example, the idea of a “Friday news dump” was derived, I would assume, from critical thinkers noticing the pattern of sensitive information being released at a particular time of the week for a particular reason. From the link:
Releasing bad news or documents on a Friday afternoon in an attempt to avoid media scrutiny is often called a “Friday news dump” by members of the media.
This timing is often chosen strategically, aiming to minimize media coverage, public attention, and potential scrutiny that may arise from the news being released.
The concept of the Friday news dump is rooted in the understanding that news cycles tend to be slower over the weekends, with fewer journalists and news outlets actively covering breaking stories.
I wasn’t consciously thinking of this notion as I read the weekly crime statistics reported by KGVO. Before we get to what is being reported at the end of 2023 in Missoula, let’s take a quick trip down memory lane to 2015, when Kirsten Pabst was doing damage control about Missoula being unfairly designated as the Rape Capital of America (emphasis mine):
Explaining the incalculable trauma sexual crimes cause victims is valuable for our community. Oversimplifying the many factors properly considered in deciding if a person should be formally charged with committing a sexual crime is disingenuous, destructive and, in the end, harmful to victims. It is not enough to cast blame. To start to solve this challenge together, we need to begin by understanding the facts.
A widely held misunderstanding is that sexual assaults were not being prosecuted in Missoula; Missoula was unfairly referred to as the “Rape Capital”. The actual numbers show that our offense rates are typical and our prosecution rate has been much higher than the national average.
If you don’t think Missoula’s prosecutorial machine is sensitive to how its perceived through the lens of media after being raked over the coals by national media scrutiny, then you are an ideal consumer of local news because you will read the following information and more than likely NOT understand the important takeaway you’ve been given.
Here’s the quote from the KGVO article with NO emphasis from me because I want you to try thinking for yourself why this framing of a busy week is important:
The Missoula County Attorney’s Office charged 30 new criminal complaints this week, which is 11 more than last week and way higher than the weekly average. According to Chief Deputy County Attorney Matt Jennings, that doesn’t necessarily mean there were more crimes this week.
“This is a time of year where things actually slow down a little bit in our office and allow us to catch up on some cases that have been sitting there for a couple of weeks that might take a little bit more time to charge,” Jennings said. “We had 15 in-custody arrests. That means somebody was out getting the police called on them or observed by law enforcement and actually getting arrested at that moment. Then about 15 of them were out of custody and those are often property crimes, things like embezzlement or something that took a little bit longer to investigate, but nonetheless, this was one of our busiest weeks of the year.”
Who is reading this stuff, much less WRITING about it, amidst the craziness of Christmas and New Year’s? I mean, besides someone with no life and a burning desire to expose the way his home community is being manipulated?
For more hints of media manipulation I waded into a recurring Missoulian schtick that frames GOOD things as “huckleberries” and BAD things as “chokecherries”. The nugget of manipulation I found came from some editorial shit-talking on the atmosphere of violence in Billings. Is this you, Kiggins? (emphasis definitely mine):
Criminal activity does not command Missoulians’ interest the way it does in say, Billings. Here only two law enforcement incidents made the top 20: a lockdown at Hellgate High School following online threats was No. 12 and the arrest of a suspect in a Westside neighborhood that also prompted a police chase and lockdown at Lowell Elementary School was No. 20. Billings had four crime-focused stories in its top 20.
But the contrast is even more stark when seen through another lens: Stories that prompt a reader to buy a subscription. In Billings, 18 of the top 20 stories that inspired people to subscribe to the paper were crime incidents. In Missoula, only five of the top 20 fell in that category. Put another way, 30% of new subscribers to the Missoulian did so after reading crime stories, while such stories drew 93% of new readers in Billings. Not to cast aspersions, but Missoula’s relative lack of sirens makes a huckleberry sound.
Knowing what I know, especially the stuff I have NOT written about, makes this bullshit stink worse than a rotting corpse hanging from a tree.
If we’re using berry metaphors to shit-talk communities competing for tourist dollars, I’m giving a BIG CHOKECHERRY to the entirety of the media in Montana, every single one of them, even the ones I only pay some attention to when they literally receive money from funds earmarked for promoting tourism. From the link (emphasis mine):
Destination Missoula and the Missoula Tourism Business Improvement District awarded event grants to five local organizations for 2024.
The University of Montana Native American Law Student Association, Montana Grizzly Lacrosse, the University of Montana Grizzly Marching Band, the Montana Institute of Sport and the Montana Free Press received grants.
Don’t worry, Montana FREE Press, it’s not JUST because you’re getting tourist dollars that you’re getting my attention. You’re getting my attention because you ALSO produce shitty reporting that I can point to and mock because of what’s NOT in there.
I went to the Montana Free Press and used the search bar to see what came up when I entered CRIME. One of the articles I found attempts to cover the weird pull-out from Public Law 280.
Maybe I missed it, but no where in the article do I see a particular name from a particular law firm that’s involved in this case. The reporter, Justin Franz, is someone I’m familiar with because he interviewed me for his podcast on David Burgert, a presumed dead militia man still wanted by the FBI.
The name, if you’re interested, was actually included in the Missoulian’s coverage of this odd case that’s only odd if you follow the reporters paid to apparently NOT connect dots and see the larger forces at work here in Montana.
Who do I see pictured above? I see Lance Jasper, of Reep Bell & Jasper, involved in the kind of cases his law firm appears to enjoy taking, cases that pay them to work law enforcement against local and/or state government. There are Mandamus cases and pay parity cases and a profound lack of curiosity about the connection from local media.
If I was a fat nordic man with magical mind-control powers over creatures with fuzzy antlers, I would have spent a long night visiting everyone paid official paychecks to inform communities across Montana about what’s happening and dropped serious lumps of coal into their stockings. Instead, I’ll settle for documenting how effectively one informed and persistent person can be at connecting dots in anticipation of what’s coming.
Before THAT fun commences, 2023 may have a few more surprises left before the year wraps up, so stay tuned.
And, as always, thanks for reading!