It’s An Information War, Stupid, And Poynter Is Aiming At Your Head!

by Travis Mateer

People still don’t get it. They might be at a local coffee shop, waiting for their morning of fix of caffeine, and they will see a headline screaming something like TACTICAL CIVICS and they will assume an organic process of news-making is at work in order to make citizens more informed participants of democracy, or some shit like that.

Well, I’m here to tell you how wrong those people are.

We are in an information war, and a “reporter” like Seaborn Larson is doing some narrative control heavy lifting for his corporate paymasters at Lee Enterprises when he starts writing about TACTICAL CIVICS. Let’s take a quick look at HOW this information warfare is being funded and conducted before I offer my opinion about WHY it’s happening.

First, what the hell is the Poynter Institute? And why are they giving the reporter with a great mustache funding to correlate TACTICAL CIVICS with Montana Freemen? Great questions, Travis, let’s see what kind of words they use to describe themselves and the work they do:

If this doesn’t impress you, dear reader, there’s more. For 50 years these trainers of journalists have been doing their thing, which really should NOT be a point-of-pride, considering the state of journalism being so deplorable, even Jeff Bezos has to concede this harsh reality. Maybe someone should tell the Poynter Institute?

Before I pivot to mocking Seaborn’s obvious agenda-driven “reporting”, I want to show you just how bad local media is, and I’ll do it with an image where the inaccurate headline is literally undermined by the banner graphic. It’s so bad it’s almost like performance art!

While KPAX can’t get basic facts right, like how much money Gianforte actually handed the United Way harpy, SHP, this month, the reporter with the mustache is SO EXCITED about tactical civics and what’s he’s uncovered that he’s hosting an entire forum about it.

The Helena Independent Record and the Montana State News Bureau invite the public to join reporter Seaborn Larson in Helena on Monday to discuss his three-part series on Tactical Civics, a new Christian nationalist group promoting citizen grand juries and county militias in Montana.

Larson will discuss his recent reporting series on Tactical Civics on Dec. 9 at Brothers Tapworks in Helena for the establishment’s “Soapbox” series.

Former Gov. Steve Bullock will moderate the discussion set for 6 p.m. at 40 S. Last Chance Gulch.

Yep, you are reading this right. The former GOVERNOR, Steve Bullock, who used his influence as Attorney General to protect the badges caught up in the Coyote Club scandal, is moderating a whole series of propaganda performances in order to draw customers to drink at his brother’s establishment, and our corporate media rag, Lee Enterprises, is joining the party.

For those who don’t know about the Coyote Club, here’s a little summary (PDF):

This case stems from investigations into an alleged poaching ring called the “Coyote Club” in Lake County, Montana. Sargeant and Funke were accused of participating in the poaching ring while on duty and while in law enforcement vehicles. The first investigation was initiated by the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks (“FWP”) in 2010, but no charges were brought against the Plaintiffs or any other individuals. In 2014, Don Bell was elected Sheriff of Lake County and took office in January 2015. Similarly, Steve Eschenbacher (“Eschenbacher”) was the newly elected Lake County Attorney. Eschenbacher had heard of the Coyote Club and was concerned when a few years prior no charges were brought.

Hmmm, why were no charges brought? Maybe Steve Bullock, who served as Attorney General from 2009-2013, can answer that question. Of course, that would take some REAL journalists doing REAL work exposing ACTUAL power players, not some dude with a mustache targeting citizens, like Seaborn is doing for his corporate paymasters.

Later in the article targeting tactical civics, the connection to Montana Freemen is made. This is where the political agenda becomes VERY obvious (emphasis mine):

With a grant from the Poynter Institute, Larson set out to understand what animates Tactical Civics’ followers, and tracked the group as it quietly made inroads with state lawmakers, local organizers and disenfranchised Montanans who were “desperate” for something to swing back at what they perceived to be government overreach. What he found was a recycled blueprint from groups like the Montana Freemen, remade in the era of social media and podcast programming.

Following the Nov. 5 election, the group also staged a microcosmic question pondered also by antigovernment extremists: With Trump back in the White House, where does the militia movement go from here?

I know the answer to Seaborn’s question, and that’s because I’m going to be a part of it. Here’s the answer: the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. That’s where. And hopefully a heavy dose of CORONER INQUEST exposure, which I’ll be writing about next week.

I’ll get even MORE specific. There are some funny people in Montana who call themselves CONSTITUTIONAL SHERIFFS, but their understanding isn’t always in-line with what our rights should be. Some of these Sheriffs used to be Democrats, like Cascade County Sheriff, Jesse Slaughter, and Missoula’s former Sheriff, T.J. McDermott, the chubby badge who decided NOT to run an actual Mayoral campaign when he realized what I would be writing about him if he did.

Thanks to Mineral County, my ability to challenge the hero narrative of WILD WEST shootouts has expanded, out of necessity, to much of Western Montana. This is why the more recent FAILURE of Mineral County to find Willie is interesting to me, just like the FAILURE of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office to find a suspect in the antler-murder of an 88 year old woman is interesting to me.

If YOU, dear reader, find my citizen journalism interesting, please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). I don’t write the kind of propaganda trash the Poynter Institute pays for, so hopefully you see value in that.

Thanks for reading!