Last Monday two media guys made themselves available for City Club. Since I’m not allowed to cover City Club in person, or to even to write about the catering service they use, I guess I’ll just post the video for readers of this blog so you can see for yourself why local media is in such a deplorable state of SUCKING.
Matthew Frank told the audience that his publication, The Pulp, has eschewed political op-eds because they want to cover the kind of quirky stories that won’t make powerful people uncomfortable. That’s how I interpreted Frank’s proud reference to one of The Pulp’s most popular stories, a 2024 article about a man who picks up dog shit.
Since Matthew Frank and his colleague, Erika Fredrickson, do everything themselves, the picture of dog shit in a bright pink bag accompanying this hard-hitting piece of journalism was taken by Frank himself. Amazing!
After the City Club event, one of the “social media” platforms the two media guys scapegoated for their contracting industry posted about Missoula’s need for investigative journalism.
Here’s one of the comments I found worth highlighting:
According to “Rocky Missoula” there is no investigative journalist in town “worth mentioning” and any future reporter, says Rocky, should be an outsider who should “only intend to live here a short period” because, the assertion goes, only an aggressive outsider will lack the fear that holds back local reporters from asking the “hard questions”.
Ok. But would an outsider be able to put a seemingly random commenter on Facebook into the narrative-control context she deserves?
Who is Sue Reber Orr? Six years ago, during a tense Zoom meeting about homelessness, Sue acted like she was just an average resident of Orchard Homes instead of what she REALLY was at the time: a Democrat operative helping people like United Way’s Susan Hay Patrick do narrative damage control.
Sue Orr’s husband is ALSO someone I’ve become familiar with, since his law firm, Orr McDonnell Law, employed the substitute judge who helped kick-off the years of lawfare I’ve been dealing with ever since ending a toxic relationship that nearly ended me.
In a Democrat document available online, Sue Orr’s name is listed along with another name I’ve written about, Lisa Davey, who works at a non-profit called “Common Good Missoula”. I guess Common Good Missoula isn’t too worried about that pesky IRS restriction on non-profits engaging in political activity.
Considering Lisa Davey’s political role with Missoula County Democrats, her other work exploiting teens for the climate agenda, for example, appears even more shady and legally dubious, but saying anything more about THAT topic could put ME in legal jeopardy because of who is involved.
Does Lisa Davey and Susan Orr really want an aggressive investigative journalist asking tough questions about serious issues, like openly wondering if there’s something connecting all the clumsy women in Missoula who “accidentally” drown, including my co-worker, Leah Hartley?
No, I don’t think they do, and I have the figurative legal scars and empty bank account that proves (at least to me) how much this town DOES NOT WANT their own biases and narrative blindspots challenged.
To further make my case about what Missoula needs and doesn’t need regarding information and transparency, it should be noted that investigative journalists have come to Missoula in order to make media products for wider public consumption. Too bad both Jon Krakauer’s Rape book and Connie Walker’s Stolen podcast relied heavily on THIS Guy for their narrative.
Asking tough questions at this point in our country’s 250 year history means taking information that’s already available about the Epstein class and using that information, like I have done, to make uncomfortable connections regardless of what those connections indicate, which is that BOTH political parties and almost ALL our criminal justice jurisdictions are deeply compromised.
If you’d like to help support THIS investigative citizen journalist, I’ll be at a brewery this Friday for an informal meet and greet where I will be able to explain some of the stuff I’m currently working on and NOT able to write about yet, so stay tuned!
And, as always, thanks for reading.