| Posted by WVaBlue
Long time readers of West Virginia Blue are aware of our many complaints about the Martinsburg Journal (here's one example). It's embarrassing to say a (Hagerstown) Maryland paper covers the Eastern W.Va. Panhandle much better than the home town West Virginia one does.
The Martinsburg Journal's political coverage fails to meet basic standards of journalism and regularly favors Republicans. Over many years, the Martinsburg Journal has shown a right-wing slant it many aspects of its operation.
An identical diary and comment appeared today by a commenter claiming to be Matt Bieniek, the former city editor at the Martinsburg Journal. (There's no reason to doubt that; the comment history is consistent with the author being Matt Bieniek.) DINO69, a.k.a. Matt Beineke, lays blame on the paper's owners and senior managers for an overt bias to Republican candidates and decisions inconsistent with basic standards of journalism.
Hello all,
I (Matthew Bieniek) am no longer employed by The Journal(I know some of you are cheering!).
Therefore, I feel I'm under no obligation to conceal what I know and in fact, feel an obligation to let people know what is going on at the local newspaper in Martinsburg. Before I move on in my job search, I'll be posting afew items of interest. The first is from an internal complaint I filed in March 2009:
Work of employee Jenni Vincent the Saturday before Election Day, Nov. 2008.
Employee Jenni Vincent was called into work by Publisher Craig Bartoldson on her day off and required to work to produce either one or two stories after extensive interviews with two local Republican Delegates, Craig Blair and Jonathan Miller. I am not sure whether the delegates may be personal friends of the publisher. I was the Saturday supervisor in the newsroom that day. The story was their response to charges in an ad apparently opposing their elections, essentially allowing them an unpaid ad at the last minute before the election... .I made my objections on this matter clear to several individuals and eventually to Bartoldson, who became angry and responded by falsely accusing me of unethical practices. The publisher was aware that Saturday was not a scheduled work day for Vincent.
Required suppression of news items
Matthew Burdette sent an email on Feb 25 or 26 to the city editors and copy editors, apparently with the approval, direct or tacit, of Henline and Bartoldson, requiring suppression of news about the newspaper industry and other media and suppression of most global warming stories. This obviously unethical practice is a disservice to readers, would bring ridicule to the company if it became generally known, and probably will fail to meet whatever bizarre goals it is designed to accomplish.
(I made slight formatting changes for readability.) |
