The presidential debate featuring the Republican presidential hopefuls conducted by cable television outlet CNBC, an NBC network affiliate caused a bit of stir. The conduct of the “moderators”, an interesting and ironic term that in this case is misapplied, was downright offensive. So much so that the Republican National Committee severed ties with the network citing “bad faith”. My how journalism has fallen.

CNBC, with its focus on business news, is a Wall Street mouthpiece. It reports on the markets - stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies - as well as economics and politics. It is Wall Street’s cheerleader and currently its viewership is at all-time lows - so low that it has suspended the use of the A. C. Nielsen television ratings service. I mean, with ratings that low, what’s the point? However, apparently the interests who need CNBC reporters to wave pom-poms for them will still buy ads on their network.

So that raises an intriguing question. Why would a mouthpiece of Wall Street, CNBC - its paid cheerleader - why would they use the primary debate forum as a platform from which to launch an attack on the Republican Party? NBC is widely considered the most “progressive” of the media conglomerates, could it be that progressives are really just shills for Wall Street? Clearly Wall Street is concerned about something that’s going on in the Republican Party.

Now I don’t expect that progressives, or whatever other label one might use to describe those that think a certain way - Democrats, liberals, left of center, whatever - to “get” this. There’s a special kind of programming that’s at work here. I often find that instead of discussing the merits regarding an issue, or even the facts - the debate begins to devolve into an argument about “sources”. If you reference a source that is “unacceptable”, a progressive’s eyes will glaze over, they will turn out the light and the conversation will be over. It’s a form of censorship.

Well, turnabout is fair play. As CNBC has marginalized itself, I can find similar circumstances closer to home. Lately I’ve noticed quite a number of stories about West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. If you have a certain ideological bias you’ll call them “investigative journalism”. But if you look at the substance - they are really just “hit pieces”. Tabloid journalism.

Nearly all of the articles come from one source - The Charleston Gazette - and they focus almost exclusively on one case. The case involves actions by the state of West Virginia against pharmaceutical companies and are related to the problem of drug abuse in West Virginia - abuse of drugs that are legal. The articles charge all sorts of conflicts of interest regarding Morrisey, his wife, a company called Cardinal Health and one supposedly “secret email”. It reminds me of Bernie Sanders now infamous comment, “enough with Hillary’s emails”. You can’t make this stuff up.

Now I don’t generally make a habit of defending public officials, but like CNBC, the Gazette is, well, off in its own little world. They themselves acknowledge that Morrisey didn’t initiate the action, it was set in motion by Morrisey’s predecessor Darrell McGraw. Now I’m confident that if Morrisey had decided not to pursue the case after handily defeating McGraw, the liberal West Virginia media, including the Charleston Gazette, would have gone wild. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You get the picture. However, as the article quotes Morrisey, “West Virginians deserved the case to be decided on the merits”. So why does the Gazette have a problem with this?

After criticizing Morrisey’s decision to proceed with the case brought about by his predecessor, the Gazette then accuses Morrisey of conflicts of interest in the prosecution of the case. Pretzel logic. And as if we needed more irony, the West Virginia Record, the state’s legal journal, quotes Jack Bowman, a former professor at WVU and a Law Ethics Expert as saying, “Unfortunately, a media outlet - which recently violated the judge’s orders - is trying to twist the attorney general’s actions into something improper, when he went about and beyond what the rules require”. By the way, that “media outlet” is none other than the Gazette. In other words, according to Bowman, it turns out that the Gazette is ethically challenged, not Morrisey. So much for journalistic integrity.

So why would the Charleston Gazette have it out for Morrisey? It’s a progressive newspaper, that’s what they do. But just for the heck of it, with apologies to Shakespeare, let us count the ways. First of all, Morrisey doesn’t live in Charleston, he lives right here in Jefferson County, and that’s a first. He’s not a member of the club. He’s also a Republican, the first since 1928 to hold that office. Strike two.

But wait, there’s more. According to West Virginia Focus, over the summer “West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey…filed a petition in Putnam County Circuit Court, seeking documents for an investigation into possible antitrust violations by the Daily Gazette Company, which merged the Charleston Daily Mail and Charleston Gazette in July to form the Charleston Gazette-Mail.” Adding, “The Charleston Gazette and the Daily Mail had been competitors for over 100 years”.

The newspapers through their attorneys rejected the Attorney General’s request for information regarding the merger claiming that there was no probably cause. They rejected the request for information, what could they be hiding? Well, the Attorney General’s request for the information is related to the terms of the companies’ 2010 settlement of an antitrust suit brought by the US Department of Justice in 2007. Maybe competition in the marketplace of ideas isn’t the goal anymore.

According to the Gallup organization, over the last four decades the public trust in journalists and the profession of journalism has declined by approximately 50%. In England, trust in journalists has dropped to levels previously reserved solely for politicians. What a sad state of affairs, but not surprising. Especially considering the actions of the Charleston Gazette-Mail.