Did RedState Fire Writers Because They Were Trump Critics?

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Conservative news blog RedState has fired many of their popular writers, including their editor-in-chief Caleb Howe, and some are saying it’s because they were critical of the President.

According to CNN, the site was frozen, bloggers were locked out of their accounts and then cuts were made.

Erick Erickson, who founded the site but left in 2015, wrote this on his new blog, The Resurgent:

My understanding from the writers is that there were two contracts, one more expensive than the other. Most of those on the expensive contracts were tossed, though some very good ones will stay. Of those under the cheaper contracts, it seems the dividing line was loyalty to the President. In fact, among those under the expensive contracts, I’m aware of some writers having near equal traffic generation, and those insufficiently loyal to the President were fired.

This is not a surprise as the same thing appears to have happened in Salem’s radio properties and one of its hosts has told me he felt he had to be quiet about his Trump criticisms on his national radio show.

Erickson then offered the writers positions with The Resurgent.

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/989904282634932224

Most people don’t know what to make of it.

If this was, in fact, a firing because writers are not fawning over the President, then this is an outrage. RedState will probably never admit it if it was, but it doesn’t really make sense to let writers go if their content is doing just as well as the more pro-Trump writers.

Conservative writers NEED to be critical of whoever is in the White House, even if there’s an “R” next to his (or her) name. Being a Republican does not absolve you of all wrong doing and the bloggers are right to criticize behaviors and decisions the President makes if they don’t line up with conservative principles. Even more importantly, as journalists, it’s their job to do so.

For the most part, RedState’s content has been fairly well balanced. There’s a lot of talent there and a lot still remains but as you can see from some of the remaining staff’s Tweets, should they be told to bow down to Trump, they will quit. It’s plausible to think they will go the way of Fox News and Brietbart – pro-Trump no matter what.

Salem Media, who owns RedState along with Town Hall and several Christian radio and TV stations, has not commented on the situation.

 

 

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