Everything Old is New and Hilarious Again

My idea for a limited, 10-episode series I'll be pitching to Netflix in the Spring.

Plot Summary -- The Inciting Incident:  An old and venerable news organization is faced with the problem that its way of doing journalism -- reflexive Both Siderism -- no longer serves the interests of its readership or profession:

Associated Press Endorses 'Accountability Journalism'

Op-eds are old news and neutrality and equal treatment to all sides of an issue aren't what journalism should be about, AP believes. Will the opinion editorial category disappear under the new rules?

Plot Summary -- The Conflict:  The old and venerable news organization brings in a new guy to up-end the old order and break the suffocating stranglehold that Both Siderism has over journalism --

The journalistic ethics of old do not apply to the new guidelines over at the Associated Press. The new ethics are called “accountability journalism,” and the new bureau chief ... believes that the conventional press model, where both sides of an argument are entitled to equal weight, is exactly what journalists need to avoid.

 -- which does not sit well with the old guard:

[The new guy's predecessor wonders if the new guy's]  new brand of journalism is going to help the AP or destroy it? Granted he replaced her what is described as a "hard-feelings shake-up" in May, but his own ideology on journalism gives credence to her question.

Plot Summary -- The Escalating Action:  Undaunted, the new guy is plants his flag in plain, clear language.  Actual quote:

So is scrapping the stone-faced approach to journalism that accepts politicians’ statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.

Another actual quote:

Don't give equal weight to spin. Just because a public official says it doesn't mean you need to put it in your story or give his claim equal billing to what you know to be true. We have an obligation to write factual and fair stories, but we are not obliged to print attacks, spin or distortion under the cover of "fair comment."

Plot Summary -- The Big Twist:  This article is from 2008.  The "new guy" was Mr. Ron Fournier (emphasis added.)

The journalistic ethics of old do not apply to the new guidelines over at the Associated Press. The new ethics are called “accountability journalism,” and the new bureau chief, Ron Fournier, believes that the conventional press model, where both sides of an argument are entitled to equal weight, is exactly what journalists need to avoid.

Fournier believes those old journalistic ethics are what stops reporters from telling the truth as they see it.

You might remember Mr. Fournier from the 2016 presidential campaign where he could be found almost every day on almost any cable news station, perched on his chair, smirking, and, in the face of every single god damn Republican travesty and atrocity, blandly repeating the phrase that pays -- "Both Sides Do It" --

-- over and over and over and over and over and over (video no longer available) and over and over and over again.

After which he would be handed a large bag of money.

Not exactly sure how to end the story, but given how completely Opposite Land the corporate media has become, I'm leaning towards...

Plot Summary -- The Climax:  Ron Fournier writes a book which rips Both Siderism as a menace of civilization.  He does it in the voice of a Liberal blogger circa 2006.  The book becomes a national best-seller based entirely in the fact that all of Ron Fournier's many friends and fellow travelers in the media quietly agree to never mention his inconvenient past as one of the main vectors of this disease, nor the fact that the despised, pariah Left has been right about Both Siderism all along.  Mr. Fournier once again becomes a hale-fellow-well-met semi-regular on cable news, and is very gingerly  interviewed and dubbed a "Friend of the Pod" on many prominent Liberal podcasts.

Outside of one such podcast studio where Mr. Fournier is being given the velvet glove treatment by people who should damn well know better, one, bleary-eyed, unshaven old-school Libtard blogger is seen with his face pressed against the glass...

Behold, a Tip Jar!