The Rooster's Rules of Engagement

In my opinion, the ends justify the means—several times over.

Critics commonly claim that The Rooster is left-wing activism masquerading as journalism.

And they’re right to an extent.

I’m never going to present Republicans wanting to stomp on trans kids and Democrats saying, “Uh, could we not?” as equals competing in the free marketplace of ideas.

I do not chase the myth of objectivity. I also understand that comes with the price of alienating a non-insignificant portion of potential readers, especially when I publish on a platform that lets any kook off the street start an account.

I’m further unperturbed by claims I’m “not a real journalist.” In fact, I only describe myself as a concerned citizen who engages in random acts of journalism.

Senate communications director Jon Fortney, in one of our classic bickering sessions that ended with him trying to kiss me, once told me that I’ll “never have credentials here” because of my infamous “Blow Job Brothers” stunt.

“They don’t let Jon Stewart cover the real news,” Fortney said, without clarifying who it was that he meant by “they.”

Ironically, Fortney represents my gripe against “objectivity.”

He is one of the most bad-faith partisan hacks in the Statehouse, as evidenced by whatever he last spewed on The President’s Podcast, which is nothing more than culturally insignificant, taxpayer-funded propaganda that coddles the state’s most powerful politicians by letting them spew partisan talking points with zero pushback.

Through that lens, it’s hilarious that Fortney looks down his nose at me when his entire job revolves around protecting his powerful bosses from an increasingly threadbare Statehouse press corps.

In Fortney’s defense, he wasn’t always looking to work a job less honorable than dying penniless in the gutter.

Here he is covering the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2010:

Jon Fortney

Fortney would no doubt claim that he “put his biases aside” and “called things objectively” while surrounded by liberal activists he blames for all of America’s problems.

But objective to whom? I’m to believe that Fortney’s militant Republican views didn’t seep into his coverage of a party he now openly loathes?

Sure, he probably didn’t shout racial slurs at Barack Obama or try to smuggle a bomb into the arena. I’ll give him that much.

But in my opinion, it’s a foolish exercise to pretend that humans have a kill switch against the worldviews that guide them. Those neuroses are so ingrained in us that they will inevitably bleed into our work, even if subconsciously.

Bias can bleed into the tiniest of word choices, or even on the meta level of editors deciding which stories they will and won’t cover.

It’s not like there is an international regulatory body that objectively grades media outlets, reporters, and individual pieces.

Eyewitnesses in criminal trials are unreliable because two people can witness the same crime and come away with different realities. Without video evidence, are those divergent narratives not objective, at least in the eye of the beholder?

I don’t mean to act like a student-fucking philosophy professor trying to ask quixotic questions of a freshman class while throwing my ponytail over my shoulder.

It’s just that, in my opinion, it’s easier to treat readers like adults and dispense with this nonsense that humans have a “universal truth” mode when covering high-stakes political arenas that dictate material outcomes to millions of Americans.

If this notion of “objectivity” is a sacred cow that must be protected, why are we living in a golden era of political corruption?

It’s because, with the death of newspapers and the consolidation of corporate media, an untold number of honest journalists sold their souls to the political class, choosing a steady income with government benefits in exchange for training politicians on how to defend themselves against their former colleagues, usually by bludgeoning them with their own rulebook.

In my opinion, the political class has become too adept at bending the traditional rules of journalism in their favor. The Statehouse is a perfect example.

Look at Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima). He is a self-styled king who, by his own admission, runs our state government in a way that lets him “kinda do what we want.”

Huffman doesn’t speak to the media unless he wants to. And if he does, that usually comes in the form of allowing a handful of all-white reporters to ask whatever Huffman’s communications director is the appropriate number for the third-most powerful politician in Ohio to be subjected to.

If a reporter does ask too many unruly questions, Huffman’s team can always go crying to their editorial bosses, that caste of crusty codgers who have an unwritten agreement that bars reporters from “pursuing” uncooperative politicians, like what happens in Congress.

That is, unless the reporter has a very justifiable reason for the rare pursuit, which, from my understanding, is that they witnessed a politician committing a felony.

In my opinion, those rules only benefit the political class.

Frankly, I’m offended by the notion that I should hop through several professional hoops, get hired by one of the handful of outlets ordained by the Statehouse overlords as “real journalism,” all to earn a badge that grants me the dignity to ask respectful questions to powerful politicians on stages their communications staffers control.

I don’t begrudge any journalist who doesn’t take me seriously or trashes me behind my back as a laughable parody of their storied profession.

It’s easy to sympathize with someone who sold themselves into debt slavery for a journalism degree and started their career covering village council meetings for $24K a year.

Unfortunately for them, this is America, where a slovenly, aggressively opinionated bisexual can bumblefuck his way into micro-celebrity status by typing typo-ridden screeds about hobgoblins, lizard people, and why Mayor Suburbs should be shipped to The Hague.

And I’d like to think, over these past two years, The Rooster has proved my original thesis that the least interesting moments happen on the legislative floor. I don’t need a credential that grants me access to club seating in the Rancid Retirement Home, listening to self-aggrandizing speeches in debates that were already adjudicated behind closed doors.

It’s a perversion of the natural order when politicians dictate the terms of media access inside a public building. It’s a disgrace that some ever-watching communications director can decide which question is too many, and every reporter has to act like the judgment came from God.

We saw the limitations of this arrangement during the bipartisan Congressional maps deal.

Senate President Rob McColley is never going to stand in front of a press gaggle and admit to leveraging his personal interests over those of national Republicans in exchange for 90,000 voters from his Senate district going into the new 9th Congressional District.

There is never going to be a public records request that produces an email chain of McColley and his henchmen collaborating to snooker skeptical Republicans by lying about the White House agreeing to the deal.

If that is indeed the standard for reporting on backroom power plays, then ultimately, the public is only left with whatever bullshit McColley shovels to the press corps, with reporters left to sift the piles of shit into what they deem as the snazziest and most interesting sentences—in a way that could never be considered anything but “objective.”

And again, I don’t fault the reporters for doing things by the book. I’m asking what the point of worshipping the book if it prohibits reporters from revealing anything beyond McColley’s couched words about the process that let him carve himself the easiest possible path to Congress?

The response would probably be that most legacy outlets eschew anonymous sourcing, which they view as detrimental to a reader’s ability to weigh specific claims against their speaker’s agenda.

Or, if someone wasn’t familiar with The Rooster’s work history, what’s stopping them from thinking I’m some crackpot spinning fairy tales conjured by several untreated mental disorders?

That’s the price of my tactics, to be sure. But it’s a price I will continue to pay, because I have the attention of Ohio’s political class. And everything flows from that credibility, even if anonymous sourcing will always allow hurt dogs to yelping about my credibility.

My old friend, Senator George Lang (R-West Chester), once commended my ability to piece together events that transpired behind closed-door meetings from Hilltop Husband’s couch.

“You’re right, too, nine out of ten times,” he said with his trademark twinkle in his eye.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that every arrow I have slung from my bow has hit its target. Such are the perils of reporting on events that I don’t witness firsthand.

I’m arguing that to produce the work that I think matters—the work that powerful and intelligent people work hard to keep out of the public eye—is juice worth the squeeze, especially as I continue my quest to develop trustworthy sources in the unlikeliest of places.

In the olden days, a 90 percent clearance rate would have tickled me. I would have thought that was a damn fine clearance rate for somebody engaged in my line of work.

Not anymore. As I hone my craft, it’s about balancing caution with my desire to hit these perverts where it hurts. It’s an instinct I’m learning that can be built with practice.

In January, I made a dedicated effort to reduce some of my more juvenile tendencies, which were fodder for viral videos and brought new eyes to my social media platforms.

But it’s not the kind of stuff that animates the type of readership I’m looking to cultivate moving forward.

However, state legislators don’t talk to me because they like staring into my kind eyes. They speak to me because they will look guilty if they run, and they have seen how I have embarrassed various colleagues of theirs.

My unorthodox fighting style has cultivated numerous sources who might not offer scandalous information. Still, they will confirm or correct what I bring them, as a price worth paying to keep my jester mentality out of their cabbage patch.

You most likely would not be reading The Rooster if I shackled myself to the traditional journalist rulebook. There would have been no way to differentiate myself from legacy operations with centuries of credibility.

The unorthodox style, while not perfect, allowed me to deliver authentic interactions where politicians look uncomfortable because they have to do more than win some gerrymandered electoral freak show in Applebee’s Country to earn my respect.

And sadly, even backbenchers with little more social skills than a wax-eating toddler have come to expect that respect, even from the press corps.

Another perversion of the natural order.

A dedicated, irreverent tone allows The Rooster to deliver video content that, in my opinion, is unparalleled in the Statehouse.

I believe politicians should be made to talk as much as possible, especially outside scripted events, that’s little more than them regurgitating talking points until they’re whisked off stage by handlers.

Hearing politicians talk as much as possible reflexively sounds like an awful idea to most Americans. But the more a politician speaks, the easier it becomes to discern if they’re merely a power-hungry jackal whose only concrete belief is whatever best helps climb the social ladder.

If we’re chasing “objectivity,” then free-flowing conversations on video are much more bipartisan than reducing press gaggles into a couple of snazzy sentences within quotations.

It’s one thing to read that State Rep. Bill Dean doesn’t believe a husband can rape his wife. It’s another thing entirely to see that dusty old man release an evil chuckle and call his sole vote against ending Ohio’s spousal exception to rape a “great vote.”

And that infamous video would not exist for posterity if I worked under a gnomish editor at a publication long ago decreed that walking up to a politician in a public building with a camera rolling violated the ancient Samurai code.

In an ideal world, I’d be writing commentary columns for The Columbus Dispatch or some other legacy venture, and I would never have to blur the lines between my robust index of opinions and breaking news.

But we’re not in an ideal world. We’re not even in an ideal city.

And to best serve my readership and fulfill a rigid editorial calendar, I have to live at the intersection of opinion and breaking news. And I think my readership is intelligent enough to ascertain the difference, even if an outsider might not.

In my opinion, at least for now, the orthodox means justify the results. The wailing about being an activist or not a real journalist falls short when, objectively speaking, they produce bombshells that could have altered the course of Columbus political history had only more people been smart enough to subscribe to The Rooster.

On Oct. 27, I debased the ancient temple of journalism after receiving a tip about a six-figure sexual harassment settlement pending against Councilman Emmanuel Remy.

Given the election was a week away, and the sequestered nature of Council, I saw no other option but to get powerful politicians, who might be engaging in a cover-up to protect their colleagues, on the hook then by speaking on an unrelated legislative item before uncorking a series of loaded questions to judge their reactions in real time.

I never leveled an accusation. I never even mentioned a name. And despite gallivanting outside traditional journalistic guardrails, I left the council chamber assured that there was something amiss with Councilman Remy, even if it wasn’t based on sexual misconduct.

Two hours later, after some heated conversations with sources, I broke the news: Councilman Remy was the subject of a workplace complaint for toxic work behavior, with a city settlement to come after the election, which was eight days away.

Two days later, I provided additional details: The victim’s lawyer had sent a letter to all of the city council, which detailed Remy’s toxic behavior, and alleged that Council President Shannon Hardin called Remy’s wife to temper his obnoxious behavior.

And, let a couple crybaby council members tell it, I should apologize for asking my elected officials loaded questions when, in fact, they had all chosen to stay silent about their colleague’s toad behavior?

Why would I do that when The Rooster was the only outlet that smuggled that information from the upper echelons of this city’s power structure and into the public light, a week before the election?

If the city’s traditional media apparatuses are bound by rules that prevent them from producing similar reporting, then of what use are those rules as legacy media moves closer to extinction with every sunrise?

And to be clear, I don’t celebrate that debilitation. It’s bad for our Republic and breeds a stupider society.

But how am I supposed to feel when, two weeks after The Rooster broke the story, NBC4i, which has more money than God compared to my humble operation, gets early access to the letter, refuses to publish it in full, and then grants Council President Hardin a cupcake interview that fails to address the timing of the settlement or any of the specific allegations involving the second-most powerful politician in Columbus?

And I’m not arguing that I should be entitled to that interview. But in my opinion, politicians in crises will always run to the friendliest reporter, and there would have been no interview at all before any exclusive with The Rooster.

Is the goal of journalism to broker “exclusive” interviews with pre-established parameters, where a politician feels comfortable that specific questions won’t be asked once that camera starts rolling?

If NBC4’s interview is an example of “real journalism” governed by “objectivity,” then I take pride in knowing that they’ll never accept The Rooster into that leathery fraternity.

A thoughtful friend recently cautioned that my unorthodox methods might alienate potential sources because they don’t know the rules for engaging me. Is something off record if they say so? Will I actually leave their name out of it?

It’s a question that shows the benefit of befriending people more intelligent than you. They make you see things in a new light.

In my defense, I wouldn’t have climbed out of the hellacious depths of my alcoholism and onto this humble perch if I had ever burned a source. The CIA couldn’t even waterboard that stuff out of Hilltop Husband because we don’t discuss the particulars.

The Rooster is successful because it has a proven track record of protecting well-placed sources. And while it operates from a leftist worldview, even hardline Republicans respect the brand because it’s not a propaganda organ for the Democratic Party.

Public Enemy No. 1 is the debilitating effect that concentrated political power has on the human soul.

There is plenty of that going around in this country, but The Rooster has stumbled into an underserved niche in Columbus, where two political cartels operate from different ideological standpoints with only one mile between their villainous lairs.

A Redditor once remarked that Columbus deserves better than The Rooster. My first reaction was, do you, though? Do you, honestly?

But upon further reflection, that anonymous dweeb was right. Columbus does deserve better than The Rooster. But I don’t think that blame falls squarely on my shortcomings as a human being.

While City Hall Democrats and Statehouse Republicans have consolidated their power and shrouded their inner-workings in secrecy that traditional media tactics can’t piece, the dwindling corporate media would rather cover renegade cows on the outerbelt, teenagers fighting at the mall, or suburbanites crying that their cars got broken into because they left their dead mother’s entire jewelry collection laid across the back seat for some reason while attending a Billy Joel concert.

I pray every day that someone, who hopefully doesn’t resemble famous actor Brad Pitt as much as I do, appears in these godforsaken trenches to show me how this game is actually played. God knows I could use the help.

Until then, the game remains the same.

The Rooster offers all the traditional journalistic protections for friends and sources willing to do the right thing, even if it’s providing off-the-record information.

But when it comes to prosecuting the corrupt political class and its corporate overlords, The Rooster will never offer any protections or guidelines to our enemies.

The name of the game is putting psychic damage on the worst people alive by any means necessary. And I’ll cherish the way politicians look at me when I breeze into a room unexpectedly more than any award I could earn as a “real journalist.”

Big Trouble in Little Italy

The humbling of State Senator Jerry Cirino is almost upon us.