Top-Rated Arizona News Anchor Resigns: The Media Needs a Wider Range of Viewpoints
One of the most popular news anchors in Phoenix walked away from her job Tuesday, and she obliterated the country’s biased establishment media on the way out.
KSAZ-TV’s Kari Lake, who has been half of the Fox affiliate’s successful ratings duo for two decades, announced in a Twitter post with a video posted to Rumble that she would walk away at the top of her game. She left nothing on the table, blowing the whistle on the bias that has rotted American news media from top to bottom for so many years.
A message for my Arizona friends and our loyal Fox10 viewers. https://t.co/5Aq1p3uggx
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 2, 2021
“Twenty-two years ago, Fox 10 hired me and paired me up with John Hook to bring you the news every night. Shortly after becoming a team, we jumped in the ratings and we’ve held the number-one spot for almost all of our time together,” began Lake. “Anyone who’s worked in TV news can tell you that is not an easy feat, and it’s one I’m extremely proud of — and I thank you for that.”
Indeed, those who have worked in TV news, and especially in local markets, know that the dynamics are always shifting in the never-ending battle for ratings. News directors come and go, photojournalists and producers come and go and competing networks are always trying to topple the leader in a game of king of the hill.
What many people don’t see, and you can’t see it unless you’ve worked in local television news, is that leftism permeates many of these corporate-owned and supposedly community newsrooms. Anchors and reporters are overwhelmingly liberal.
The most ardently leftist of these people generally seem to be the show producers — the people who organize the programs, decide what the news is and then write or co-write the news copy that anchors read off the teleprompter.
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“Sadly, journalism has changed a lot since I first stepped into a newsroom, and I’ll be honest: I don’t like the direction it’s going,” Lake said. “The media needs more balance in coverage and a wider ranger of viewpoints represented in every newsroom at every level and in each position.”
She then uttered the one statement which probably solidified her as an actual journalist: She was no longer proud of what she did.
“In the past few years, I haven’t felt proud to be a member of the media. I’m sure there are other journalists out there who feel the same way. I found myself reading news copy that I didn’t believe was fully truthful, or only told part of the story,” she said.
“And I began to feel that I was contributing to the fear and division in this country by continuing on in this profession.”
With that, she left her post as half of one of the most popular newscasts in the country’s 11th-biggest media market.
“It’s been a serious struggle for me and I no longer want to do this job anymore,” she said. “So I’ve decided the time is right to do something else, and I’m leaving Fox 10. I thank Fox for their understanding as I’ve come to this decision, and I am grateful for the opportunities they provided for me to cover so many big stories over the years.”
“As I close this chapter of my career, there will probably be some hit pieces written about me. Not everyone is dedicated to telling the truth, but thankfully, many of you have figured that out. I promise you, if you hear it from my lips, it will be truthful,” Lake went on.
“It is scary walking away from a good job and a successful career, especially in difficult times. I know God has my back and will guide me to work that aligns with my values.”
What Lake did took a lot of personal courage. Most TV journalists will work their entire careers angling to get into the anchor’s chair. The few who make it then enjoy a large amount of community respect and recognition — and a nice salary.
Lake walked away from all of it and told those who probably suspected they could trust her that they were right. She also told them they are being deceived by an industry that is inundated by leftists.
These places are staffed probably 80-20 liberal versus conservative, minimum, and most of those liberals tend to be from somewhere else as they ride from one city to another and pad their résumés. The result is often a biased and sterile on-air product made by people who resent their audiences and know very little about the areas in which they live.
Lake predicted there would be some “hit pieces” written about her, and she was correct. The Arizona Republic quickly dismissed her in a hit piece noting she had left her job.
“While no one can pretend journalists are perfect, there are also members of the media who are justifiably proud of their work in the last few years — for example, when it came to reporting on former President Donald Trump and the 2020 election,” the paper’s Bill Goodykoontz wrote.
Goodykoontz went on to praise censorship of doctors and others online, and concluded Lake had “done her share of responsible journalism” while smearing her as being “notable for controversies.”
“Lake shared disinformation about the First Amendment after Twitter and Facebook suspended Trump’s accounts for his posting of misleading information and lies after his words inspired the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,” he wrote.
In reality, it was probably tweets such as these that made Lake “controversial”:
Rest in peace, Rush. https://t.co/h83mOBPZ1g
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) February 17, 2021
How do you feel about “cancel-culture” and “censorship”?
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) February 3, 2021
Join me on Gab.
So much less vitriol than Twitter and easy to use. pic.twitter.com/CIx4qMVoCW— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 21, 2021
These sites are the modern-day equivalent of the public square. Worries me that so many are for censoring speech in this country. https://t.co/ypwXGmJ58A
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 9, 2021
What Lake did was not think like her peers, and not like Goodykoontz and the rest of the biased leftist media. Arizonans are not better off with her resignation. But her public exit brings a silver lining: It provides confirmation from someone at the top of the local TV hill that leftists have killed honest journalism in the country — even in their own neighborhoods.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
