For nearly 20 years now, GetReligion has focused on discussions of religion content in what used to be called “hard news,” as in old-school journalism that attempted to do accurate, fair-minded coverage of public events, debates, trends, etc.

Long ago, I was taught that the more controversial and disputed the topic, the harder journalists should strive for “balance” in terms of content about participants on both sides, or all sides, of the debate.

Honest. People used to believe things like that.

Thus, your GetReligionistas have always tried to separate “hard news” from analysis, commentary and even outright public relations.

This brings me to a fascinating news feature in The Free Press, an important online news source that — from my point of view — grew out of the digital, social-media wars inside The New York Times. Founded by Bari Weiss, an old-school liberal, this new publication covers many controversial topics that have been overlooked, ignored or even cancelled in elite newsrooms.

Is The Free Press a “hard news” publication? It certainly publishes lots of new information, using sources that it quotes on the record. Much of the content is analysis, in the style of The Atlantic and similar publications.

In this case, we are talking about a Robert Pondiscio article with this double-decker headline:

Who’s Afraid of Moms for Liberty?

A growing cadre of angry mothers is taking over school boards and winning influence as GOP kingmakers. Why are they being called a ‘hate group’?

The overture makes it clear that, in this case, The Free Press team is interested in the lives and beliefs of the actual members (think “stakeholders”) of this organization, as opposed to the Republican candidates that court them. Ah, but do these groups overlap?

In a breakout session in a windowless conference room at last weekend’s Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warrior Summit” in Philadelphia, Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party and father of three school-aged daughters, is stiffening spines. Dozens of attendees, mostly women, are nodding and taking notes as Ziegler explains how to work with local news media. 

“Your product is parental rights. Your product is protecting children and eliminating indoctrination and the sexualization of children. You’re the grassroots. You’re on the ground. You’re the moms, the grandparents, the families that are impacted. The stories you tell help set a narrative,” Ziegler coaches them.

Notice these words: “local news media.” As opposed to national?

The story includes lots of materials about what GOP candidates are doing and saying. But, as I said before, the headline makes it clear that the actions of the mothers are, themselves, at the heart of this controversy.

Who fears these moms? Well, Democrats might fear them on one level, but they also make great material for fundraising efforts by progressive activists and candidates.

Public-school leaders may fear them, but they also inspire hot-blooded coverage in the elite publications that back progressive causes in tax-payer-funded schools and other institutions.

The question: Should journalists allow these moms to be heard? Or, by covering their concerns and quoting their views, are journalists spreading hate and bigotry?

The Free Press article contains lots of material that will please, or anger, leaders on both sides — but it focuses on what the moms are doing and saying. It allows them to be heard. In this day and age, I assume this makes this feature “conservative.” Is the same true of this PBS feature? Headline: “Inside the Moms for Liberty Summit.”

Hold that thought. Here is another key passage from The Free Press:

If you want to understand why these politicians have come, you need to go to the breakout sessions, away from the camera’s gaze, where, hour after hour, Moms for Liberty chapter leaders and foot soldiers learn how to run for school boards — and if they win, how to advance their agenda even when in the minority. There are talks on messaging strategies and mining school board minutes for signs of “woke indoctrination.” There are workshops on how to file public records requests and navigate the legal system. 

They aren’t messing around. More than half of the 500 candidates Moms for Liberty endorsed for local school board elections last year won their races. “School choice moms” provided the margin of victory in DeSantis’ first run for Florida governor in 2018. Democrat Terry McAuliffe was leading the race for Virginia governor in 2021 before his debate remarkthat “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” handed the win to Republican Glenn Youngkin. 

Moms for Liberty is the beating heart of this country’s movement of angry parents — and American education has never seen anything quite like it.

Keep reading. Is this pro @Moms4Liberty?

Moms for Liberty launched in January 2021 when frustration with pandemic masking rules had reached a boiling point. Requests to form local chapters started coming in almost immediately after co-founder Tina Descovich called in to Glenn Beck’s radio show. Appearances on The Rush Limbaugh Show, Fox News, and Steve Bannon’s War Room quickly followed. Within six months, Megyn Kelly was hosting a fundraiser. Its slogan, emblazoned on thousands of t-shirts, is “We don’t co-parent with the government.” 

In other words, conservative media, conservative media and more conservative media.

Keep reading.

That message has found an enormous and growing audience. With 120,000 members and nearly 300 chapters in 45 U.S. states, Moms for Liberty is already the most consequential education advocacy organization since Teach For America — but with none of the halo effect that inspired a generation of elite college grads to put off law school and Wall Street to teach in inner cities. 

Moms for Liberty is Teach For America’s dark opposite number. They won’t be talked out of their conviction that malign forces in public schools — gender ideology, critical race theory, Marxism, anti-Americanism — have come for their children, and they’re having exactly none of it. 

“I think they’re one of the few truly authentic and responsive edu-parental rights groups that has emerged in recent history,” says a prominent parent choice supporter not associated with Moms for Liberty, who would only speak anonymously because of the group’s radioactive reputation in education and philanthropic circles. “They’re not just mouthpieces on social media; they have a real following. If they weren’t effective, and if their message wasn’t resonant, they wouldn’t be so vilified.” 

Vilified by whom?

It’s easy to trace the DNA for much of the mainstream coverage to materials from activists at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is either America’s most trusted authority on “hate groups” or a hate group in and of itself. Remember that anti-Family Research Center gunman with the Chick-fil-A sandwiches a decade ago?

Anyway, scan this SPLC resource: “MOMS FOR LIBERTY SUMMIT INJECTS EXTREMISM INTO THE MAINSTREAM.”

Now scan this Google News search file, probing SPLC influence in elite coverage.

Interesting.

On the other side are center-right groups such as the Independent Women’s Forum. It’s coverage is, once again, dedicated to contrasting the moms with their elite-media image.

… Tia Bess, outreach director for Moms for Liberty … described her autistic son, whose education was hurt by the early {coronavirus pandemic] shutdowns. She told the audience that the previous night she had been called a racist by protesters. “Do I look like a racist, y’all?” she asked the crowd. (Bess is black.)

She and I spoke later. She told me how her son was now thriving beyond all expectations. She has gone on record as wanting to include outreach for Moms for Liberty in areas like “the ZIP codes I grew up in.” Bess will do this. She is an inspiration; she grew up knowing homelessness. 

Getting called a racist was a fairly couth tactic among protesters. From what I witnessed at the Moms for Liberty Summit, it was the protesters — not the attendees — who were trying to stir up trouble. Here are a few other things I saw:

— A street was vandalized with graffiti sprayed on a crosswalk that read “F*** off Nazi Moms!”

— Protesters carrying signs that read: “Your husbands are on grindr” and  “F*** moms for liberty.”

— Protesters threatening to take a young mother’s infant.

— Protesters starting a chant: “anal sex, anal sex.”

— Pictures of genitals painted on the street.

Inside, moms and dads, teachers, construction workers, business owners, attorneys, nurses, and others I met were busy talking about erasing learning loss and solutions to the mental health crisis.

The question, of course, is not whether this kind of anti-Moms for Liberty content should dominate mainstream coverage in, let’s say, The New York Times. The questions is whether it should be mentioned as part of the drama surrounding this group.

At the Times, there is this, of course:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-leaning human rights organization, deemed Moms for Liberty an anti-government “extremist group” this year. But five Republican presidential candidates, including former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, will be addressing its Joyful Warriors National Summit.

Also this:

Conservatives who flocked to school board meetings in places like Carmel, Ind., and Franklin, Tenn., either on their own or under the auspices of local groups like Unify Carmel, soon formed chapters of Moms for Liberty, whose funding sources remain mysterious but seemingly plentiful. As the pandemic receded, issues of race, gender and sexuality rose to the fore among these parents, just as they did in the Republican Party.

Critics of these groups saw their activism as demagogy, violent threats and opposition to public education masquerading as parental concern. At one meeting of the Carmel Clay Schools board in Indiana, a conservative protester was arrested after a handgun fell out of his pocket.

So here is my question: What “is” the feature at The Free Press, in journalism terms. What “is” the feature at The New York Times, in journalism terms?

Who is afraid of Moms for Liberty? Who is listening to them? What would old-school journalism look like, in this case?

Remember: We are asking journalism questions.

FIRST IMAGE: Commentary from the Publius @liberal_209_dad Instagram feed, posted again by the @moms4liberty Instagram feed.