The Media Matrix

Book excerpt: The essays by journalist Frank Miele in this collection span from 2005 to 2018. "The Media Matrix" is Volume 4 of the Heartland Diary USA series. Most of these essays originally appeared in the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana, where Miele worked for 34 years, including 18 years as managing editor. Miele gained a wide following for his weekly conservative "Editor's 2 Cents" commentaries, which are now collected in the Heartland Diary series. The author, who is now a columnist for Real Clear Politics, relies on his work as a community journalist to filter the Fake News promoted by the Mainstream Media to get to the real story. You can read about biased reporting on a variety of topics such as "natural born citizenship," "the war on terrorism," "border security," and "Russian collusion." Miele finds common ground with Donald Trump and declares himself to be a sworn enemy of Fake News. The foreword was written by Brant Horn who was circulation director at the Daily Inter Lake for most of the years when Miele was at the helm. He describes the challenges Miele met in his capacity as managing editor and lauds him for not giving up on his responsibility to present a fair and balanced news report even while writing conservative commentary under his own name for many years.The afterword by economist Richard L. Spencer is the introduction to the entire Heartland Diary USA series. Spencer commends Miele as "America's diarist" and believes that Miele's columns represent a vital resource for future historians.