Alex Pappas reports at the Daily Caller:

The lone conservative columnist at the largest and most influential newspaper in Kentucky says he quit writing for the paper because editors are refusing to publish his opinion piece calling the publication out for its apparent liberal bias.

Columnist John David Dyche told the Daily Caller Monday that he’s written for the Louisville Courier-Journal for about a decade and his column had never been rejected until last week.

Dyche says he quit after Pam Platt, the paper’s editorial page editor, left him a voicemail on Feb. 11 making it clear they wouldn’t run his piece about the paper’s politics.

In a voicemail to the columnist, Platt reportedly says, "Hi, John David, it’s Pam Platt at the Courier-Journal and I’m just calling to let you know that I’m not going to run your column tomorrow," according to a transcript of the voicemail the Daily Caller says it was provided.

"To me it goes sort of off of what your column is supposed to be
. . . . My understanding is a conservative take on issues of the day and that’s not what this is. So, anyway, thanks a lot and I’ll talk to you soon," the transcript reportedly says.

The Daily Caller is also reporting that it has "obtained a copy of the rejected column. In it, Dyche calls on the editorial page to be more balanced."

"Journalistic jihads against Kentucky’s Republican U. S. Senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, and crusades for gun control and higher taxes, are in full force and frequently fill almost the entire editorial and op-ed pages,” Dyche reportedly writes. "Such one-sidedness neither works in the marketplace nor serves the public interest."

The Daily Caller also reports that the Dyche column "called on the paper’s reporters to disclose their political affiliations in the spirit of transparency."

In this regard, the Dyche column reportedly states:

Like the rest of the press, the Courier-Journal claims to play an exalted role in public affairs. . . . But while righteously demanding absolute openness and full disclosure from every other entity and person involved in government, the press does not apply the same standard to itself.

"Change that by disclosing the party registration and voting choices of all editors and reporters," Dyche wrote, according to the Daily Caller.

Memo to the Louisville Courier-Journal: Media malpractice as evidenced by the formerly mainstream media is a huge story, not just in terms of the "issues of the day" but also in terms of the strategic decline away from fact-based, fair-minded reportage and opinion, as may be the case, for example, at the Louisville Courier-Journal. 

If the Louisville Courier-Journal is a real journalistic enterprise and not an exercise in organized political passions and hatreds, and if there has been a liberal bias in evidence in the paper's reporting, then this should be addressed and repaired in short order. 

Meanwhile, I would encourage a free people to demand, demand, demand a free press, rooted in fact and fair in coverage. If your local paper isn't up to the job, then show it the door and find one that is. And if you can't find one that is, think about creating a media outlet yourself. This is America, people. Grab hold of God (see the Declaration, for example) and take life by the horns. Plow the field of journalism.    

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