Dear Mr. Todd,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript --  "It’s Time for the Press to Stop Complaining -- And to Start Fighting Back" -- to the driftglass blog for consideration.  Unfortunately we will not be able to publish your piece at this time.

We believe that with a lot of editorial work and the services of a better Beltway-to-English translator, this meandering piece might have been either tightened up into a sale-able short story or, conversely, expanded into a confessional "True Crime"-style novella. However, length and word choice are not your submission's most serious problem.

There is no delicate way to put this, so we will just say it straight out.  While we at the driftglass blog may only be a tiny shoestring publication operating at the outer exurbs of respectability -- plagiarism, Mr. Todd, is an absolute no-go for us.  As it should never be for any legitimate publisher, of any size in any market.

We may be one of America's last and least reputable vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers of the Left, but by God and Eugene Debs, Mr. Todd, we still have standards!

Of course, it is our fondest hope that you choose to take this rejection letter as a "teachable moment", and in that spirit, be advised that if you opt to re-work and resubmit your manuscript while continuing to "borrow" extensively from the decades-old Liberal critiques of the media (taken directly from your manuscript, Mr. Todd)  --

Some of the wealthiest members of the media are not reporters from mainstream outlets. Figures such as Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, and the trio of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham have attained wealth and power by exploiting the fears of older white people. They are thriving financially by exploiting the very same free-press umbrella they seem determined to undermine.

-- and repackage those critiques --

Much of the current hand-wringing about this rise in press bashing and delegitimization has been focused on the president, who—as every reporter in America sadly knows—has declared the press the “enemy of the people.” But, like much else in the Trump era, Donald Trump didn’t start this fire; he’s only spread it to a potentially more dangerous place.

-- as startling, newly unearthed "revelations" --

Instead, Ailes created an organization that focuses on attacking the “liberal media” whose “liberal bias” was ruining America. Almost any big story that was potentially devastating to a conservative was “balanced” with some form of whataboutism. The Ailes construction has been so effective that these days, I often get mail from viewers who say: Now that you’ve focused on all of President Trump’s misdeeds, you are biased if you don’t dedicate the same amount of time to Hillary Clinton’s misdeeds. It seems completely lost on this segment of the population that one person is the leader of the free world, and the other is a retiree living in the suburbs of New York City.
...
He played up cultural fears, creating the mythology of a biased press.

-- at the very least, we will require that you make two substantive changes to your manuscript.

First, we would require that you re-title your submission to indicate that you are at least peripherally aware of the deep and rich Liberal source material from which you are obviously "borrowing" to build your article.  Something along the lines of  "The Left Was Right About The Right All Along" would be acceptable.

Second, and much more important, to avoid being tainted as a publication which knowingly bylines  plagiarists, we must insist that, at a minimum, you properly attribute your "revelations" about the debased state of your profession to those Liberals who have been shouting them at men like you as loud as our tiny microphones would allow for decades.

Liberals who you have very pointedly and publicly mocked and ignored.

Pick any or all of it, from our own humble stock, or any of the other dozens of outcast Libtard bloggers who have been shouting these truths into the Beltway abyss for decades.

You are, of course, free to ignore all of our advice, keep your manuscript unchanged, and submit it elsewhere.  We may be tiny and marginal, but we are fully aware of the booming marketplace for these sorts of specious 30-years-too-late "Liberals?  Never heard of 'em!" exegeses, and are quite sure you will have great success placing your work as-is at a less persnickety publication.

Like, say, The Atlantic.

Yours in Christ,

driftglass

PS.

Not for nothing, but enclosing letters of recommend from Chris Fcking Cillizza --

-- and Brian "America's Most Credulous Stenographer" Stelter --

did not help your case.

Excerpted from Driftglass