Why The Media Keeps Running Anti-Public Lands Op-Eds

Part two of an investigation into the think tank opinion articles targeting America's public lands.

This is the second part of an investigation into the think-tank op-eds attacking America's public lands from the opinion pages of high profile newspapers. Read part one here.

The op-eds selling off your public lands don’t run by accident. The American press is owned, funded, and trained to launder them.

Yesterday I called your attention to the parade of trojan horse public lands op-eds filling the pages of once-trusted media institutions. I highlighted the most recent one, a Koch-funded operative wearing a park ranger costume in the Washington Post making the case America should stop protecting more land and use that conservation money to fix what we have. As if we’re an impoverished country that can’t afford to do both.

These op-eds are a genre. They fill the opinion pages of many of the most prestigious news outlets in the country and filter down from there into local and regional papers and even places like Outside. The byline is usually different, but the goal is the same, launder b…