GOP Rep. Vance threatens boycott of Homer News over Charlie Kirk coverage
- The Alaska Current
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Article removed from website of Juneau Empire’s sister paper, then reposted with sections deleted, after state legislator complains about "hate-baiting”
By Matt Acuña Buxton
The Alaska Current
Extreme-right Republican Rep. Sarah Vance this week joined the fervent movement of conservatives using their official platforms and conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death to try to silence the press.
Vance, using her official legislative Facebook account and official legislative stationery, called for the boycott of Homer News after it published a story about a Charlie Kirk vigil she organized. The story isn’t particularly inflammatory, but brings some much-needed context about Kirk — who often stoked racial and xenophobic fires among young people on the right — as Republicans race to exalt him as a paragon of virtue.
But for Vance – a legislator who once chided the presenters of a hearing on tribal justice and Missing, Murdered Indigenous Women for not included the experiences of white women — the description of a man who once said “Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously” when talking about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as holding “racist and controversial views” was a bridge too far.
“From the opening paragraphs, reporter Chloe Pleznac branded Charlie Kirk with prejudicial labels such as ‘far-right’ and ‘Christian-Nationalist icon,’ while smearing his views as ‘racist,’ ‘controversial,’ and ‘conspiracy theories,’” Vance wrote on a letter printed on official legislative stationery. “These are not facts, they are editorial judgments and political talking points. If the intent was to write an opinion piece, it should have been clearly marked as such.”
She went on to accuse the paper of a “long-standing pattern of left-wing slant” that “reflects a deeper editorial culture that has eroded trust in your publication for years.” And then raises the spectre of an advertising boycott of the Homer News.
“The consequence will be financial as well as reputational,” she said of the paper’s coverage of the Kirk vigil, demanding the paper review the reporter’s body of work and silence that kind of reporting in the future. “The future credibility of the Homer News and its advertising base depends on it.”
Vance’s criticism mirrors the national right-wing playbook of weaponizing Charlie Kirk’s death to attack anyone and everyone not considered to be properly mourning. That has included a concerted effort to fire teachers, professors, reporters and public servants who have been glancingly critical of Kirk, including merely quoting his own words.
One of the most brazen attempts included Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr pressuring ABC/Disney into canceling late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for pointing out that Republicans would likely use Kirk’s death to cancel people they don’t agree with. Kimmel returned to the airwaves this week, but not nationally, as conservatively owned broadcaster Sinclair Broadcast Group led the charge on refusing to air him on the stations they control.
Comments on Vance’s official Facebook account — an account she had once used to criticize school children and the state of public schools while scoffing at handwritten letters that students had sent in — were mixed at best. Several supported her attack on the paper, writing that “Some writers just don’t know when to sit down and [be] quiet.”
Others were less charitable, with even some who said they aligned with her right-wing views noting that the attack on free speech was a bad look, particularly when Vance has happily blended her politics into her faith.
“I like Sarah Vance and what she stands for, but if she and other politicians can associate their political agenda with biblical scripture during church service on Sunday, a newspaper that people generally pay for should also be able to share their own rhetoric and opinion, especially with today’s standards for how news is reported,” another person wrote.
Others saw it as a bad form to encourage local businesses to boycott with the aim of killing a local paper over its coverage.
“I’m just not really convinced that your motivation here is a valiant cry that ‘journalism demands fairness,’ and am more so concerned that you’re trying to suppress local media that does not publish in your ideal form,” another person wrote. “Bummer. Really wish we had a rep that built up this community, rather than advocating for local businesses to boycott each other.”
Another person put it bluntly: “What part of the story does not pass a fact check?”
As of Thursday morning, the post was no longer on Homer News’ website, and there was no note explaining its absence. The paper is owned by Sound Publishing, which is owned by Alabama-based Carpenter Media (which has been compared to the Sinclair of local papers). The company also publishes the Juneau Empire and Peninsula Clarion in Alaska.
The Homer News did publish a letter to the editor Thursday entitled “Criticizing Kirk doesn’t mean you condone his murder,” by Soldotna resident Andrew Kline. Kline said that just because people don’t want to participate in the whitewashing of Kirk’s legacy doesn’t mean they condone his death or political violence, as conservatives like Vance have claimed.
“We see the hypocrisy; we will not be vilified for a difference of opinion, and we will not be denied our First Amendment rights under the guise of false moral superiority,” he wrote. “If you want to lionize a man who built his brand on inflammatory speech, divisive rhetoric, and manufactured outrage, then those to whom his verifiable words have brought suffering have every right to push back against the narrative that he was a faultless individual. I look forward to the day when this outrage toward murder is universal and no longer partisan.”
(Juneau Independent update: The Anchorage Daily News reported Friday the article was republished on the Homer News website Thursday evening, but was missing several sections from the original article. The writer’s byline is also missing.)
• This article was originally published by The Alaska Current. It is republished here with permission.
