How Good Journalism Matters Right Now
Montana State Library Commission's withdrawal from ALA is not surprising. There are receipts.
Last week, the Montana State Library Commission (MSLC) withdrew from the American Library Association (ALA). The reason they state is over the “wokeness” of the association–lol–and the incoming Marxist lesbian president. MSLC won the news cycle for this action, including headline stories across major media like NBC, which may be the only legacy network doing any justice to the reality of censorship right now.
MSLC is not the Montana Library Association. MSLC is an arm of the Montana government, with the stated mission of “[setting] forth policies and funding priorities that empower the State Library to meets its mission and statutory obligations and to advocate for the State Library and the Montana library and information communities whenever possible.” It is not interested in the day to day operations of libraries across the state except when “possible,” and without a single mention of “workers” or “employees” or “librarians” in its mission, MSLC is clear they aren’t necessarily in the game for the humans within the libraries.
Five of the seven members of the MSLC are appointed by the Montana Governor Ginforte. The two who are not appointed by the governor are the Superintendent of Public Instruction and an individual appointed by the Commission of Higher Education.
How the governor moves so, too, the commission moves.
The Montana Library Association (MLA), on the other hand, is the professional association of the actual workers within libraries across the state. The MLA “members work to promote outstanding librarianship and library services to meet knowledge needs in every part of the state.” Notice the emphasis here on the people and not the institutions themselves. The MLA does work in tandem with the MSLC, both as policy and as good practice, but they have very different missions and serve different purposes. Anyone who wishes to be part of the MLA can do so by becoming a member and membership elects the leadership.
Four anti-library, pro-censorship bills moved through Montana legislation this year. Among them were HB234, which would criminalize librarianship via the notion that librarians disseminate child pornography and thus should be targeted; HB349, a bill related to filters on digital content; HB359, which outlaws drag shows in spaces where there may be minors; and HB913, which outlines materials that are and are not appropriate for school libraries. HB234 and HB359 passed and are now law. HB359 is why Pride months at several libraries across Montana were canceled–the chilling effect is real.
MLA has been a force for information on the bills of concern this year. They’ve put out statements and they have shared with members and nonmembers what the impact of such legislation would mean for libraries across the state.
The MSLC?
Let’s put it this way: last year during Pride month, they owned over a month of the news cycle because they were unhappy with how much their new logo looked like a Pride flag.
The commission sent the design back and insisted on an update. In October of last year, following that design update, they voted 4-2 to approve the new logo.
If you’re wondering what the difference is between the one they found to be a problem and the one they approved, take a moment to look at the shades of red, yellow, green, and blue. Still not seeing it? This might help a little bit.
One of the members of the MSLC, Bruce Newell, left his post in February 2022 in order to get more involved in the ImagineIf Library in Kalispell. He pointed out during this logo debate that the commission was wandering into territory that was not within their realm by connecting the logo with the Pride flag and thinking about how that would be a problem with communities across the state. Newell is active in the MLA and was a recipient of an award from the organization as well. He left his position at the MSCL because he felt there was a grave conflict between his work there and the work he wanted to do in helping save the Kalispell library system.
ImagineIf has been long under attack. They were among the first libraries in the US to see this extremism in such a public way, and that history is well-documented, thanks to a local journalist. Micah Drew has been on the beat since the beginning, covering meeting after meeting and decision after decision for the Flathead Beacon. He is among the few journalists out there still on a beat such as this, and because of that work, nothing that has ties to that library system should come as a shock to those paying attention.
The MSLC has a direct tie to the ImagineIf Libraries, and not just in the member who left the commission to help save the library.
That connection is in the MSLC’s latest appointed commissioner, Carmen Cuthbertson. Cuthbertson was appointed by the governor to the MSLC June 1, just weeks before the commission pulled out from its association with the American Library Association. She’s been a member of the board for the ImagineIf libraries since June 2022 and that appointment sparked backlash. She was the major voice behind attempts to remove Gender Queer from the ImagineIf libraries prior to her appointment to the board. She was also one of the few to submit public comments on the redesign of the state library logo, alongside her husband, who called it part of the “LGBTQRSP+ agenda.”
Cuthbertson, unlike Newell, sees no problem with serving in both roles simultaneously. Indeed, it’s a great opportunity for her to spread her right-wing agenda at the local level and at the state level simultaneously. She has no background in libraries or in public service, but she likes literature and believes Gender Queer is just a terrible book, period, gay stuff or not.
The decision of MSLC to withdraw from the ALA happened just a month after Cuthbertson’s appointment. She helped further tip the scales of the MSLC into conspiracy, the perfect lynchpin between the governor’s plans, the legislation that did (and did not!) pass, and the goals to dismantle public libraries writ large.
By withdrawing from ALA, the state of Montana not only lost opportunities for their professionals to grow their skills, but they lost access to funding and grants that have benefited their state. ALA outlined those in a response to the Commission’s decision to leave the association:
In the last two years, ALA has awarded more than $218,000 to 23 Montana libraries via program grants ranging from $6,000 for Digital Literacy Training Workshops to $35,000 from ALA’s Library COVID Relief Fund. Most recently, ALA announced a $10,000 grant to a Montana tribal college library.
Once again, those with the least access to materials and resources, especially in a rural state like Montana where libraries may be robust in urban areas and volunteer-run shops made up of cast-off donations from others, are the ones who will lose the most by this decision. All of this is over deliberate lies and misinformation spread by right-wing bigots. If they can’t get the book removed from public library shelves, then dammit, no one in the state deserves to have a good library.
But let’s return to the bigger point: knowing any of this would not be possible without good journalism. Drew’s work has been incredible and has again and again allowed for researching what is really going on at the local level and how that local level work is making its way to the top levels of the state government. We are not seeing this many places in the US. Over 25% of newspapers across the country have shut down since 2004 and this statistic comes before what has only been more closures thanks to COVID. The papers which remain active continue to put information about civil rights violations (book bans, censorship, the growth of right-wing christofascism and its hostile takeover of our public goods) behind paywalls, ensuring that local citizens and those working on the national level do not have access to crucial information without paying for it.
Before the “well writers deserve to be paid” argument comes up–of course they do–why should that be the reason an organization purposefully withholds information that impacts every single one of us? Erosion of civil liberties is not something you pay to learn about. It should be not only openly available, it should be spread as far and as wide as possible. There are other funding models out there, and work that is fundamental to the purpose of your existence should be front, center, and free. “Democracy dies in darkness,” says the Washington Post, though they don’t add “thanks to our paywall.” You put your human interest stories or bonus content behind those walls, not the information that keeps society abreast of what’s going on. Information that is truth, not spin, and stories which lay bare what’s real and what’s mis-, dis-, or mal- information.
When the truth is behind a paywall but the conspiracy theories are free–and can often look pretty damn legitimate (not to mention sometimes come right to your mailbox even without a subscription!)–then how does the public ever learn what’s really happening? How can parents understand the truth behind the “parental rights” movement and its aim to bring christofascism to public institutions and demand public funding for christofascist private education…then circle right back around to point to failing public institutions and demand they be shut down all together?
What makes the MSLC story so unimpressive, so unsurprising, is that every bit of the story is out there, openly available for anyone to access. The work is not hidden behind paywalls. There’s been at least one journalist on the beat and covering these stories again and again and again.
But now we’ve been so trained to see paywalls, we don’t even bother to look where things are going right.
Instead, we continue to be surprised, caught off guard, and ignorant as to what is truly right in front of our eyes.
Further Reading:
MLA Statement in Response to Montana State Library Commission Decision to Withdraw from ALA
Pick up the book What The Fact?: Finding Truth in All The Noise by Seema Yasmin
Missouri’s library commission vis a vis their censorship-loving attorney general is threatening to cut ties with ALA.
I am not linking to either The Federalist nor Idaho Freedom Foundation, but both are making clear Montana is their guide for also pushing to have Idaho’s library commission leave the ALA.