How (and Why) We Cover Politics at Outdoor Life

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a planned three-part series covering the presidential election and how each administration’s policies might impact outdoorsmen and gun owners. Part Two will examine a potential Harris-Walz administration and Part Three will focus on the potential Trump-Vance administration. 

On Saturday I tagged along for the most bizarre pheasant hunt I’d ever experienced. Snipers kept watch on the hillsides around us, a surveillance drone buzzed overhead, Secret Service agents marched behind each hunter, and a gaggle of media members scrambled to shoot footage and photography. And in front of it all was Governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, following a trio of Labs and trying his best to kill a southern Minnesota rooster.

My home state has conducted a Governor’s pheasant season opener hunt for a dozen years as a way to promote hunting and upland habitat conservation. But this year the spotlight on the event burned ultra hot as the Democratic vice presidential candidate attempted to show that he is a dedicated hunter and gun owner. The day prior, the campaign had announced a Hunters & Anglers for Harris-Walz coalition as a way to engage rural male voters. 

Outdoor Life’s hunting and conservation editor, Andrew McKean, covered this initiative and to my surprise his straightforward news brief — which took no stance on the coalition whatsoever — was mistakenly interpreted as an endorsement by some readers, outdoor media, and industry members. The backlash was nothing short of unhinged. 

Here’s one of the reader letters we received: Fuck you for putting that Harris shit out. I can’t believe this magazine would stoop that low. Complete garbage. I’ll never read another article in my life. Fuck you.

Old Row Outdoors, an Instagram page with 432,000 followers shared a post asking: “Why is Outdoor Life partnering with the Harris/Walz campaign to push extremist left wing propaganda??” 

In a media environment where seemingly everyone picks a candidate and fights for them relentlessly and shamelessly, it has become clear that many folks no longer understand what we do at Outdoor Life, nor do they understand why we cover politics the way that we do. Meanwhile, others cynically attempt to distort any coverage of a Democratic politician as support for that candidate, strategically firing up right-wing outrage with the intention of silencing dissenting views and killing future stories.   

As I watched Walz tromp through fields of reclaimed prairie grass and interact with the other media, I realized that OL’s mission of fair, non-partisan reporting has never been more important. Among my cohort was a handful of mainstream media members who seemed most interested in capturing images and footage of Walz holding a gun (he owns a Beretta A400 Xcel, which he says he likes for the reduced recoil, and he shoots Kent No. 5 Bismuth). A subsequent clip of Walz fumbling to find the carrier release of his shotgun and keep the chamber open managed to go semi-viral in conservative media circles. Meanwhile, stories about Walz having a genuinely good time pheasant hunting (“this is the best time I’ve had in weeks,” he told us) while attempting to appeal to male voters made headlines elsewhere. 

There was also a group of hunting influencers who were capturing video clips, snapshots, and sound bites. One of them told me that he was there in a “shadow capacity” because if he posted about the event publicly his sponsors would drop him and his fans might cancel him. 

There was another outdoor media reporter in attendance who wore a camo “Harris-Walz” hat, unabashedly showing his support. 

Then there was me: the editor-in-chief of Outdoor Life, determined to ask Walz about conservation priorities, hunter access initiatives, and firearms policies. Even though mine was the same mission as so many other OL editors before me, it was obvious that in this media landscape a non-partisan outdoor publication is the outlier.

In the days to come, we’ll publish in-depth, reported stories about what a Harris-Walz administration and a Trump-Vance administration might mean for outdoorsmen, conservationists, and gun owners. We’ve been working on these stories for weeks. But before we dive into those pieces, I thought it would be useful to first explain how we cover politics at Outdoor Life and why we take the approach that we do.

We Do Not Endorse or Support Candidates, Campaigns, or Parties

Outdoor Life does not endorse candidates. Regardless of how social media pages might spin our work, we are in no way supporting or partnering with the Harris-Walz campaign. Likewise, we are not endorsing or supporting the Trump-Vance campaign. 

It is not lost on us that nearly the entire firearms industry (our advertisers) and much of the hunting community (our readers) are conservative. Strategically, it would be far easier for us to support Republican candidates and conservative initiatives unquestioningly. 

Some folks within our community argue that by giving Democrats coverage, we are in fact supporting them. But I wholeheartedly believe that our readership is smarter and more curious than that. When we write about a candidate or a politician from any party, we are not suggesting that you should vote for them. We are informing you about their actions and objectives. It is up to you to act on that information however you like. After all, that’s the sort of independent thinking that has defined American outdoorsmen for over two centuries. 

We Are an Independent Publication

The reason we do not endorse candidates or parties is because we must maintain our journalistic independence — come hell or high water. There is no advertiser, business interest, or politician who will ever have influence over our coverage. 

We are also independent of social media personalities, other outdoor media publications, and hunting celebrities who might criticize our coverage or spin our work for their own motives. We will not be bullied into silence or conformity. 

What we gain from our journalistic independence is integrity and credibility. When we positively review a product, you know that it’s legit. And when we report on a policy or political initiative, you know that we’ve done so honestly and fairly. While no individual writer can be completely unbiased, each writer’s work is edited by a team of experienced journalists. We all have differing political views, opinions, and backgrounds. Working together and using traditional journalistic standards, we ensure that our coverage is objective and uninfluenced. 

We know that independence and credibility still count among our audience. They are the principles that have helped us become the largest, most-read website in the hunting, fishing, and conservation space.   

We Endorse Conservation, Public-Land Access, and Second Amendment Rights

While we are independent, we do have our biases. Outdoor Life openly and proudly supports conservation of wildlife and habitat, access to public lands, and Second Amendment rights. We’ll never apologize for these positions. When politicians support our objectives, they get positive coverage from us. When they scheme up policies that hurt conservation or hunter and gun owner rights, they’ll get critical coverage from us. 

In terms of this presidential election there are valid concerns about a Harris-Walz administration attempting to enact a semi-automatic firearms ban and restrict hunting and shooting access on federal lands. There are also valid concerns about a Trump-Vance administration developing public lands for the sake of industry growth and dismantling the agencies charged with overseeing national conservation work. (In the second and third parts of this series, we’ll dive into those topics in detail.) 

We Believe Non-Partisan Outdoor Media Still Matters 

There are some diehard conservatives who promise that if Harris wins it will mean the death of the Second Amendment and hunting in America. And there are some liberals who warn that if Trump wins it will mean the end of habitat conservation and regulations that protect our fish and wildlife. 

Both sides argue that the situation is so dire and the stakes are so high that we must do whatever is required to ensure the other side does not win. 

At Outdoor Life we take the exact opposite stance. If this truly is the most important election in recent history, then it is also the most important time to uphold our journalistic standards and principles. It is the most important time for fair reporting and trustworthy information. It’s the time to know the pros and cons of the candidate you support, and those of the candidate you don’t. 

Ultimately, administrations come and go and political parties rise to power and fall from power. This is how our democratic process works. Non-partisan media outlets like OL are able to get access and information regardless of who is in office, because both Republicans and Democrats expect to get fair treatment when we cover them. 

The conservative hunting community often complains about being left out of the political process. But if Democrats see nothing but vitriol coming from our community, they will not engage with us when they are the ones in power.

So whether your candidate wins or loses, you can bet that we’ll be covering the incoming administration both positively and critically at times. And we have a long legacy of balanced coverage to back up that promise. 

We’ve broken critical stories about the Biden Administration banning recreational shooting on the Bears Ears National Monument, and restricting hunting on millions of acres of federal lands in Alaska. But we also positively covered the Biden Administration’s move to block mining near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. 

I wrote a story celebrating Donald Trump when he passed the Great American Outdoors Act and I was critical of his administration when they attempted to withdraw Roadless Rule protections from the Tongass National Forest.

Among many others, we’ve interviewed Barack Obama, John McCain, and Donald Trump as presidential candidates. We’ve interviewed Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt as Republican Interior Department Secretaries and Martha Williams as the director of USFWS under the Biden Administration. 

And back in that Minnesota pheasant field, I got the chance to interview Tim Walz, and ask him the questions that are important to OL readers. Over the next several days, we’ll publish excerpts of that interview along with interviews from the Trump-Vance camp, plus commentary from firearms industry representatives and conservation organization leaders. In short, we’ll be doing the hard and honest journalistic work that we love — and the same work that we have always done.

The post How (and Why) We Cover Politics at Outdoor Life appeared first on Outdoor Life.

Source: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/how-outdoor-life-covers-politics/