Tony Ortega: Irresponsible Outlandishly Poor Judgement

Following our recent post exposing Tony Ortega’s servile defense of Backpage we’ve been getting all kinds of questions about public outrage at the time. As always here at the blog, we’re here to help.

As one angry reader of the Village Voice, Strider01, observed in the wake of Tony Ortega’s truly idiotic ‘arguments’:

That [the Village Voice] thinks its readers will overlook this implies a disrespect for the intelligence of any one who can see how much Village Voice Media has to benefit (in term of its bottom line!) from editorial choices aimed at persuading its readership to consider this as a less-than-extreme problem.

Of course, there is such a thing as reactionary, dishonest fear-mongering. Indeed, we’ve seen a lot of this spill from Tony Ortega’s pen over the years. But in playing the role of the shameless apologist, Village Voice editorship under Ortega demonstrated that when this happens one can choose to respond in as self-serving a way as possible, and thereby squander the legitimacy of any voice one has in the discourse.

And this is exactly what Tony Ortega did.

Reader Trench Reynolds, trenchantly noted:

The Village Voice accusing anyone of bad journalism is like the pot calling the kettle black. The fact that The Village Voice is supporting Backpage’s trafficking ads shows not only that they have zero objectivity but zero credibility as well.

Still another former Voice reader using the name Jova offered this insight:

You are funny, Tony O. We haven’t established anything except that you and your pals are writing about apples and oranges. Number of arrests has nothing to do with estimated numbers of children in human trafficking or children suspected to be at risk of human trafficking. Your articles are not an eye-opener of any kind. They are average tabloid material. Prostitution IS a form of modern-day slavery.… Children are being trafficked. And pedophilia is everywhere around us. And beyond being disturbing and immoral, it is also ILLEGAL. And all the media that helps it bloom should be held responsible. Village Voice operates and is directly profiting from Backpage.com prostitution adds. How about that?

But no one put it better than the reader who correctly summed the whole sordid business up in a single post, writing:

“There is such a thing as journalistic integrity. For the Voice to offer ANY pieces on this topic without addressing the obvious editorial bias at stake is likewise irresponsible, despicable, ridiculous, and reflects outlandishly poor judgment.

Irresponsible. Despicable. Ridiculous. Outlandishly poor judgment. We couldn’t have come up with a more comprehensive thumbnail of a guy like Tony Ortega if we tried to ourselves.