Cowlitz County News Is Having an Attention Crisis

 I have to admit, watching Cowlitz County News lately has been pretty entertaining. It's like watching a slow-motion train wreck happening. It's not because they're reporting anything particularly useful. It's more like watching someone realize their favorite storyline has dried up and suddenly they are frantically searching around for something else to generate outrage and engagement.




For a long time, Joel McEntire gave them plenty of material. There were accusations, attacks, screenshots, arguments and enough Facebook drama to keep everybody busy. Then the court stepped in and put a stop to Joel's ability to continue publicly attacking Britney Brown. So what happens when one of your favorite sources of drama is suddenly off limits?

Apparently, you invent things to bitch about.




Enter the latest Cowlitz County News post. This one starts out asking people to pray for those who supposedly have so much hate in their hearts. Sounds nice, right? Very Christian. Very compassionate.

Then you read the comments.

Holy shit.




People responding to a post about praying for people are calling others idiots, mentally ill, using ableist slurs, throwing around profanity and generally acting like they're having a contest to see who can be the biggest hypocrite. These are the same people we're supposed to believe are taking the moral high ground?

You can't make this shit up.





Cowlitz County News posts about how unhealthy hate is, then allows its own comment section to turn into a dumpster fire of hatred. They ask people to pray for others while their followers are calling people names and using language that wouldn't exactly fly in most churches. They complain about intolerance while people on their own page are openly disparaging others simply because they don't agree with them politically.





That's the part that really gets me. You don't get to lecture everyone else about hate and civility while sitting back and allowing your own followers to behave like this. If this was really about prayer and compassion, you'd think somebody would step in and clean up the comments. Instead, they leave them there.

Why? Well, comments equal engagement. Engagement means more people see the post. More people seeing the post means more people getting pissed off. Apparently, that's the whole point.





I don't care what someone's political beliefs are. You can hate Trump. You can love Trump. You can hate Democrats. You can hate Republicans. You can support Longview Resistance. You can think Longview Resistance is completely full of shit. That's your business. What I have a problem with is the hypocrisy of pretending you're defending civility while actively participating in the exact behavior you're complaining about.

That's not political discussion. That's called tribalism. Apparently, it started a Facebook page.




Cowlitz County News isn't giving off any credible vibes. Come to think of it, they never have. It looks more and more like a propaganda and engagement page where getting people worked up is more important than getting the facts right. Post something inflammatory, get everyone arguing, let the comments pile up, watch people attack each other and then do it again tomorrow. That's not journalism. That's rage farming. They do not even care when their followers just make stuff up!






The funniest part is watching Cowlitz County News act like it's somehow above all of this while sitting right in the middle of it. You don't get to throw gasoline on a political fire and then stand there holding a Bible asking everyone else why they're so angry. That's not how this works.




If you want to be a political opinion page, fine. Own it. If you want to be an advocacy page, fine. Own it. If you want to be a propaganda page, that's your business too. Just stop pretending you're some neutral source of information while posting things designed to piss people off and then allowing the comment section to become a cesspool. It's quite obvious that you care nothing about quality and you're just going for quantity. You certainly aren't pandering to the educated people of Cowlitz County. Not by a long shot.




The problem is that since the court put a stop to Joel's attacks on Britney Brown, Cowlitz County News isn't getting the same attention it was getting before. So now they're looking for something else. They can't keep doing the Joel show, so apparently they've decided to turn the comment section into the next episode. Judging by these comments, their own followers are more than happy to play along.  



When your business model depends on outrage, eventually you run out of people to attack and start turning your own audience against each other. That's exactly what this looks like to me: a page desperately looking for engagement because one of its favorite sources of drama has been shut down.












Somehow, these are the people asking everyone else to pray for peace.



That pretty much sums up the whole thing.

Comments

  1. PaulOctober 4, 2026 at 4:48 PM

    It's so typical that a right wing group especially one who claims to be "News" writes about people they have blocked, so those people can not see what they post let alone are asked or give their side of things, and get to read the attacks against them but not able to respond. What is even more pathetic is they don't even have the facts straight or correct. In My case I have not lost my case against the County or City of Centralia. my cases against the 4 separate officials was originally dismissed, but those are separate cases and have since been appealed. THe only part they did manage to get right is my despise and hatred of Nazis and my wish for them to get the same justice as Hitler's Nazis received that the legal international precedent has already been established.

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