'Furious at the Journal': Protesters demonstrate in front of Albuquerque Journal headquarters over air quality board editorials

Carrying signs reading such things as “We Need Objective News,” some 30 protesters met at the Albuquerque Journal on Friday largely to criticize the paper’s editorials throughout a controversial saga over an environmental justice rule.

“There was just ultimate bias,” said Magdalena Avila, who added she’s been a Journal subscriber for at least two decades. “And I am so furious at the Journal.”

Journal Editor Patrick Ethridge said he planned to take the protesters’ concerns to heart and have more discussions with them.

“I respect and appreciate their right to assemble. And I am generally in favor of anyone exercising their First Amendment right, whether I agree or disagree, whether it’s critical of the newspaper or not,” he said.

The Health, Environment and Equity Impacts rule, proposed by a group of community members living in and around the South Valley, intended to limit air pollution in “overburdened communities” — areas already experiencing high levels of industrial emissions.

The rule clashed with some business groups, who felt the restrictions could stymie economic development in Bernalillo County.

In November, City Council voted to pull the four city-appointed members of the joint city and county Air Quality Control Board and cease board hearings on environmental justice regulations until February.

But the board continued with the hearing, as scheduled, in December. The seven-member board passed a pared down version of the rule on a 5-2 vote.

On Thursday, a state district judge ruled in favor of the board and granted an injunction, suspending the two ordinances. That injunction will remain in effect until a hearing in the lawsuit against the city of Albuquerque is heard, and allows the board to continue operating as usual.

The Journal editorial board has lambasted the rule and the actions of the air quality board, saying in one editorial that the rule was one which “business leaders consider a job-killer, military folks consider a national security threat and many others simply consider environmental extremism.”

“For those who don’t believe in a bureaucratic deep state, look no further than the outrageous conduct this week of the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board,” the editorial board wrote in an early December piece. “Just who do these people think they are?”

On Friday, Editorial Page Assistant Editor John Leacock likened the protest to “intimidation tactics” and said the protesters never asked for a meeting to discuss their concerns.

“The petitioners are upset that our editorials have lacked balance on the air board. They don’t understand that editorials are different than news,” added Editorial Page Editor Jeff Tucker. “They have different guidelines and don’t present both sides. We present an argument.”

Los Jardines Institute co-coordinator Richard Moore acknowledged that his organization did not ask for a meeting, but said the editorial page’s publication decisions were “one-sided.”

“This was a complete one-sided, unethical, unprofessional position that the editorial board was continuing to print over and over again,” he said.

As Moore spoke in the front of the building, Tucker, who’d walked outside, turned around and started to walk back inside, later explaining he “went to receive their letter, not listen to their speech.”

“We ain’t leaving until you come back,” Moore told Tucker. “... We’re here to give (the letter) to you.”

Tucker turned around and took the letter from the protesters.

The letter demands the Journal create a “more diverse editorial board reflective of Albuquerque’s populations,” which the board pushed back on, pointing out that at the time it was writing about the air quality board, half of the four-member editorial board was comprised of people of color.

The letter also requests a monthly column for people to share the “realities of our communities, not just the political conservative ideologies of politicians, industry and advertising profit.”

“My hope is that I’ll get to sit down with them and talk about their concerns a little bit more before I make any decisions,” Ethridge said of the demands. “And I’ve never been averse to doing that.”

Moore said the protesters will keep returning if their demands in the letter are not met.