How (and why) the outdoors informs politics

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series on the presidential election and how each administration’s policies can affect 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 went on the most bizarre pheasant hunt I had ever experienced. Snipers watched the hills around us, a surveillance drone buzzed overhead, Secret Service agents marched behind every fighter, and a group of media members rushed to capture footage and photography. And in front of it all was governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, who followed a trio of Labs and did his best to kill a southern Minnesota rooster.

My home state has been hosting a governor’s pheasant hunt for a decade as a way to promote hunting and upland habitat conservation. But this year, the spotlight at the event burned ultra-hot as the Democratic vice presidential candidate tried to show that he is a dedicated hunter and gun owner. The day before, the campaign had announced a Hunters & Anglers for Harris-Walz coalition as a way to engage rural male voters.

Outdoor living Hunting and Conservation Editor Andrew McKean reported on this initiative and, to my surprise, his clear news story – which did not take any position on the Coalition – was misinterpreted as an expression of support by some readers, outside media and industry members. The backlash was nothing short of unhinged.

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

Old row outdoorsan Instagram page with 432,000 followers shared a message asking: “Why is Outdoor Life working with the Harris/Walz campaign to push extremist left-wing propaganda???”

In a media environment where seemingly everyone picks a candidate and fights ruthlessly and shamelessly for them, it has become clear that many people no longer understand what we do. Outdoor livingand they also don’t understand why we treat politics the way we do. Meanwhile, others are cynically trying to spin any reporting on a Democratic politician as support for that candidate, strategically stoking right-wing outrage with the intent of silencing dissent and killing future stories.

As I watched Walz walk through fields of reclaimed prairie grass and interact with the other media, I realized that OL’s mission of fair, unbiased reporting has never been more important. My cohort included 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 its reduced recoil, and he shoots Kent No. 5 Bismuth Down ). A subsequent clip of Walz fumbling to find his shotgun’s release and keep the chamber open managed to go semi-viral in conservative media circles. Meanwhile, stories about Walz having a really good time pheasant hunting (“this is the best time I’ve had in weeks,” he told us) while trying to appeal to male voters made headlines elsewhere.

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

There was another media reporter in attendance, wearing a “Harris-Walz” camouflage hat and unashamedly voicing his support.

Then there was me: the editor-in-chief of it Outdoor livingdetermined to ask Walz about conservation priorities, hunter access initiatives and firearms policies. While mine had the same mission as so many other OL editors before me, it was clear that in this media landscape, an unbiased outdoor publication is the outlier.

In the coming days, we’ll be publishing in-depth, reported stories on what a Harris-Walz administration and a Trump-Vance administration could 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 helpful to first explain how we approach politics Outdoor living and why we take the approach we do.

We do not endorse or support any candidates, campaigns or parties

Outdoor living does not support the candidates. Regardless of how social media pages may impact our work, we do not support or collaborate with the Harris-Walz campaign in any way. Likewise, we do not endorse or support the Trump-Vance campaign.

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

Some people in our community argue that by giving notice to Democrats, we are actually supporting them. But I wholeheartedly believe that our readership is smarter and more curious than that. When we write about a candidate or politician from any party, we are not suggesting that you vote for them. We inform you about their actions and objectives. It is up to you to act as you wish based on that information. After all, that’s the kind of independent thinking that has defined American outdoorsmen for more than two centuries.

We are an independent publication

The reason we don’t support candidates or parties is because we must maintain our journalistic independence – no matter what. There is no advertiser, business interest or politician who will ever influence our reporting.

We are also independent of social media personalities, other outdoor media publications, and on the hunt for celebrities who might criticize our reporting or distort our work for their own motives. We will not allow ourselves to be forced into silence or conformity.

What we gain from our journalistic independence is integrity and credibility. When we rate a product favorably, you know it’s legit. And when we report on a policy or political initiative, you know we have done so fairly and equitably. While no individual writer can be completely unbiased, each writer’s work is edited by a team of experienced journalists. We all have different political views, opinions and backgrounds. By working together and using traditional journalistic standards, we ensure our reporting is objective and unbiased.

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

We support conservation, access to public lands, and Second Amendment rights

Even though we are independent, we still have our biases. Outdoor living openly and proudly supports wildlife and habitat conservation, access to public lands, and Second Amendment rights. We will never apologize for these views. When politicians support our objectives, they receive positive attention from us. If they come up with policies that harm nature conservation or the rights of hunters and gun owners, they will receive critical attention from us.

Going into this presidential election, there are legitimate concerns about a Harris-Walz administration attempting to implement a semi-automatic firearms ban and restrict hunting and shooting access on federal lands. There are also valid concerns about a Trump-Vance administration that will develop public lands for the sake of industry growth and dismantle the agencies charged with overseeing national conservation work. (We will discuss these topics in detail in the second and third parts of this series.)

There are some die-hard 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 so high that we must do whatever it takes to ensure the other side does not win.

Bee Outdoor living we take exactly the opposite position. 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 moment for honest reporting and reliable information. It’s time to know the pros and cons of the candidate you support versus the candidate you don’t.

Ultimately, governments come and go and political parties rise and fall from power. This is how our democratic process works. Nonpartisan media like OL can get access and information regardless of who is in power because both Republicans and Democrats expect fair treatment when we report on them.

The conservative hunting community often complains about being left out of the political process. But if all the Democrats see is vitriol coming from our community, they won’t bother with us when they’re in power.

So whether your candidate wins or loses, you can be assured that we will be monitoring the coming administration at times with both positive and critical views. And we have a long history of providing balanced coverage to deliver on that promise.

We broke critical stories about the Biden administration banning recreational shooting at Bears Ears National Monument and restricting hunting on millions of acres of federal land in Alaska. But we also have positive news about the Biden administration’s decision to block mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota.

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

We have interviewed Barack Obama, John McCain and Donald Trump as presidential candidates, among others. We interviewed Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt as secretaries of the Republican Department of the Interior and Martha Williams as director of USFWS under the Biden administration.

And back in that pheasant field in Minnesota, I had the chance to interview Tim Walz and ask him the questions that matter to OL readers. In the coming days, we’ll publish excerpts from that interview, along with interviews from the Trump-Vance camp, plus commentary from firearms industry representatives and conservation group leaders. In short, we will do the hard and honest journalistic work we love – and the same work we have always done.