MediaFest says it’s the largest media convention in the country, aimed at both student and professional “journalists.” This year, one of our top writers, White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan, was set to participate in a session for young reporters on how her faith fits into her work.

Until they found out she was a conservative.

That’s the story from the Columbia Journalism Review, which revealed yesterday that Olohan and another journalist, The Daily Signal’s Virginia Allen, were pulled from the event after complaints from a he/him “student media adviser” at Oregon State University named Steven Sandberg.

Sandberg had been “browsing” the event schedule when he saw, according to CJR, a “portion of the conference called the ‘Faith Track’” that included authors with “pretty far-right, anti-LGBTQ language.”

Sandberg alerted the “non-partisan” organizers of the conference and told them that “LGBTQ students are feeling targeted by our administration, by the government, and by society.” Sandberg told them he was “disappointed to see them bring in people who espoused anti-LGBT views,” and they buckled.

Olohan was alerted that she’d been removed from the event by the ethics committee chairman at the Society of Professional Journalists, a man named Michael Koretzky, who told other organizers that they “found reporting problems” with Olohan’s work.

The only problematic article cited from Olohan, who has without question broken more stories of consequence in her young career than Koretzky will in his lifetime, was an exclusive on a bill from Congressman Brandon Gill that would make it illegal to dump aborted baby remains into publicly-owned water systems.

The suggestion from Koretzky was that the article wasn’t balanced enough. Now, if he has an abortionist who would like to defend flushing babies down the toilet, we’d love to dig into that belief. But we never believed the issue was with our journalism, and now, that’s confirmed.

Koretzky was looking for an excuse to cancel Olohan because Sandberg and the pronoun mafia demanded he do so, and the angry left is the real ombudsman of the liberal media elite. And Sandberg was so proud of his work that he ran to the Columbia Journalism Review to tell the story of how he preserved a safe space for his LGBTQ students.

Any suggestion that MediaFest will be a conference with balance is delusional. One of the featured speakers will be New York Times grifter Nikole Hannah-Jones, who has made millions of dollars spreading lies through the 1619 Project, which argues that systemic racism is in America’s DNA.

We challenge the Society of Professional Journalists to find a single piece of balanced work she’s ever produced, but guarantee that it will find them all as radical as her most recent piece, which attacked Charlie Kirk as a bigot just a few days after he was laid to rest.

Her session at MediaFest is titled, “How journalists can (and should) cover attempts to erase Black history.” It will be moderated by Koretzky’s colleague at Society of Professional Journalists, Celia Wexler, who serves as the group’s Washington, D.C., president.

We don’t expect Koretzky to get it, nor do we understand how he’s been put in charge of ethics of anything. His body of work includes a 2019 piece inspired by a convention he attended with high school journalists — about all the sex he’s had in his life.

We wish we were joking. Its opening line (we don’t recommend clicking, but it’s hard to believe without the proof) is: “Almost all the sex I’ve had is because of journalism.” It goes on to tell the tale about a time a “sexual encounter” at a journalism conference ended in “bloodshed” because he was bitten on the penis.

Again, he was inspired to write this because he was “presenting a couple of sessions tomorrow to high school journalists.”

A year later, he wrote about how he himself was now banned from attending certain journalism events because, he transparently explains, the aforementioned article on his sexcapades.

“We also were contacted by students and spoke with members who were extremely concerned about your blog post related to seemingly non-consensual sex and journalism conventions,” he says he was told. There was also an accusation that he told a student he could “make or break her career.” He denies it.

We’re partly glad Olohan is, as the kids say, “marked safe” from the MediaFest confab, but also disheartened.

Every few years, the liberal media elite proclaim that they care about being balanced and hearing both sides. And we’re sure that every few years there are people who believe them. Don’t be one of those people.

Young journalists don’t need MediaFest or the Society of Professional Journalists anymore. They will teach you to do everything wrong, and you’ll end up like Koretzky or Sandberg.

There are now great alternatives, like the National Journalism Center, The Fund For American Studies, and even conservative undergraduate journalism programs like the one at Hillsdale College.

The young journalists gathering at MediaFest are being trained to believe that there is only one set of acceptable facts, even if it doesn’t fall on the same side as objective truth. The prospect of hearing the other side has media advisers like he/him Sandberg throwing up arms.

The media elite don’t actually believe there are two sides. That’s why when Elon Musk opened up X to free speech, they ran away to BlueSky — which, not coincidentally, is where you can find most of the journalists featured on MediaFest’s panels.

But they’re also not the real elite anymore. Their monopoly on information has shattered, in a large part because Americans are increasingly turning to reporters like Olohan and The Daily Wire for news.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a map, of any kind, that’s more infuriating than this one.

This is the distance between a typical house on 43rd Terrace Road and Sunrise Elementary School in Marion County, Florida.

As you can see, the house is directly on top of the school. There’s practically no distance separating them, except for a fence that covers some of the grounds. Anyone living in that house would easily be able to see the schoolchildren from any of his back windows. He’d also be able to access the school grounds in about 10 seconds.

This is the house that 42-year-old Ronald Exantus began living in, immediately after he arrived in Florida at the beginning of this month.(For privacy reasons, we aren’t showing the exact address of the house, but this is the approximate distance and location, according to multiple news reports.

This is remarkable because, less than a decade ago, as we discussed at length last week, Ronald Exantus murdered a six-year-old child in Kentucky named Logan Tipton. He also violently attacked the child’s father and siblings, before police arrived. And yet, as of October 3 of this year, Ronald Exantus was not in prison for killing that child. Nor was he buried six feet under the ground, where he belonged. Instead, because the state of Kentucky released him on “good behavior” after just a few years in prison, child killer Ronald Exantus was living in a home that’s adjacent to an elementary school.

This is the kind of development that doesn’t need any further explanation. On its face, it is the greatest possible betrayal by the state of Kentucky and its judicial system. And I say “judicial system” with the maximum possible degree of contempt. No actual system of justice could produce this result. We’ve covered the specifics of Ronald Exantus’ case — how the jury somehow found him “not guilty by reason of insanity” for killing the six-year-old child, but at the same time, guilty for assaulting the boy’s siblings and father. We’ve discussed how Kentucky somehow classifies these assaults as “non-violent,” allowing Exantus to serve less than half of his sentence. And we’ve also discussed how ludicrous it is, on its face, to determine that someone who’s supposedly “insane” enough to kill a child, can be unleashed on the public ever again. But really, no discussion on these points is needed. The mere fact that a child killer ended up a free man, living next to an elementary school, is all the evidence you need that “law and order” do not exist in the state of Kentucky, or in much of the rest of the country. 

But there is one very important part of the story that hasn’t been discussed. When Ronald Exantus moved into that home in Marion County Florida on October 3, he was not alone. He thought he was. He thought he could do whatever he wanted, without anyone noticing. But that wasn’t the case. Plainclothes officers were watching Ronald Exantus, along with his property, as soon as he arrived at the home. There were also other surveillance tools that were being used, which I’m not allowed to discuss. But this was 24-hour surveillance by armed officers, which was directed by the Florida attorney general’s office. I know that because I was told this directly, by a high-level source in that office. I was also told that the reason the Florida state attorney general’s office became aware of this case in the first place, and of Exantus’ presence in the state, is that they saw my coverage of the case. 

Here’s what I wrote on X at 1:16 PM on October 3rd.

This case should be getting A LOT more attention. Should be massively viral. We need the White House on it. A man who broke into a house and stabbed a child to death is now walking free. One of the most heinous miscarriages of justice in American history

pic.twitter.com/WjskzbqJ1H

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 3, 2025

I didn’t know, when I wrote that post, that Ronald Exantus had just acquired a Florida state driver’s license and moved into his new home, just hours earlier on the same day. I had no idea where Ronald Exantus was. I had just seen a post from the “Unlimited L’s” account on X, which posted a news clip about the case. And I reposted it with my commentary. Soon afterwards, the White House press secretary said that the Trump administration was going to get involved in some way.

In response, a lot of people were understandably cynical. We’re all familiar with how this kind of story usually plays out. There’s a grave injustice, the government promises to address it, and then nothing actually happens.

But in this case, something happened.

Florida officials read what I wrote, and they ordered 24-hour surveillance that same day. From a practical, tactical perspective, they had to make sure that Exantus wouldn’t murder any more children, and they had to do that as soon as possible. But from a legal perspective, they also had to find a way to put Ronald Exantus back in prison for a very long time — as long as possible, anyway. And that’s precisely what happened next.

That’s why, within a few days — as soon as they could — those Florida officers arrested Exantus and charged him with a violation of the terms of his release. Here’s the relevant portion of those terms:

It reads: “You shall not violate any law or city ordinance of this state or any other state or of the United States.” 

Obviously, this is a boilerplate provision. It’s likely that, if Ronald Exantus even read the terms of his release, he wouldn’t care about this. He’s never demonstrated any concern for the law at any time in his life, so why would he start now? But the Florida attorney general’s office was very interested in this provision, because they’re familiar with the following provision in Florida law.

It reads, 

“Any person who has been convicted of a crime in any federal court or in any court of a state other than Florida, or of any foreign state or country, which crime if committed in Florida would be a felony, shall forthwith within 48 hours after entering any county in this state register with the sheriff of said county in the same manner as provided for in subsection (2).” 

And Subsection 2 describes the process of going to the sheriff, getting fingerprinted and photographed, and so on. Violating this law — meaning, failing to register as a felon — is a low-level misdemeanor.

But a low-level misdemeanor is a very big deal when you’re out of prison on early-release, or parole, or anything like it. In fact, a low-level misdemeanor can be the difference between going free, and living near an elementary school full of potential victims, and going to prison for another 10 years.

And the state of Florida recognized that. They understood that, under the law as it stands, this is the best way to protect the public from Ronald Exantus. So they took him into custody, where he remains right now, without bail. He’s going to be sent back to Kentucky soon, and we’re told that it’s very likely Kentucky officials will ultimately revoke his early release as a result — not because they want to, but because of the PR disaster that’s resulted from this case.

To be clear: A single post on social media led to a response from the White House, 24-hour surveillance, and ultimately the removal of a child killer from the streets. There is a very good chance that the state of Florida saved lives here. We’re so used to government dysfunction that a rapid response like this seems unthinkable. It can seem pointless to raise hell about anything on social media. But it wasn’t in this case.

If you’re a bleeding-heart type, you might object that Ronald Exantus is the victim of “lawfare,” because if we’re being honest, Ronald Exantus probably wasn’t even aware of this Florida law. Well, too bad. And that’s not what lawfare is. Lawfare is when you apply existing laws in a clearly malicious, unequal and novel way, far removed from their original intent — for example, charging Donald Trump for storing “classified material,” while letting Joe Biden hoard boxes of classified documents in his garage. Every single Trump prosecution was like this.

By contrast, the law in the state of Florida has a very clear purpose. It’s to keep the people of Florida safe from out-of-state felons. And that law is working perfectly as intended.

But there are deeper problems that need to be addressed here, because the state of Florida cannot solve every problem in Kentucky all by itself.

Ronald Exantus’ former public defender is a woman named Bridget Hofler. Hofler has left the public defender’s office since defending Exantus, and now serves as an assistant county attorney in Carroll County, Kentucky. So she’s a prosecutor now. And specifically, she’s a prosecutor focusing on “neglect and abuse cases” involving children.

But she absolutely shouldn’t be. She should be fired immediately. And that’s not because she represented Ronald Exantus — everyone, no matter how evil, is legally entitled to a robust criminal defense in this country. Instead, it’s because Bridget Hofler just gave the following interview, after Ronald Exantus’ release. This is how she’s talking about a man who murdered a child less than a decade ago.

This is a report from a local news station.

Exantus’ former attorney, Bridget Hofler, said Exantus called her after he was released. She said she was initially shocked he was let out early, because it was such a contentious case, but “it didn’t really surprise me, if anybody deserved to get out early, it was Ron. He had accomplished so much while he was in prison.”

To be clear, this is a prosecutor who says that a child killer deserved an early release from prison because he “accomplished so much while he was in prison.” This is the definition of suicidal empathy, which is an overwhelmingly female problem. Once you stab a child in the head so many times that the blade bends, there is nothing you can do in prison — nothing whatsoever — that can possibly justify releasing you. No matter how many arts and crafts this guy managed to do, no matter how many coloring books he completed, while he was in a cage under armed guard, it does not matter. And the only person who would disagree is an enemy of civilization, who should be nowhere near a prosecutor’s office.

In a separate interview, Bridget Hofler somehow managed to make things worse. Watch:

Credit: WLKY CBS/YouTube.com

Yes, he was a very well-established nurse! 

Can you imagine keeping a “well-established nurse” in prison? 

Again, she’s saying this after this nurse murdered a child and tried to kill his entire family. That’s the point where you’re no longer a “well-established nurse.” Your past employment is irrelevant. You could’ve been Mother Teresa. It doesn’t matter. Slaughtering children is the clearest possible red line.

Of course, women like this don’t see it that way. That’s why they support abortion. Killing a child, in the mind of the modern Leftist — and in particular the modern Leftist woman — isn’t really a crime. That’s how they think. It’s certainly how this woman thinks. If Kentucky wants to have a functioning judicial system, then step one is firing this person. She has no business being a prosecutor. She has no business holding any public office ever again. And at some level, she seems to recognize that, because she’s deleted all her social media accounts and her phone number doesn’t work anymore.

The next step, after this woman is terminated, is to change the law in Kentucky so that nothing like this ever happens again.

One state representative in Kentucky, TJ Roberts, has proposed two bills to that effect. Watch:

Ronald Exantus should have died in prison after he murdered 6 year old Logan Tipton and viciously attacked his family.

Sadly, the Tipton family was victimized twice. First, by the animal that robbed them of their safety in their home. Second, by the commonwealth of Kentucky… pic.twitter.com/9zwQJmQ9f6

— TJ Roberts (@realTJRoberts) October 10, 2025

Credit: @realTJRoberts/X.com

Even by the non-existent standards of the ACLU, it’s an extraordinary argument. Yeah, you can’t change the law just because of one little child-killer getting released after a few years, and moving directly next to an elementary school. We’re just supposed to allow that, because in general, it’s supposedly a good thing to release violent criminals early, while pretending they’re “non-violent.”

Actually, in a society where children are safe from psychopathic killers — which is the kind of society the ACLU doesn’t want — it’s common sense to change laws that produce catastrophically bad outcomes. That’s how functioning societies work. They see a system that produces a bad result, they analyze how that result came about, and they change the system. It’s cause and effect. It’s a very basic principle. This is like saying that if your brakes fail in your car one time, there’s no reason to take it into the shop and get it repaired. It’s exactly the same mentality. To that end, TJ Roberts has also proposed another change to the law in Kentucky.

When my producers spoke to TJ Roberts last night, he said that he believes his legislation will pass. There’s strong support among Kentucky lawmakers for each of them. And they don’t need the Democrat governor, Andy Beshear, to sign off on them, because only a constitutional majority is needed to overturn his veto. And Kentucky is of course dominated by Republicans.

That’s very fortunate, because for his part, Andy Beshear has responded to the release of Ronald Exantus by defending the state parole board, and attacking the White House for responding to my post on social media.

Here’s what Andy Beshear said:

For them [the white house] to simply retweet that wrong information … The parole board never made a decision to release Ronald Exantus; instead, every time it came in front of them, they voted against him and to keep him in prison.

To be clear, the tweet from the White House’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt, was as follows. 

I can confirm the White House is looking into this. It’s wholly unacceptable for a child killer to walk free after just several years in prison.

And that was a direct response to my tweet, which we showed earlier, in which I said, 

A man who broke into a house and stabbed a child to death is now walking free.

Neither one of us spread “wrong information.” Everything we said was correct.

It’s true that, when this story broke, the Kentucky parole board claimed they didn’t want to release Ronald Exantus. The Department of Corrections said their hands were tied. But even if that were true, the parole board (and the Department of Corrections) could have made their objections public.

They could have drawn attention to what happened, rather than wait for me to do it for them. They could have imposed stricter conditions of release for Ronald Exantus, so that the state of Florida would have an easier time arresting him. But they didn’t do any of this.

All they’re interested in doing is covering for themselves.

And the same is true of the governor of the state. Even if it were true that “disinformation” had been spread about the Kentucky parole board, it doesn’t matter. The travesty here is not that people are lying about government officials. The travesty is that a child killer was let out of prison, allowing him to move next to an elementary school. That’s what every single political official in Kentucky should care about, without exception.

Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout!

The lesson we should draw from this case is that we can indeed enforce the laws, and we can enforce them quickly. All of the built-in dysfunction of our legal system is ultimately a choice. One tweet — just one tweet — put Ronald Exantus back in prison. That’s because the laws that are necessary to ensure public order are already on the books. And in the states where they aren’t, like Kentucky, they can easily be changed.

The state of Florida, to its enormous credit, understands that. They’re responsive to complaints — even when they come from out of state, as mine did. They understand that the law is a tool to ensure public order, not to prosecute political opponents. And the result is that Ronald Exantus is in a prison cell right now, instead of hanging out near an elementary school. Many more criminals like deserve the same fate. They can be locked up just as quickly as he was. And if we notice what’s happening around us, and apply pressure on public officials to correct it — as we did in this case, after learning of the brutal murder of Logan Tipton and the early release of his killer — then that’s exactly what will happen.