Radio-wrestling magnate, now statesman? Matt Jones wins prestigious civics fellowship | Opinion
This summer, I did an interview with Kentucky Sports Radio founder Matt Jones about how we can bridge political divides.
Jones has a lot of ideas about the ways in which we talk to one another, although many of you laughed at the idea of the prickly sports radio and pro wrestling magnate getting us to kumbaya about politics.
But his ideas have gotten attention from another, more prestigious quarter: Jones announced yesterday he is one of 22 people across the country named to a three-year fellowship with The Aspen Institute and Anti-Defamation League’s Civil Society Fellowship.
Started in 2019, the fellowship “invests in and cultivates the next generations of national leaders, across political ideology and other differences, to explore and forge solutions to the biggest issues facing our society including but not limited to racial injustice, mental health advocacy, economic disparities, and more. Fellows address these issues on both communal and societal levels, contribute toward collective progress, and preserve our nation’s democracy.”
Other fellows include a state senator from Georgia, the editor of the Washington Free Beacon, CEOs, military officers, bankers, affordable housing advocates and more. They will travel across the U.S. and the world to study our most pressing problems and better ways to talk about and solve them.
“I just personally believe in the mission of it and I also wanted to feed my knowledge of what people do across the country and think of other ways to be of benefit,” Jones said Thursday. “The first week was great.”
The group spent the first week in Alabama, visiting historic sites like the Selma Bridge and the lynching memorial, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery and listening to speakers.
This will of course reignite rumors about Jones’ political aspirations. He thought long and hard (and often out loud) in 2020 about running against Mitch McConnell, an exploration that included the book “Mitch Please.” But McConnell and the GOP went after Jones’ media empire, getting him tossed from his TV show, “Hey Kentucky,” and his radio show after the state GOP filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission alleging Jones had received illegal campaign contributions by appearing daily. He declined to run but said he would have regrets.
So now, Matt Jones...statesman?
Not a bit, he says.
“I understand it’s natural to wonder about ulterior motives, but in the end, I really like being around smart people and discussing things” he said. But “the more contentious politics get, the more I’m looking to get things accomplished that aren’t in that realm because it’s getting harder and harder to accomplish things in that realm.”
