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Why The Washington Post Is Going Down
The Washington Post’s public editor, Deborah Howell, is worried about shrinking circulation.
One reason, readers tell her, is that the Post is too liberal. She writes:
Neither the hard-core right nor left will ever be satisfied by Post coverage — and that’s as it should be. But it’s true that The Post, as well as much of the national news media, has written more stories and more favorable stories about Barack Obama than John McCain. Editors have their reasons for this, but conservatives are right that they often don’t see their views reflected enough in the news pages.
There indeed we have the reason why the Post’s circulation is shrinking. The inability of the editors to distinguish between:
- news: – a report of recent events or previously unknown information
and
- views: – opinions or judgments colored by the feeling or bias of its holder
The editors of WaPo believe that "news" should include "views" and a lot of WaPo reports unfortunately do include biased "views" instead of just factual "news".
As a reader that is not what I want. Give me the facts, the real "news". Spare me the "views" of the reporter or some partisan think tank. Write down the facts, add some figures where available, be clear and precise. Sometimes WaPo writers do achieve that. When they do not, the outcome is usually crap.
And if these facts are biased against conservative views? Well, sorry, despite Karl Rove’s assertions, there is only one reality and it rules.
If there have been more stories on Obama and more favorable stories than on McCain, there might be a good objective reason why this is the case.
There were some thirty fact-free attacks the McCain campaign launched against Obama during the last months. There were less attacks from the Obama campaign on McCain/Palin and most of those were factual.
When reporters pick up on those attacks, they examine the campaign claims and when those are wrong, they report that they are wrong. Mrs. Howell will count those stories as favorable-to-Obama stories, alleging some bias in the writer when the bias is in the facts.
McCain claims Obama will raise taxes on the middle class, when Obama indeed does not plan to do so. A reporter writing about this and presenting the facts as they are, would likely be attacked from the right as not representing their views. But it is not the reporting that is biased, the facts are. Obama does not plan to raise taxes on the middle class. That is a fact. The fact in this case simply does not support the view conservatives favor.
It seems to me Mrs. Howell, and other WaPo editors, do not get that. They want "views" instead of "news" not only on the editorial pages, but also in the news coverage. Unfortunately, more and more WaPo reporters follow their editors’ urging in this.
And that is the real reasons why the Post is going down.
There are good journalists out there, working hard to get observable, knowable facts before the public. There are some MCMers (members of the Mainstream Corporate Media) trying very hard to “fit in,” to please their masters, and to get to the Big Time where they will be rewarded with 6, possibly 7, figure incomes, book deals, large speaking fees, television appearances, etc. There are some bloggers working hard to get into the MCM orbit so they too can make it to the Big Time. Some of these have proved to be major disappointments–and their former strict adherence to facts with a point of view has been lost in the miasma surrounding the MCM.
For the actual journalists, I am grateful. From them I learned the actual facts which made the MCM’s front pages and broadcast approach to the run up to the Iraq Invasion absolutely maddening. There were reports by members of the US government, scientists from the Atomic Energy Commission and the Energy Department, who stated that those alumuninum tubes simply were not designed to function the way BushCo said they would, that they were for missiles. I heard this counter report on NPR’s All Things Considered when the maladministration broke the story of the nefarious aluminum tubes.
It was reported, it was heard by many people. But, somehow, it was not mentioned very much as the drums of war began to beat more loudly and faster. I wrote my Congress Critters about it; I received form letters in response. I found the lefty blogs, where it was written about, where people knew we were being lied to by BushCo and its minions.
I joined like-minded people in demonstrations and marches–and we were treated as amusing sideshows, if reported on at all. Our numbers were minimized by the MCM as it blared the calls for war.
I cancelled my NYTimes subscription; management did not respond to my letter as to why I cancelled.
Prior to Colin Powell’s MCM lauded appearance before the UN, I was away from the Internet for a a month or so. Even so, I knew that almost every point he was making had been refuted or had clear and convincing counter arguments. There were two things I could not refute, listening to him in my car on the long, boring stretches of the Ohio Turnpike, crossing from the Midwest to the East Coast. The next day, good blogs addressed those two points: one I still can’t recall, but the other was a clear misinterpretation of an Arabic conversation, a manager of a weapons depot talking to his employees, telling them to be sure everything was shipshape in preparation for the UN inspectors. Powell had a CIA translation, which conveniently left out some words and mistranslated others. To fit the BushCo picture and “prove” the Iraqis were “hiding” WMD.
I hope Obama will stay the hell away from Powell, as he cannot be trusted. He takes care of himself by taking care of those in power. Obama does not need that kind sycophancy around him. But, of course, Powell has now been somehow rehabilitated by endorsing Obama. The only word which conveys my disgust is the all around blogger word, “sheesh.”
So, for those reporters who either slid real reporting in under their editors’ and/or owners’ radar, who stuck to those inconvenient facts, hooray. And many, many thanks. It was often noted that the WaPo editorial writers would simply ignore their own reporters’ writing. Perhaps because the editors would bury the lede in the middle of longer articles or on the back pages of the section; but, still, they had no embarrassment when it was pointed to them.
Nor did Howell show any embarrassment. Anger, yes. Peevishness. Willingness to attack the messengers, including readers who dared to point these things out. She is not an ombudsman; she is a watch dog protecting her editors and the owners of the paper. The MCMers striving to retain “access” to the powerful.
There are some great bloggers who do point out the good, the bad, and the ugly. On the domestic political scene, Bob Somerby of DailyHowler.com does a great job of trying to get MCMers to clean up their act. He chides the “liberal” pundits for pulling their punches, berates the subtle and more obvious practicioners of journamalism. If he points out that there is misuse of reluctance to use knowable, observable facts on behalf of those favored by many leftish, he himself is attacked. Then he is ignored.
I cherished Billmon and am so glad to have found Bernhard who takes on such malpractice in journalism and opinion on both political and international subjects. Oh, plus the economics. Many thanks to you, b.
Posted by: jawbone | Nov 1 2008 21:06 utc | 22
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