News Or Opinion In the Washington Post?

Has the Washington Post secretly hired Howell Raines to manages its news pages? I ask because it seems to me that more and more news stories are beginning to read like editorials.

Take two recent examples:

In an article yesterday on page three, “Racial Tensions Persist in King’s Back Yard,” Alan Sverdlik writes that “[e]ven by the standards of Georgia’s rightist political culture, Cobb [County] has been conservative.”

Rightest political culture? Hmm. I wonder what the Post means by “rightest”? Let’s see, Georgia has one Republican and one Democratic senator, but the Democrat, Zell Miller, is pretty conservative and likes President Bush. It’s true, in addition, that only five of the state’s thirteen-member congressional delegation are Democrats. And in 2000, 55% of Georgia’s vote went to Bush. Could it be that at the Post “rightest” means, well, Republican? I don’t know. But if that is the case, then shouldn’t the Post refer to the “political cultures” of, say, Hawaii (60% for Gore), New Jersey (56% for Gore), New York (60% for Gore), Maryland (57% for Gore), and Illinois (56% for Gore) as “leftist”? Maybe the Post routinely does this and I’ve just missed it.

One more example: on page four of today’s Post, Dana Milbank accuses the Republicans of living in a “glass house” for attacking John Kerry’s “special interest” contributions. Milbank points out that Bush has raised far more from lobbyists ($842,262 in this election cycle) than has Kerry ($638,358 since 1989, making him the largest recipient in the Senate) and asks: “Does Bush have a glass-house problem here?”

No, I don’t think so. He would if, like Kerry, he had been railing against “special interests” and claiming, like Kerry, that “I’m running for President to free our government from the dominance of the lobbyists….”

Say What? (5)

  1. Richard Nieporent February 15, 2004 at 11:27 am | | Reply

    John, you missed the most glaring distortion in the article. The headline reads “Racial Tensions Persist in King’s Back Yard”. However, there was no mention of any racial tension in the article. In fact, the article stated:

    “The only reaction thus far has been from the county’s substantial black middle class, which was a negligible presence in 1990 but has grown to nearly 19 percent of Cobb’s 600,000-odd residents. … “”I’m not going to beat myself up because I’m an upper-middle-class black,” said Chris Orange, a 39-year-old technology analyst with the telecommunications giant Sprint. “What other group gets attacked for being successful?” “

    In other words, the real problem is that the community has a successful black population and there is no racial tension. What the article shows is that the SCLC leadership has lost touch with its membership and is attempting to create racial incidents to regain its lost influence. Now if that had been the point of the article it would be real news. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

  2. Richard Nieporent February 15, 2004 at 11:32 am | | Reply

    Shuttlesworth, who is 81 and lives in Cincinnati, took over as SCLC’s president last month”

    “Two fundamental questions about bringing in Shuttlesworth come to mind,” said David Garrow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. “One is he’s 82.

    Good editing. It is just so indicative of the accuracy of the rest of the article.

  3. Richard Nieporent February 15, 2004 at 11:46 am | | Reply

    I am having so much fun with this article.

    It was the nucleus of the congressional district that elected MacDonald — a longtime Birch Society member who had railed against the civil rights legislation of the Great Society — to four terms. MacDonald died in 1983, a passenger aboard a South Korean airliner that was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter.

    If this so-called reporter were not so focused on creating racial tensions where there are none, he would have commented on the irony of this. You would think that conspiracy buffs would have had a field day over this incident.

  4. Sandy P. February 16, 2004 at 12:43 am | | Reply

    Gee, and how long had Georgia been run by democrats???

    130 years?????

  5. Claire February 16, 2004 at 11:26 am | | Reply

    You guys just don’t get it, do you?

    When Republicans accept money from lobbyists, it’s selling out to the special interests.

    When Democrats accept money from lobbyists, it’s representing the viewpoints of their constituents.

    Okay, /sarcasm off now. Doublethink gives me a headache.

Say What?