Tag: Washington Post

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media and media people

Down the River

Washington Post, endorsement, journalism, objectivity

The Washington Post joined The Los Angeles Times, last week, in not making an editorial page endorsement for president — the first pass for The Post in 36 years; in two decades for The Times.

“Recent episodes involving major U.S. news organizations have stoked fears that outlets are preemptively self-​censoring coverage that could offend former President Donald Trump,” National Public Radio began its report. 

“Two Billionaires, Two Newspapers, Two Acts of Self-​Sabotage,” headlined Nancy Gibbs’ New York Times essay, which bemoaned that “one more bulwark against autocracy erodes.”

Are these billionaires — Amazon founder and Post owner Jeff Bezos and LA Times owner Patrick Soon-​Shiong, the American and South African businessman and transplant surgeon — really shaking in their expensive boots about possible political retaliation from a future Trump presidency?

Hardly. 

Do they really think so — the folks hyping that media’s now caving under authoritarian pressure?

Real journalist Glenn Greenwald noted that Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh), his former colleague at Salon, writing now for The Nation, tweeted “I just canceled my subscription to @washingtonpost. You should too.”

Deano (@dshav2), an art director, graphic designer and dad from Minnesota, offered, “A more effective protest would be for everyone to stop shopping on Amazon.”

“Much harder,” responded Ms. Walsh, “but considering.…” 

“So, in other words,” Greenwald mockingly summed up on his podcast, System Update, “‘Look, I want to do everything possible to stop fascism and the new Adolf Hitler from taking power, so I’ll cancel my Washington Post subscription’ and then when someone said to her, ‘Hey maybe you should also boycott Amazon,’ she’s like, “I’m not going to miss my shows on Amazon Prime!”

Having principles is hard.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people partisanship

Pander, Please

Washington Post, ethics, Democratic Party

The newspaper of record in our nation’s capital urges its much-​preferred political party to “trim your principles, Democrats, and pander away.”

This is a very different media watchdog role, where instead of calling out bad behavior, The Washington Post calls for it.

Sure, some of President Biden’s policies “clearly pander to core constituencies,” acknowledges the editorial board, adding: “The problem is that some of these policies are quite bad — even dangerous.”

For the record, the editors explain that they much prefer “the kind of pandering that is less obviously dangerous but still violates common sense and principle.”

Well, on a ranking basis … but isn’t this all too rank? 

Proselytizing for a lack of principle, the Post posits that these “means” of pandering to voters — i.e. buying their votes — are fully justified by “the end” of winning the election against former President Donald Trump.

“The only thing worse than” Democracy [Dying] in Darkness (per the paper’s masthead) is, the editorial board concludes, “losing.”

So, go ahead and delay again the Food and Drug Administration’s ban on menthol cigarettes, which, if implemented, would undoubtedly cost Mr. Biden the votes of many black men who make up the majority of that product’s customer base. Even though it is simply a trick of timing — for after the election, the Biden boys will be back to snuff out menthols. 

Come’on, man! Who needs honesty, accountability, or fair media coverage when there’s an election to win?

Surprisingly, The New York Times’ executive editor Joe Kahn argues the paper should not become an “instrument of the Biden campaign,” not “stop covering those things” such as immigration and inflation “because they’re favorable to Trump,” and not “turn ourselves into Xinhua News Agency or Pravda.”

He’s not wrong.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom ideological culture

The Wreckage of Racism

racism, environment, science, The Washington Post,

In the “urban forests” of our nation’s capital, several abandoned autos have been discovered. Which can mean only one thing: racism. 

“Deserted cars may be driving a type of racism,” The Washington Post headlined its take.*

The paper introduces readers to Nathan Harrington, executive director of the Ward 8 Woods Conservancy, who has discovered four decaying automobiles in those woods. 

No one knows how the cars got there. 

All that is known is that their presence is, well, racist. 

Blacks make up 87 percent of Ward 8’s population, one of the most heavily black areas of the city. “Advocates,” explains The Post, “call this neglect of Black neighborhoods ‘environmental racism.’”

An assistant professor of sociology and environmental studies at Boston College is offered to explain that, as The Post paraphrases, “environmental racism is linked to ‘racial capitalism’ — the idea that the economic value of a person is based on their race.”

And to think I was worrying that those rusting vehicles might be leaching dangerous elements into our environment!

“It’s deliberate inaction on the part of the agencies that control that land,” complains Harrington. Believable enough, on the surface, but we are presented with no specifics as to who has refused to help.

Nor are we provided any evidence that this failure of the DC government, if it even is one, can legitimately be ascribed to racial bias.

 The District of Columbia’s mayor happens to be black, as are eight of 13 city council members.

When four rusted-​out cars in the woods become front-​page fodder to focus on systemic racism, it seems things are looking up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* This punny headline adorned the dead-​tree edition. Online, the article’s headline is: “‘Environmental racism’ and the mysterious cars rusting in D.C. woods.”

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international affairs media and media people

Soft on China

China, Washington Post, virus, Covid, coronavirus, totalitarian, freedom,

Last Saturday’s Washington Post editorial blasted both President Donald Trump and his presumptive Democratic challenger Joe Biden for a “sleazy stratagem” — namely, “accusing the other of being a stooge for Communist China.”

At issue are dueling advertisements from each campaign and a pair of SuperPACs.

The Trump ad features Fox Business’s Stuart Varney declaring that “Biden’s son inked a billion-​dollar deal with a subsidiary of the Bank of China,” followed by Biden telling an audience that the Butchers of Beijing “aren’t bad folks, folks.” 

“For 40 years, Joe Biden has been wrong about China,” warns the America First Actiom PAC spot. “I believed in 1979 and I believe now,” offers Biden, “that a rising China is a positive development.”

Biden’s campaign responded with an ad charging that “Trump rolled over for the Chinese” — uttering their praises “as the coronavirus spread across the world.”

“Trump trusted China,” claims an American Bridge PAC spot, noting that “everyone knew they lied about the virus.” 

While acknowledging “that China’s government contributed to the global spread of the coronavirus by covering up initial reports” and “has tried to use the pandemic to advance its authoritarian political model globally at the expense of democracy,” The Post nonetheless bemoaned the “irresponsible” “rhetoric” that “could complicate cooperation with China.” 

What the Post’s editors did not make clear — while explaining that China should be “pushed for greater transparency” and “its propaganda … rejected” — was the inconvenient fact that the paper has for a decade published reams of Chinese government propaganda.

For an undisclosed sum, likely in the millions, as I wrote last week.

So let the campaign heat up. Americans are far less interested in cooperating with totalitarian China than is our nation’s compromised newspaper of record. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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China, Washington Post, virus, Covid, coronavirus, totalitarian, freedom,

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Driven to Sanity

Washington Post, economics, economy, control, government, limited

Having the federal government centrally plan the economy is “a huge waste of everyone’s time and resources” states an amazingly common-​sensical Washington Post editorial.

“In a well-​functioning modern economy, businesses are generally free to buy and sell the things they need, absent a compelling public need for government intervention,” the editors further expound.

Hmmm, a capitol-​town rag that regularly extols the virtues of big government regulation of everything now notices the importance of freedom.

Of avoiding, especially, a system where bureaucrats and other government bullies micromanage commerce.

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap,” Thomas Jefferson wrote long ago, “we should all want for bread.”

And aluminum.

“Worse,” the Post argues, the system “also politicizes — and, indeed, corrupts — economic life. Companies that feel threatened by any particular tariff exclusion request have the right to present their objections to the Commerce Department, meaning that each decision represents a high-​stakes competition for federal favor between at least two companies with every incentive to influence it through lobbying, campaign contributions, you name it.”

Correct. It seems we may have Donald Trump to thank for opening the Post’s eyes. 

“[T]he way to get ahead in Mr. Trump’s economy,” those editors conclude, “is not making better products for the people, but making better connections in Washington.”

Tragically true.

But, sadly, true long before Mr. Trump entered the White House. No new powers have been given to Trump. 

Let’s drain the stinking Washington swamp. Let’s end the corrupting influence of a regulatory state run amok. Let’s limit the power of the people wielding political power.

How?

Free the markets!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly government transparency ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Defiance?

Washington Post, lap dog, lapdog, Department of Justice, FBI, crime, accountability

“Once the party of law and order,” screamed the Washington Post’s top-​of-​the-​front-​page Sunday headline, “Republicans are now challenging it.”

The story’s lede: “Republican leaders’ open defiance last week of the FBI over the release of a hotly disputed memo revealed how the GOP, which has long positioned itself as the party of law and order, has become an adversary of federal law enforcement as the party continues its quest to protect President Trump from the Russia investigation.”

Huh?

Defiance,* by definition, is “bold disobedience.” But the Constitution tasks Congress with control (by oversight and purse string) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice. Because subservient, it is the FBI and DoJ that can disobey. Not Congress.

While some Republicans seemingly switched sides on the appropriateness of criticizing the FBI over the Nunes memo release — congratulations are in order! — the same point, reversed, can be made (even humorously) about some on the Left now condemning such criticism. 

Criticizing the government — including law enforcement agencies — has always been as American as apple pie.

The Post supports an ever-​increasing role for the federal government, favoring Democrats. But now, Trump Derangement Syndrome has apparently pushed the company-​town paper over the edge … to Media Madness (the title of Howard Kurtz’s new book, which the paper sophomorically savaged).

How ridiculous to characterize Republicans as enemies of “federal law enforcement” because they believe some within the FBI acted improperly, perhaps unlawfully.**

The Post should remember that its journalistic street cred didn’t come from reporting partisan spin as fact, but from what some saw as “defying” the president and publishing “national secrets” in search of the truth 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The Post wasn’t alone. Politico echoed the message in its story, “GOP defies FBI, releases secret Russia memo to partisan fury,” and so did other media outlets.

** Moreover, Republican leaders have been clear that the memo does not impact Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

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