Tag Archives: Washington Post

Death of the ombudsman

Media, , , ,

Edward Wasserman, the dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, laments the elimination of The Washington Post‘s ombudsman position:

No matter how the job is structured, ombudsmen generally please no one. While journalists complain that they’re quick on the trigger and unsympathetic to the pressures of deadline-driven news production, outsiders say they’re too soft, and lack the spine to challenge their own employers over the most vexing new practices.

To that is joined now the criticism that they’re simply obsolete. That’s a point The Post itself endorsed when it noted the profusion of tough media commentary from unaffiliated online critics, implying there was no longer a need for The Post itself to weigh in as well.

That’s an interesting point, but I didn’t hear any corresponding commitment to cooperate with these outside inquiries. And I can’t imagine The Post deciding that in light of the ramped-up coverage of Capitol Hill by Politico, The New York Times and others, it need no longer cover Congress.

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Why we need organizations like Wikileaks

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Here’s why:

When the New York Times revealed the location of the U.S.’s top-secret drone base in Saudi Arabia today, after months of keeping the information quiet, the other most important news outlets in the country sheepishly admitted they’d known about it, too. Along with the Washington Post, which said it had “an informal arrangement” with the government for more than a year, the Associated Press added last night that it “first reported the construction of the base in June 2011 but withheld the exact location at the request of senior administration officials.” Asked why the Times acted now, the paper’s managing editor Dean Baquet told public editor Margaret Sullivan it was simple: John Brennan’s big day.

“It was central to the story because the architect of the base and drone program is nominated to head the C.I.A.,” Baquet explained. Brennan’s confirmation hearings start tomorrow, and the Times decided it was important to discuss his pivotal role in U.S. operations in Yemen, where dozens of suspected terrorists have been targeted by drones, beforehand.

Previously, the government worried that the Saudis “might shut it down because the citizenry would be very upset,” so when the location “was a footnote,” the Times complied, Baquet said. “We have to balance that concern with reporting the news.” (Fox News, too, appears to have published the Saudi Arabian base location briefly in 2011 before switching to the more general “Arabian Peninsula.”)

When the location was a footnote? As decided by whom: the White House? And I have to laugh at Baquet’s comment about “[balancing] that concern with reporting the news.” Forgive me for assuming that reporting on secretive government wartime activity conducted without the knowledge of its taxpaying citizens might be considered, without resorting to qualification or euphemism, damn newsworthy. Forgive me further for daring to presume that government “concern” is a stalling tactic as old as the media and the state themselves, and that the Times, which published the Pentagon Papers and the Wikileaks cables, must know a little something about that. Even the Times‘ normally decent public editor Margaret Sullivan scored an assist on the coverup this time:

One of its revelations is the location of a drone base in Saudi Arabia. The Times and other news organizations, including The Washington Post, had withheld the location of that base at the request of the C.I.A., but The Times decided to reveal it now because, according to the managing editor Dean Baquet, it was at the heart of this particular article and because examining Mr. Brennan’s role demanded it…

If it was ever appropriate to withhold the information, that time was over. The drone program needs as much sunlight as possible. This is another crucial step in the right direction.

No, a crucial step in the right direction would have been to publish that remarkable story back when the Times actually found out about it. Amazing that the newspaper had no problem helping to push us into war in Iraq with shoddy, factually incorrect reporting, but it now claims the mantle of journalistic responsibility in defense of delaying the reporting of relevant facts about our ever-expanding drone wars. Here’s the Washington Post‘s equally appalling take:

The Post learned Tuesday night that another news organization was planning to reveal the location of the base, effectively ending an informal arrangement among several news organizations that had been aware of the location for more than a year.

In China, of course, this would be called government censorship. But here in the United States, it’s just old-fashioned journalistic integrity. Glad we have that cleared up.

I bestow upon thee an A for effort, Mr. Taranto

Politics, , , ,

The Washington Post recently analyzed the results of a poll showing that, even post-election, Americans continue to trust Obama more than the Republican Party. The Post‘s article stated, reasonably: “The poll suggests that the election, while perhaps a vote against the status quo, was not a broad mandate for Republicans and their plans.”

This interpretation did not sit well with The Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto, who countered with the following head-scratcher: “So how is it that the GOP does so badly in the poll? The obvious explanation–well, obvious to everyone except the Post’s reporters–is that the voters did give Republicans a mandate but don’t trust them to carry it out.”

Hm. Taranto, showcasing some vintage righteous indignation here, could not disagree more with the Post‘s claim that the election failed to constitute a Republican mandate. No, he counters, the truth is that the GOP’s House takeover (as well as its gains in the Senate) is due entirely to voter schizophrenia. For someone so obviously troubled by perceived leftist condescension — elsewhere in the same article, he decries “prog[ressive] smugness” — the man really knows how to pander to his conservative base.

In tribute to Taranto’s eternal wisdom, I will now buy a new car that I fully expect not to work.