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Is the Washington Post Developing a Conscience?
US Special Forces
Originally WaPo changed their description of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from terrorist-in-chief to “austere religious scholar.” They noted the brutality of his forces (here is one listing), but focused on his academic career.
In response to the protests against WaPo calling al Baghdadi an austere religious scholar, WaPo changed its description to “extremist leader.” The Vice President of Communications at WaPo, Kristine Coratti Kelly put out a tweet that said, “Regarding our al-Baghdadi obituary, the headline should never have read that way and we changed it quickly.”
In one sense, this debacle is a positive event. First, it validates (although they probably don’t need validation) that someone at WaPo was actually prepared to honor a man who has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. I suspect the only people who would appreciate those descriptions were his followers, and maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. But even more interesting is WaPo’s caving into criticism. Since the newspaper doesn’t care about pushback from the Right, I wonder if the obituary had gone a step too far, even for the Left.
At this point, I’ll be pleased with any actions that show the ugliness, deceit, and distortions of the Washington Post.
Even from the Left.
Published in Journalism
I think once you’ve had the woke types in place for a certain length of time and they start moving up the corporate ladder, nothing’s going to change, because now you have people in management agreeing with their woke staff. There’s no adult in the newsroom to say ‘no’ (and sometimes it comes top-down — when Pinch Sulzburger took over operations at the Times back in the early 1990s, he pretty much eliminated the chuch/state ban that kept the paper’s mushy progressive op-eds off the front page. A quarter century later, and the Times has no problem using both the selection and slant of their Page 1 stories to support the paper’s editorial views).
These people have an amazing ability to abstract-ify heinous crimes against humanity by the likes of this monster, and bring into visceral real-life focus some arcane government proposal Republicans want to initiate: Granny’s going to have to eat dog food! Children in cages!
It may be that they need to play down real crimes so they can maintain that domain as exclusively Trumpian.
I’d just like to point out that it’s not entirely clear which quickly-changed headline the VP of Communications is apologizing for. When you’re getting heat from both sides of an issue, ambiguity is your friend — even if you are the VP of Communications.
That sounds like too much work. Too disruptive. Civil war is easier. (Until it actually starts, of course.)
Susan, the issue is presenting a false impression of a person (in this case persons) in order to advance an agenda. Is moving the Goal posts a substantive response to that?
You are right, @zafar. I apologize for saying that they support terrorist organizations. They have never stated such a support, only their support of the Palestinians and their condemnation of Israel. And they are anti-Semites. And don’t bother asking me to list all the anti-Jewish statements they’ve made. I believe they hate Jews and Israel. That is my belief.
Do you believe that I hate Jews and Israel?
(Also – no need to apologize to me. Your OP suffered from your statement, I didn’t. )
[cynical response ahead] – Ambiguity is your friend especially if you are the VP of Communications.