Still In The Bag

Since there’s been another wave of media and political talking heads claiming, apparently seriously, that “there is no liberal media”, I thought I’d point to this latest bit by W. Joseph Campbell on Patrick Pexton, the WaPo’s latest “ombudsperson”.

In his five or so months as ombudsman, Pexton hasn’t dared touch the electrified third rail about the Post, which one of his predecessors, Deborah Howell, gamely if belatedly addressed.

That’s the Deborah Howell, the late publisher of the PiPress and, it should be added, Nick Coleman’s stepmom.

That’s a decided lack of intellectual diversity in the Post’s newsroom. In mid-November 2008, shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, Howell wrote in her ombudsman column:

“I’ll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don’t even want to be quoted by name in a memo.”

Howell’s column quoted Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism as saying that “conservatives are right that journalism has too many liberals and not enough conservatives. It’s inconceivable that that is irrelevant.”

Howell’s column itself was very worth a read.

One thought on “Still In The Bag

  1. You are right, Mitch! Excellent read. I wonder if Nicky went apoplectic over it? Of course, we’re all still waiting for her concluding paragraph to come to fruition.

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