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”.<\/p>\n
In his five or so months as ombudsman, Pexton hasn\u2019t dared touch the electrified third rail about the Post, which one of his predecessors, Deborah Howell, gamely if belatedly addressed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’s the <\/em>Deborah Howell, the late publisher of the PiPress and, it should be added, Nick Coleman’s stepmom.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a decided lack of intellectual diversity in the Post\u2019s newsroom. In mid-November 2008, shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, Howell wrote in her ombudsman column:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll 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\u2019t even want to be quoted by name in a memo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howell\u2019s column quoted Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism as saying that \u201cconservatives are right that journalism has too many liberals and not enough conservatives. It\u2019s inconceivable that that is irrelevant.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n