BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Friday, August 13, 2004
COMING CLEAN AT THE
WASHINGTON POST. A few observations about Howard Kurtz's
front-page
piece in yesterday's
Washington Post about that paper's shortcomings in the run-up
to the war in Iraq:
- The Post has less to come
clean on than did the New York Times, which earlier this year
published a mea
culpa about its own
gullible reporting on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass
destruction. By contrast, the Post appears to have been more
skeptical. Thus, though Kurtz's piece is certainly welcome, he
doesn't document the kind of gross malfeasance committed at the
Times, and especially by Ahmad Chalabi's favorite reporter,
Judith Miller.
- What Kurtz mainly writes about is
an imbalance: stories favorable to the administration were pretty
much guaranteed page-one treatment, whereas those questioning White
House claims were relegated to inside the paper. Given that, what I
find shocking is that Walter Pincus's deeply skeptical reporting was
given less emphasis than it should have been in part because he is
apparently a lousy writer, and because the editors charged with
whipping his copy into shape were overwhelmed by too much other work.
Pincus's reporting was never more needed than it was during this
period. The excuse that there was no one available to rewrite his
stories is pathetic for a great newspaper.
- All hail Bob
Woodward! Frequently
criticized as a toady to those in power, Woodward - an assistant
managing editor at the Post - not only comes across as someone
who is genuinely anguished over the Post's tilt, but as
Pincus's foremost advocate at a time when it mattered the
most.
- Speaking of imbalance ... the
Times published its "Editor's Note" inside the paper, whereas
the Post published Kurtz on page one. Good for the
Post. Like many Bostonians, I try to read the Times
every day, but check out the Post's website only when there's
something really important that I want to read. But this kind of
transparency suggests there's something to the notion that the
Post is on the upswing, whereas the Times is still
struggling to re-establish its pre-eminence in the post-Jayson Blair,
post-Howell Raines era. Josh Marshall wrote
intelligently on this recently.
Overall, an excellent effort by
Kurtz, and a great move by the Post's editors to put it on the
front. The trouble is, the media always do a pretty good job of
looking back. What will happen the next time?
posted at 12:45 PM |
2 comments
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2 Comments:
I guess it's just barely better than nothing, but it's still so little so late that I almost wish they hadn't bothered.
The Post sold its soul soon after Katie Graham left things to son Don, and Ken Starr got them out of the soup on a lawsuit. All through the various faux scandals of the Clinton years, this once proud rag published any wingnut conspiracy theory put forward by Starr's office with breathless enthusiasm. When Clintons were exonerated, such findings were ignored or relegated to page 132.
Howard Kurtz should be required to preface his every pundit pronouncement with the disclosure that his wife is paid hack for the GOP. This semi-mea culpa is too little, too late, indeed. Another case of the media's myopic lack of conscience, in the wake of their botched job leading up to this war.
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
