The Washington Post Is a Partisan Rag, Critics Say
12th November 2018
The Washington Post keeps coming up with ways to broadcast anti-Trump screeds in a form that misleadingly suggests its reporting the news honestly. We’ve become familiar with variations of the following locution: “This report is based on interviews with 38 individuals with knowledge of the situation, including senior White House officials.” It allows the Post to pick and choose among the people it talked to and report pretty much whatever it likes — even if most of these people, including all the ones at the White House with first-hand knowledge, said something different.
Now, the Post is attacking Trump in headlines attributing the attack to “critics.” Today, for example, the lead headline on the front page (paper edition) blared “Trump’s absence rankles critics” (a reference to Trump missing a ceremony in France honoring the World War I dead, due to bad weather). The Post has also used this approach to headline writing accuse Trump of racism, among other things.
Critics said lots of unpleasant things about President Obama. I don’t think the Post ever wrote headlines that parroted these attacks and then attributed them to critics. “Obama too anxious to cut deal with Iran, critics say” was never a Post headline, I’m pretty sure.