The Blog

2021-

2021-01-25 c
PRAVDA ON THE POTOMAC I

Amazing how rigged the WaPo now is. This is Pravda level propaganda.
https://t.co/zovOogpqGI

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) January 22, 2021

______________________
"It's a treat that a prisoner gets when they ask for, 'A morsel of food please,' " Kamala said shoving her hands forward as if clutching a metal plate, her voice now trembling like an old British man locked in a Dickensian jail cell. "'And water! I just want wahtahhh….'Your standards really go out the f—ing window." Kamala burst into laughter.

The Washington Post Tried To Memory-Hole Kamala Harris' Bad Joke About Inmates Begging for Food and Water

At a time when legacy publications are increasingly seen as playing for one political "team" or the other, this type of editorial decision will not do anything to fix that perception.

When The Washington Post published a 2019 campaign trail feature about then-presidential hopeful Kamala Harris' close relationship with her sister, it opened with a memorable anecdote in which Harris bizarrely compared the rigors of the campaign trail to…life behind bars.

And then proceeded to laugh—at the idea of an inmate begging for a sip of water.

It was an extremely cringeworthy moment, even by the high standards set by Harris' failed presidential campaign. But now that Harris is vice president, that awful moment has seemingly vanished from the Post's website after the paper "updated" the piece earlier this month.

... The scene was a brilliant bit of reporting and writing because it did what few political features can accomplish: showing, rather than telling, something about the candidate at the center.

The original quote might have demonstrated something about Harris—indeed, it suggests why her presidential primary campaign flopped so hard—but its disappearance suggests something about the Post, and about the way traditional political media are preparing to cover Harris now that she's one heartbeat away from the presidency.

... Reason asked the Post why the Harris feature was updated, and if the paper could point to other examples of "updating" political features to remove details that show officials in an unflattering light.

As part of an online series rolled out before President Joe Biden's and Harris' inauguration, "we repurposed and updated some of our strong biographical pieces about both political figures," Molly Gannon Conway, the Post's communications manager, told Reason via email on Thursday. "The profile of Maya Harris was updated with new reporting, as noted online, using the existing URL. The original story remains available in print."

Conway did not include any other examples of content that had been similarly updated. She also did not respond to a question about whether Harris' team had requested the change. The vice president's office did not return a request for comment.

The Post, of course, can do whatever it pleases with its own content. It can update or rearrange or delete any detail in any story at any time.

Still, the decision to remove that specific passage—and to replace it with a puffy opening about how Maya has "been a constant companion along Kamala Harris's journey into history"—is questionable at best. Yes, Harris' inauguration as America's first female vice president is historic, but that's no reason to ignore or erase her troubling history as a cop and politician. It also raises questions about the Post's approach to covering Harris going forward. At a time when legacy publications are increasingly seen as playing for one political "team" or the other, this type of editorial decision will not do anything to fix that perception—is there any doubt that the Post would not have treated an inartful comment from Mike Pence in the same way?

Intentional or not, the memory-holing of the older version of the piece sends a message that the Post is willing to pave over its own good journalism to protect a powerful politician from her own words. (read more)

______________________

Permission is hereby granted to any and all to copy and paste any entry on this page and convey it electronically along with its URL,
______________________