Because I’ve been critical of the Washington Post’s John Solomon lately, particularly his odd front-page piece on John Edwards selling his house, I thought it only fair to note that Solomon defended his reporting during an online WaPo chat today. While I applaud Solomon for discussing his work with readers, I’m afraid his justifications were wholly unpersuasive.
Here’s the crux of his defense:
Certainly there’s been lots of discussion in the blogs about this story and let me try to address the core issue. This wasn’t a story about whether John Edwards should or shouldn’t have picked the Klaassens as buyers. It was a story about the transparency of the deal. Those who aspire to the highest office in the land are required to disclose their financial dealings to the fullest extent. That isn’t a political requirement or some media-driven imposition. It is encoded in the federal campaign law. When Edwards’ campaign first disclosed the deal, much detail was lacking about the deal _ most importantly the name of the buyers. Such information is critical to the transparency of a transaction involving $5.2 million that occurred on the night before Edwards launched his candidacy. Our story simply filled in the missing blanks.
Let’s take these one at a time. First, the discussion has not been limited to “the blogs.” Two of Solomon’s Post colleagues, including his ombudsman, has publicly criticized Solomon’s reporting on the Edwards story. Dismissing this as some kind of online brouhaha badly misses the point.
Second, Solomon said his front-page expose wasn’t about whether the Edwards’ “shouldn’t have picked the Klaassens as buyers.” Really? The article had 23 paragraphs — nearly half of which dealt with the Klaassens, the investigation they’re under, their relationship with unions, etc. If the article was really about “transparency,” then why all the ink about the controversial buyers and the political implications about Edwards’ presidential campaign?
Third, if Solomon’s central focus was on legal disclosure requirements, he probably should have done his homework on this before writing the front-page article.
As Media Matters explained, Solomon misstated the law while defending his piece.
In a January 23 online discussion, Washington Post reporter John Solomon defended his controversial article about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ recent sale of his house by suggesting — without offering any evidence — that the sale violated “federal campaign law” disclosure requirements.
Solomon explicitly stated in his response that the disclosure requirement “is encoded in federal campaign law” but offered no evidence to support that contention. Indeed, that argument is absent entirely from the January 19 article. And Solomon himself seemed to contradict his own allegations with his next answer, in which he said, “A frontpage story doesn’t have to always find wrongdoing or lead to prosecutions.”
Further, in suggesting that Edwards broke disclosure laws, Solomon apparently misstated that law. Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Reports — which must be filed by presidential candidates, and to which Solomon is apparently referring — do contain a section for “transactions.” But that section — Schedule B, Part 1 — specifically instructs candidates not to report the sale of a personal residence. The instructions read: “Do not report a transaction involving property used solely as your personal residence.” In fact, presidential candidates — as opposed to current officeholders — are exempted from filling out Schedule B altogether. The top of Schedule B reads: “Do not complete Schedule B if you are a new entrant, nominee, or Vice Presidential or Presidential candidate.”
Fourth, Solomon noted today that the names of the buyers’ names were somehow kept hidden. Except, the buyer was a limited-liability corporation, created by the Klaassens, which as the article notes several paragraphs in, is fairly normal. The Klaassens’ names weren’t on the public forms because they used an LLC. None of this is remotely interesting.
Fifth, for all of his talk about disclosures, Solomon noted today that Edwards “hasn’t filed his financial disclosure form yet. He still has some time to do that. That’s where he’ll fulfill his legal obligation.” If that’s the case, then why even write the story. As Greg Sargent put it, “So now the story is justified by the fact that Edwards didn’t disclose the sellers’ identity earlier than he was obliged to. In other words, his behavior wasn’t quite as perfect as it might have been. That’s just beyond thin.”
Solomon mentioned in his chat today, “I have no regrets at all about the story or its play in the Post.” That’s a shame. He’s probably the only one.