{"id":6917,"date":"2006-03-22T09:10:16","date_gmt":"2006-03-22T14:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6917"},"modified":"2006-03-22T09:10:16","modified_gmt":"2006-03-22T14:10:16","slug":"the-washington-posts-attempt-at-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-washington-posts-attempt-at-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Washington Post’s attempt at ‘balance’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times’ two most recent additions to its legendary stable of op-ed columnists are David Brooks and John Tierney, both conservatives. CNN’s three most recent additions to the network’s political coverage are former Republican congressman J.C. Watts, moralist Bill Bennett, and far-right radio host Glenn Beck, all conservatives. And so when the Washington Post decided to expand its online operation by adding a new blog, I suppose it wasn’t terribly surprising that it chose Ben Domenech<\/a>, a hardline conservative who used to work for Bush.<\/p>\n

But the more one considers how and why this happened<\/a>, the more ridiculous it is.<\/p>\n

A former contributing editor to National Review Online, Domenech later became what he calls “the youngest political appointee of President George W. Bush.” After a stint as chief speechwriter for Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.), he co-founded RedState.org and became a book editor at Regnery Publishing, where he worked with Michelle Malkin and others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea, apparently, is to offer WaPo blog readers “balance” — with Domenech on the right and Dan Froomkin on the left. This is, of course, patently absurd. Froomkin is a professional journalist who offers hard-hitting analysis of the Bush administration. He is not a partisan, nor a hack, nor an ideologue. He’s written for the Post for a decade, on top of having written for the Winston-Salem Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Orange County Register. Froomkin is also deputy editor of niemanwatchdog.org, the web site of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.<\/p>\n

If President Kerry were in office, Froomkin’s “White House Watch” column would be as aggressive as it is now. As Froomkin himself has explained<\/a>, “I do not advocate policy, liberal or otherwise. My agenda, such as it is, is accountability and transparency. I believe that the president of the United States, no matter what his party, should be subject to the most intense journalistic scrutiny imaginable.” Just as importantly, Froomkin brings 18 years of experience as a journalist to the task.<\/p>\n

Domenech, on the other hand, is another creature entirely. He’s a 24-year-old Republican writer. Domenech has an agenda — to promote a far-right worldview and defend Republicans against any and all criticism. He is, for lack of a better word, an advocate<\/i>. Already, his blog, called “Red America<\/a>,” exists to promote the Republican Party, cast conservatives in a positive light, and denounce the left.<\/p>\n

Froomkin provides a professional journalist’s take on news and events related to the White House. Domenech provides a conservative activist’s take on why Republicans are right about everything. If this is “balance,” the establishment media needs less of it, not more.
\n
\nLook, if the Post wants to hire a right-wing blogger, that’s the Post’s business. It can make Ann Coulter a legal analyst, Sean Hannity responsible for election coverage, and put Fred Phelps in charge of covering war casualties. It can become the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, the Washington Times, and Fox News. It’s a private enterprise and it can do as it pleases.<\/p>\n

But the Post continues to believe it can maintain credibility while kowtowing to conservative whining, and that’s why the paper deserves all the criticism it’s receiving. As Josh noted<\/a>, if the Post is so concerned about “balance,” it could hire an actual liberal.<\/p>\n

If they want to make a blogger Crossfire with a firebreather on the left and on the right, they should do it. It might even be interesting. But here they’ve just been played by bullies and played for fools.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The establishment media probably doesn’t realize how ridiculous it appears when it tries to make the right happy by hiring hacks like Ben Domenech. Conservatives have screamed “liberal media” for a generation to help undermine news outlets that shine a light on their misdeeds. There was never a kernel of truth to the claim that news outlets had an ideological axe to grind, but it didn’t matter — if the right could kill the messenger, it could kill the message.<\/p>\n

So, we get results like these. J.C. Watts is now a political analyst for CNN. Ben Domenech has been promoted to a high-profile writing position at one of the nation’s most prestigious news outlets. The Sunday-morning news shows, on every network, allow conservative voices to dominate<\/a> for a decade.<\/p>\n

The establishment media thinks it’s offering balance. It’s actually embarrassing itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times’ two most recent additions to its legendary stable of op-ed columnists are David Brooks and John Tierney, both conservatives. CNN’s three most recent additions to the network’s political coverage are former Republican congressman J.C. Watts, moralist Bill Bennett, and far-right radio host Glenn Beck, all conservatives. And so when the Washington […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}