More Weigel
I think Tom Scocca wins the thread:
So Weigel was disrespectful to conservatives. What is a conservative? Apparently a conservative is someone who believes that Pat Buchanan’s professional Jew-baiting is not anti-Semitism, who admires Newt Gingrich as a shy and retiring statesman, and who is completely unfamiliar with the basic history of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. And a conservative is someone who believes that no one should say anything, even in private, that might hurt his or her conservative feelings.
How one would be respectful toward such a creature, I can’t really imagine. The Washington Post, however, sees that a vital mission.
[...]
Opinions! They are a minefield. For instance, if your job were to be an ombudsman—to evaluate reader complaints against a newspaper—and your opinion was that defenders of Pat Buchanan were entitled to be upset at seeing him called an anti-Semite, I would conclude that you were witless and untrustworthy. If your job were to be managing editor of a newspaper, and you said that in making Web hires, you would look for someone who had never expressed a strong opinion even in private, I would conclude that you were either an actual infant or you were so scared of criticism that you would jabber anything at all, even something meaningless and dishonest, if you thought it would make your critics go away.
[...]
Still, there was nothing in this episode that an editor with guts and integrity couldn’t have weathered in 72 hours. Maybe someday Weigel will be lucky enough to work for one.
I can’t add much to that. Alyssa Rosenberg raises an important subsidiary point.
In addition, like Glenn I must admit to being a mite confused about the High Standards of Journamalism we’re being lectured about. If I understand correctly, sending a few nasty emails about conservatives to a private email list is a firable offense. Sending nasty emails kicking a former colleague on the way out, on the other hand, is perfectly consistent with the sacred principles of integritude. And if you publish the latter emails while carefully preserving the anonymity of the gutless emailers, why, you’re just soaking in potty-trained journalistic integrity! If I didn’t know better, I’d think these principles were entirely ad hoc standards that always permit your enemies to be punished and your friends to do whatever they want…
I’ll repeat my comment from your other post on this topic: most of what Weigel posted is irrelevant insider gossip; I couldn’t care less what he thinks of Matt Drudge. But all the focus on those emails of Weigel’s ignores the one in which he discusses how the media could (and should) spin the Scott Brown election to help the Democrats. I don’t see how anybody can defend that.
I don’t see how anybody can defend that.
He proposed they tell the truth about the election: how shocking!
As far as I can tell, he really did think Coakley was an awful candidate, which is about as controversial as noting Pat Buchanan’s anti-Semitism. So, particularly without knowing the context, I don’t see an issue there. Especially if nobody can point to how this actually affected his own reporting.
It’s fine to think that Coakley was an awful candidate. But it’s another to make that claim because you want to help Democrats. Quoting from the Daily Caller article:
I can’t see any way in which it’s legitimate for a journalist to discuss with other journalists the “vitalness” of spinning a story a certain way because of the “damage to the Democrats” that the story is doing.
(Weigel’s defense, btw? Everyone does it.)
Here’s another example, from the Daily Caller article:
Again, should journalists be strategizing with other journalists about which stories to cover based on their effect on polls? Well, no.
You’re right. The only acceptable way to spin the media is to help the Republicans, e.g., making a mountain out of a Tea Party molehill, treating McCain’s opinions as though he has won the election, advancing the “Obama’s Katrina” line at every opportunity, und so weiter. Thank you for clearing that up.
a friable offense.
Great typo! “Friable” means crumbly BTW.
$50 says the WaPo hires acorn pimp guy as a replacement