WaPo Admits It Was Biased For Obama

By Wyatt Earp | November 8, 2008

Shocka!

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

And almost everyone in the country knew about it, so how is this news? Or is it only news because Deborah Howell held off on filing this piece until after the election?

Bill Hamilton, assistant managing editor for politics, said, “There are a lot of things I wish we’d been able to do in covering this campaign, but we had to make choices about what we felt we were uniquely able to provide our audiences both in Washington and on the Web. I don’t at all discount the importance of issues, but we had a larger purpose, to convey and explain a campaign that our own David Broder described as the most exciting he has ever covered, a narrative that unfolded until the very end. I think our staff rose to the occasion.”

So, the managing editor admits that his newspaper has lost its credibility . . . all because Obama’s candidacy was “exciting.” Is this sort of talk supposed to generate readership?

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board’s endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.

Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Post reporters, photographers and editors — like most of the national news media — found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics.

Unbelievable? Sure, but here’s where the Post commits professional suicide:

But Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager. (H/T – Drudge)

Look, the election is over, and Obama probably would have won the election even with fair and balanced coverage. I called his win months ago. This post isn’t about Barack Obama or John McCain. It’s about the death of journalism in America. This story is completely despicable in both its content and its timing. How can anyone ever trust the WaPo again?

When I was writing for my high school and college newspapers, I was always taught that reporters should never insert their opinions and/or biases into a news story. That was reserved for columnists. Unfortunately for the few Americans left who read and trust newspapers like the Post, today’s journalism dictates that the terms “reporter” and “columnist” go hand in hand.

And that is terrible news for everyone.

Captain America has more HERE.

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