Right wingers love to label The Washington Post with the “L” label, and in some ways they’re correct. But I was not alone last year in questioning why the Post was so seemingly gung-ho for war. They constantly promoted war with Iraq in editorials and front page stories.
Now, they are beginning to do some soul searching.
An examination of the paper’s coverage, and interviews with more than a dozen of the editors and reporters involved, shows that The Post published a number of pieces challenging the White House, but rarely on the front page. Some reporters who were lobbying for greater prominence for stories that questioned the administration’s evidence complained to senior editors who, in the view of those reporters, were unenthusiastic about such pieces. The result was coverage that, despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks strikingly one-sided at times.
“The paper was not front-paging stuff,” said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. “Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we’re going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?”
I think a lot of people are starting to question a lot of things that some of us were questioning long ago.
Better late than never. And better now than after the election.
