WaPo publishes very serious idea from very serious people
I was going to try to criticize this column that Fred Hiatt deemed worthy of his paper, but then I started to think about what a daunting task it would be. Every line contains some head-scratching conclusion based on assumptions that have largely been disproven. To tear it apart line by line would take hours and raise my blood pressure.
The column, however, does raise some serious questions that I would like answers to. These questions include: how do you get fired as a Washington Post columnist? How do you get to be called a Democratic Pollster even though you have not worked for a Democrat in several decades? How do you get people to care about your opinion when you have been consistently wrong about everything for those same decades?
I’m serious, this is all very confusing to me. The Washington Post finds itself in a changing media environment; one where lesser papers have fallen for bad business decisions. It seems to me that paying Pat Caddell to think is one of the most inefficient and wasteful use of resources available right now.
4 Comments
Leave a comment
Sign up for our mailing list
Posts by Region
Posts by Topic
Recent Comments
Archives
- May 2012 (3)
- April 2012 (9)
- March 2012 (16)
- February 2012 (20)
- January 2012 (13)
- December 2011 (10)
- November 2011 (14)
- October 2011 (19)
- September 2011 (25)
- August 2011 (10)
- July 2011 (16)
- June 2011 (14)
- May 2011 (14)
- April 2011 (16)
- March 2011 (20)
- February 2011 (15)
- January 2011 (24)
- December 2010 (16)
- November 2010 (24)
- October 2010 (27)
- September 2010 (17)
- August 2010 (42)
- July 2010 (40)
- June 2010 (65)
- May 2010 (72)
- April 2010 (38)
- March 2010 (18)
- February 2010 (32)
- January 2010 (46)
- December 2009 (45)
- November 2009 (38)
- October 2009 (15)
- September 2009 (24)
- August 2009 (11)
- February 2009 (1)
Who we like
- AfPak Channel
- CIPE Blog
- Countries at the Crossroads
- Cyrus Samii
- Democracy Arsenal
- Democracy Dialogue
- Democracy Digest
- Democracy Resource Center
- EITI Blog
- ElectionGuide.org
- Fruits and Votes
- Global Voices Online
- One Blog
- Open Budgets Blog
- Open Democracy
- Policy and Power
- Progressive Realist
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Blogs
- Space for Transparency
- The Coming Prosperity
- The Democratic Piece
- The International Jurist
- The Kaufmann Governance Post
- United Nations Democracy Fund
- Zunia.org
The answer, I think, is pretty clear. The Post is no longer just a newspaper. Rather, it is a loss-making subsidiary of a large for profit educational firm, Kaplan, Inc. Therefore the Post doesn’t have to worry about making money. As long as it supports polices favorable to Kaplan (as it most certainly does), it can print whatever Fred Hiatt likes in other areas. Pablum about the benefits of post-partisanship/bi-partisanship/whatever have been one of these staples.
[...] off David’s great insight, why is it that when some Presidents do things that the public doesn’t support, such as [...]
I just think accuracy has ceased to be a concern in news reporting, everyone is writing to an audience and all that seems to matter is knowing what your audience wants to hear. At least the article’s labeled clearly as “opinion” I guess.
It is a fantasy to argue that Democrats and Republicans would start cooperating if Obama says he’s quitting as polarization in Congress preceded him, so I guess it gets back to your point about accuracy. What would be accurate would be for the Post to re-name the Op-Ed page as “Fiction.”