This historical post was inspired by another article I read today, a puff piece worshipping the Washington Post, Katherine Graham, journalists in general, Steven Spielberg, and Meryl Streep. The article was promoting a new movie to be released this month "The Post".
I wanted to bring up this episode in the Washington Post's history. Fake news before the term "fake news" had been invented.
Janet Cooke had invented the story on the 8-year-old-boy being shot up with heroin. She has shouldered all the blame for this story. I wanted to point out the Washington Post's institutional faults, and management's personal faults, that enabled this story.
In my opinion the Washington Post management did not really act like they believed this story was true. The normal human reaction to being informed that an eight year old boy is being shot up with heroin is to immediately take action to protect the child. The management of the Washington Post did not do so, in fact they protected their reporter from having to reveal the boy's whereabouts.
This puts the Washington Post and the individuals in management in a very bad light: David Maraniss, Bob Woodward, Ben Bradlee, and Donald Graham, were they all child abuse enablers? Was they thought of an 8 year old black boy being shot up with heroin just no big deal to them? Or, instead, was it that they suspected that their was no reality behind the story they published, so they were not concerned that the local child protective authorities were not informed of the boy's location.
If the Washington Post did not have an institutional reliance on "anonymous sources" this story could not have been published in the first place. The Washington Post published on its front page a story by a young reporter who had been in its employ for less than a year. They only performed due diligence in checking out the story after the Pulitzer had been awarded, and Ben Bradlee had been embarrassed by phone calls about discrepancies in the reporter's resume.
I think we should remember this incident when we are bombarded by stories about the so-called "greatness" of the Washington Post.
By that time while fake news was not what we called the Post, it was definitely referred to as the biased Post due to their rabid support of only one of the political parties.
With all respect, you are way over-analyzing this.
A newspaper has one purpose: Make money for the people who own the paper.
The story sold papers. The Pulitzer award sold papers.
Even the retraction sold papers!
That’s all the Grahams, or any “journalist” cares about!
Cooke was a good writer who might have had a legit career. Instead, she made up a fake resume: Vasser, Phi Beta Kappa. Bradlee hired her without checking her credentials. She made up the heroin story and the Pulitzer prize proved to be her undoing as the fake bio was immediately seen.
she blazed the way for Jayson Blair
bump
Cooke returning the Pulitzer, he adds, “was the moment that public trust gave way to cynicism. . . . Each subsequent episode tarnishes us all.”
With all due respect, Reed Irvine’s Accuracy in Media (AIM) report traces all the way back to 1969. When I found it during the Carter Administration, I subscribed to it - but only for a year, because I was convinced. Each new example was just another example of the same old same old. I was then only interested in one thing - not is there “bias in the media,” but ”Why is there bias in the media?”A newspaper has one purpose: Make money for the people who own the paper.
The story sold papers. The Pulitzer award sold papers.
Even the retraction sold papers!
That’s all the Grahams, or any “journalist” cares about! - Strac6
Why is there bias in the media? It’s taken me decades to formulate it, but I am satisfied with my answer:The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing.Journalists know that journalism is negative about society, yet they claim journalism is objective. Since "the conceit that negativity is objectivity” is a fine definition of “cynicism,” it follows that journalism is cynical about society.The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors . . .
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
In the sense that every flaw in society motivates a “There oughta be a law!” response, cynicism toward society corresponds to the opposite of cynicism - naiveté - towards government. And naiveté towards government is a defining characteristic of “liberalism.” Journalists lust for influence, and journalists are “liberals.” And we wonder why - some even wonder if - there is “bias in the media!"