This morning, almost the entire front page of the Washington Post, including everything above the fold, was devoted to one story: the sale of the Washington Post. The kind of coverage usually reserved for wars and other cataclysmic events.
With the chaotic and dangerous situations in Egypt and Syria, a continuing anemic economic recovery that’s killing the American middle class, a herd of politicians whose behavior would shame most six year olds, the government working hard to scrape every bit of data possible on it’s citizens, and most of those citizens clueless about all of it, the Post’s editors decided this is THE one most important story their readers needed to pay attention to.
This is what passes for journalism in 2013.
Counterpoint: transparency in journalism requires very clear statement of ownership. If you read the Post, which 100% of the audience of their front page do, it’s vital to be aware of such a massive potential bias. What if were the Koch brothers buying, or News Corp? It’s honest journalism for them to feature a major shift in the lens through which all their reporting is viewed.
I agree the Post should be very transparent with it’s readers about the sale. That doesn’t mean their use of valuable space on the front page was valid, especially since one of the stories better fit in the Style section and it could be argued another was more appropriate for the Metro section. On a related issue, I think their reporting of the story was incredibly biased and self-serving, although I expected nothing less.