ACTIVISM UPDATE: WaPo Editor Responds on Polio, Pakistan and the CIA

FAIR.org (5/14/19)

Washington Post editor Martin Baron responded to FAIR’s recent action alert (5/14/19) calling on the Post to acknowledge the role of CIA deception in fueling distrust of vaccination in Pakistan. Asked about the alert by FAIR associate Norman Solomon, Baron replied (links added by FAIR):

First, I have nothing to do with editorials. I oversee our news and features coverage. So, I had no involvement in the editorial cited by FAIR, which was mistaken in suggesting otherwise.

Second, with respect to the Post’s May 10 news story mentioned:  It notes that it was an April 22 incident that set off the recent panic, after many years in which vaccines were being administered frequently and safely, sharply reducing the incidence of polio in the country. As the New York Times noted: “In the vaccination drive that ended Saturday, Pakistan managed to vaccinate more than 37 million children, nearing its target of 39 million.”

That’s quite an achievement. As to whether a fake 2011 vaccination drive in Abbottabad related to the hunt for bin Laden bears meaningful responsibility for today’s scares and violence against medical personnel, you might wish to directly ask the reporter, Pam Constable, who has reported from the region since 1998 and who has maintained the highest journalistic standards over her long and distinguished career.

As Baron notes, the alert dealt with an omission manifested in both Washington Post news reporting and editorializing. There’s no one who oversees both aspects of the paper—other than publisher Fred Ryan or owner Jeff Bezos, neither of whom we want to encourage to interfere in the Post‘s content—which is why we selected Baron as a contact.

Constable (and co-author Haq Nawaz Khan) indicate—in a way that would be missed by the vast majority of readers—that they do believe that the CIA’s use of a fake vaccination campaign as a cover for a hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2011 has at least some connection to Pakistanis’ distrust of vaccines. Blaming lack of vaccination on “mistrust, born of ignorance and rumor-mongering,” the reporters write that Pakistani parents’ “fear is fanned by cultural taboos, religious propaganda and tales of foreign plots.”

Only if they clicked on the link would Washington Post readers learn that the “tales of foreign plots” said to encourage mistrust of vaccination are based in reality.

Those readers who choose to click on the link provided will find a Washington Post story, “Why the Taliban Hates Polio Vaccines” (10/17/12), that acknowledged that those “tales of foreign plots” concern an actual foreign plot, the CIA vaccination operation: Reporter Olga Khazan noted that a Pakistani Taliban commander had halted a vaccination drive, saying it “could be used by Western forces as a cover for espionage”—citing “a Pakistani doctor who administered polio vaccines but had also been working with the CIA for years and helped the United States root out Osama bin Laden.”

So Constable and Khan do see a connection between the CIA plot and Pakistani mistrust. Why they chose to convey that connection in a reference to “tales of foreign plots,” as though they were based in mere paranoia, is a question Baron might ask his reporters. (The piece also notes that “more than 70 vaccinators or their guards have been killed by Islamist militants in the region since 2011″—without giving any explanation of the significance of that year.)

The harm done to the anti-polio campaign is exactly what was forecast when the CIA operation was revealed. As the Guardian (7/14/11) reported at the time:

The impact of the fake vaccination drive may be keenly felt in Pakistan, where the public already sees an American conspiracy everywhere. Polio campaigns could be at particular risk, as Pakistan has the biggest polio problem in the world.

With the predicted damage to trust now resulting in a resurgence of the devastating disease, it would help prevent similarly destructive operations in the future if the Post would acknowledge their impact—in both its news and editorial pages.