It is quite normal for newspapers to run columns in their editorial pages written by people who don’t share the same editorial perspective of the publication’s editors. It’s why they call them “op-ed pages”—for “opposite the editorial page.”
But normally, there is at least the assumption, among professional journalists and readers alike, that the opinion pieces are held to some basic standard of factual accuracy. One would not expect to see an article on the opinion page of a mainstream newspaper, for example, declaring that vaccines are a conspiracy to depopulate Africa, or that women or Black people are genetically less intelligent than men or whites.
But when it comes to political columns, sometimes there seem to be different standards applied to right-wing and left-wing writers.
Washington Post‘s Marc Thiessen (8/18/20): “The narrative that Trump is manipulating the post office to steal the election is the new Russiagate — a conspiracy theory designed to delegitimize Trump’s victory if he wins.”
Take an opinion piece published last week in the Washington Post (8/18/20) by Marc A. Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for George W. Bush and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who writes a syndicated column twice weekly for the Post.
Headlined “Democrats’ Postal Conspiracy Is the Biggest Made-Up Controversy Since Russiagate,” Thiessen’s column declares that Democrats, by accusing President Trump of a “campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters,” are engaging in “the biggest made-up controversy since Democrats accused Trump of conspiring with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election.”
Putting aside the fact that, days later, the Republican-run Senate Intelligence Committee basically endorsed the Russia allegation, let’s parse his assertion that post office manipulation is a “made-up controversy.”
It is Trump, as the Post itself ably reported as early as August 12, who said that he wouldn’t approve any stimulus plan that included increased funding for the US Postal Service, after which he pointed out gloatingly that without those funds, the USPS would not be able to deliver mail-in ballots. The stimulus bill, Trump said, would enable “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
But it gets worse. Thiessen went on to say that Democrats are falsely claiming that the new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has given $2 million to Trump and the GOP since 2016, was appointed by Trump. In truth, Thiessen says, “He was appointed not by Trump but by the unanimous vote of the bipartisan Postal Service board of governors.”
That might sound fair enough to a casual reader. But a quick check of the USPS website, which a Washington Post factchecker could have easily made in minutes, shows that the six sitting members of that board of governors were all picked by Trump. They did indeed all vote unanimously, as Thiessen reported in his column, to confirm Trump’s nominee for the postmaster general position, but they could hardly be called a bipartisan body.
The source for the “conspiracy theory” that Trump was blocking funding to the post office to prevent mail-in voting was…Donald Trump (Washington Post, 8/12/20).
Actually, Trump curiously allowed the USPS to have no members on its board of governors for much of his first year as president, and by this point, with only five more months left in a four-year term, he has only filled six of the nine available seats. That’s significant, since under the USPS’s rules of operation, it takes the vote of seven governors to remove a postmaster general.
These are all significant facts that give the lie to Thiessen’s assertions in his column.
As Thiessen’s column was being edited (to the extent that it was edited), three of the Post’s reporters—Tony Romm, Lisa Rein and Jacob Bogage—were working on a piece to run the following day, August 19, under the headline “Democrats, Election Watchdogs See ‘Glaring Hole’ in Postal Service Pledge to Roll Back Recent Changes” (8/19/20).
In that straight news article, the reporters report that cutbacks ordered by Postmaster General DeJoy eliminating overtime, removing blue mail drop boxes and removing sorting machines from mail sorting centers “have carried immediate, vast consequences, slowing down mail processing and delivery nationwide.” They add:
The delays have raised the specter of major headaches entering the 2020 election, as millions of Americans opt for mail-in ballots over their local polling places at a time when the deadly coronavirus is sweeping the country.
Thiessen’s column also ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer (8/20/20), under the headline “Democrats’ Postal Conspiracy Another Made-Up Controversy,” As an occasional opinion writer for the Inquirer myself, I note that my work there has always led to calls from a factchecker or editor at the paper. It would appear that no such effort is made with Thiessen, either at the Inquirer or at the Post, where he actually works.
Is that because the Inquirer just trusts the syndicator of the column to do the factchecking? Or is there simply a pass given to regular columnists, as opposed to outside contributors? It’s hard to say, because the Inquirer editors of the opinion and editorial page have not responded to multiple calls, messages and emails sent to the addresses listed on the paper’s website asking for an explanation.
The Washington Post also ignored calls and emails from FAIR seeking answers about its factual standards for columnists.
The issue of columns and truthfulness has become an issue of late, with the New York Times recently letting go editorial page editor James Bennet for not checking out an incendiary column he ran from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) (FAIR.org, 7/11/20).
Perhaps papers like the Post and Inquirer, which run columns that are fact-challenged, should include a box warning readers that the articles they are reading may not be reliable, much like the warnings on cigarette packages.
ACTION ALERT: Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at letters@washpost.com, or via Twitter @PostOpinions. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
I suspect that like gwbush, Trump has a horde of people surrounding him whose great desire is to render the Federal government incapable of governing and who are quite a bit more clever and informed about the inner workings of the Federal machine than the incurious, information-challenged figurehead Trump and that he merely repeats the talking points they feed him while they quietly dismantle the machine in the “background”.
I seriously doubt that leaving the Board of Governors of the USPS short of a quorum and crippling its infrastructure were The Donald’s ideas. He’s just not that smart.
We have to get rid of him and his entire crew and block most of the execrable replacements that Biden’s handlers are preparing to take their place.
Quite the challenge you’ve put us
1 But you’re. If Biden manages to win the election, there will be such a focus on undoing all the horrors that Trump has wrought over four years — all the executive order, legal and illegal, all the rules made, all the vile precedents set, etc.–not to mention the things not so easily set right like the appointment of pro-fascist judges — that nobody’s going to pay attention to the new horrors that Biden and his neoliberal and even neo-con handlers will be orchestrating at the same time.
Yes, Trump had many executive orders to write to undo Obama’s pen and a phone policy. So? Biden will be busy hamstringing corporations with regulations, he’ll be appointing activist judges who don’t like the constitution (RBG). Biased opinion cuts both ways. Not much of “challenging media bias” piece seeing that this type article can be found in nearly every newspaper.
Yes, Trump had many executive orders to write to undo Obama’s pen and a phone policy. So? Biden will be busy hamstringing corporations with regulations, he’ll be appointing activist judges who don’t like the constitution (RBG). Biased opinion cuts both ways. Not much of “challenging media bias” piece seeing that this type article can be found in nearly every newspaper.
Yes, Trump had many executive orders to write to undo Obama’s pen and a phone policy. So? Biden will be busy hamstringing corporations with regulations, he’ll be appointing activist judges who don’t like the constitution (RBG). Biased opinion cuts both ways. Not much of “challenging media bias” piece seeing that this type article can be found in nearly every newspaper.
So is this troll John of Tim? He can’t seem to make up his mind. Hardly worth responding, but Biden’s record is not one of “hamstringing” corporations. It’s one of making it easier for them to screw the public, as with his leading of the effort to undo bankruptcy protections on the public so it’s now impossible to get out of debt to the banks. It’s one of blocking socialized medicine. It’s one of locking up minorities and the poor and giving a whole generation of black males felony records so they can’t vote and can’t get jobs once out of jail. Point to one newspaper that has published anything remotely like this article.
Note; You only need to give that article (if you somehow do manage to find one!) once, and by one pseudonym. No need for three postings or multiple fake names.
According to this article, “A quick check of the USPS website, which a Washington Post factchecker could have easily made in minutes, shows that the six sitting members of that board of governors were all picked by Trump.” Perhaps they were (I don’t know), but my [not quick] check of the USPS website reveals no such information. The author goes on to say, “They . . . could hardly be called a bipartisan body.” A bit more checking reveals this to be unwarranted, as no more than five of the members can be of the same political party. (There are currently seven members, including the Postmaster General, who is a board member. The author’s count of “six” is also wrong.) You can accuse me of nitpicking, but since this piece is supposed itself to be a fact check of the Post’s op-ed, even minor facts take on a particular importance. These misstatements are even more disturbing in view of FAIR’s detailed postscript urging readers to complain to the Post. I’m a long-term reader and supporter of FAIR, but this article and postscript can only provide grist to right-wing skepticism of its views and is a disservice to its aims.
Well, you certainly are a nit picker, not a very careful one. Look up each of the six board members, and you’ll see that all six say they in their biographies on the USPS website that they were selected by President Trump. I did not say all six were Republicans. I said all six were all picked by Trump, and they voted unanimously for his selection of DeJoy as Postmaster General. I am not certain, but I suspect that the Postmaster General, while a board member, doesn’t get a vote when it comes to a decision on whether to sack himself. But in any event there are three unfilled vacancies. The article I read said the lone Democrat on the board quit in protest at the nomination of DeJoy.
You are indeed a nit picker, but not a careful one. I didn’t write that the six board members were Republicans. I said that the six members were all picked by Trump. You need to be more careful in your nitpicking. It would be easy for Trump to pick a nominal Democrat who would support his wrecking of the Postal Service. As for DeJoy, I doubt if, as an ex-officio member of the board, he’d get to vote on a motion for his own sacking.
Author Lindorff’s inclination to defend his purported fact check is understandable but it fails. His statement that “the six sitting members of that board of governors were all picked by Trump” is wrong in at least two respects: (a) as mentioned, there currently are not six sitting members but seven, and (b) as mentioned, the USPS site does not indicate that all members were “picked by Trump”–unless one excludes chair and member Louis DeJoy [which Lindorff did not do]. Lindorff’s speculation on who might vote for what is not relevant to my criticism. And his badmouthing me for that criticism is not worthy of him.
Did you actually go to the web site and read the six members’ vios (not counting ex-officio member DeJoy, who is also a Trump appointee in any event)? If you did, which it appears you didn’t, you’d find it stated clearly that each member (they’re all white guys) was appointed by President Trump. Stop making stuff up or twisting the reality. You look ridiculous. Just to make it easy for you to be caught, here’s the site URL: https://about.usps.com/who/leadership/board-governors/
Honestly, I don’t know why your post isn’t pulled. It’s just trollwork.
What would convince people that Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia to win an election? Maybe if we had some sort of investigation that is well funded and staffed, that can look at anything and interview anyone, and that really took it’s time to make sure that no stone was left unturned.
Oh wait, we had that, it was a Mueller investigation. What was the result? The didn’t find A SINGLE AMERICAN that has colluded with Russia to effect the election. It’s not that they didn’t find that Trump colluded, or anyone close to him, or anyone lower in his campaign, but they did’t find a single AMERICAN out of 330 million, to have colluded with Russia. I honestly assumed that Russians influencing our elections is nature of business like we influence theirs, but seriously they haven’t recruited a single american? GRU you are a disappointment!
Lindorf: Flogs Russiagate.
FAIR.ORG:
https://fair.org/home/tips-for-a-post-mueller-media-from-nine-russiagate-skeptics/
1. Encourage debate and dissent, not conspiracy theories and clicks.
—Aaron Maté, journalist, The Nation
I’ll never forget that Rachel Maddow did a segment where she called some alleged Russian trolls, interfering on Bernie Sanders’ fan club page, “international warfare against our country.” Jonathan Chait came out with a story about whether Trump was a Russian military intelligence agent, and then Chris Hayes put him on his program that night, and they discussed it as if this was a serious prospect.
January 2017, basically right as Trump was taking office, was the last time someone who was skeptical of Russiagate from the left was allowed on MSNBC, because in December of 2016, Ari Melber interviewed Glenn Greenwald. But that was the last time for Glenn. And January 2017 was the last time Matt Taibbi was on MSNBC. **That means that basically, throughout this entire affair, throughout Trump’s presidency, MSNBC has not allowed on a single dissenting voice. That’s extraordinary. And what does that say about a political media culture, that it’s somehow a fringe position to question the conspiracy between the president and Russia?**
So the only possible victory here for politics and journalism is if there’s accountability: On the journalism front, if we learn how to follow the facts, not a narrative that benefits ratings and gets us clicks; and in politics, if we actually learn to start becoming a real resistance, mounting opposition to Trump based on opposing his policies, not based on believing in this fairy tale.
>Lindorff: flogs “Russiagate”
FAIR.org:
JULY 27, 2018
The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy
New McCarthyism allows corporate media to tighten grip, Democrats to ignore their own failings
ALAN MACLEOD
https://fair.org/home/the-utility-of-the-russiagate-conspiracy/