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How Low can the Washington Post go? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-23
Obsequious reporters at the Washington Post continue with Bezos directed bended knee journalism. Frances Vinall is the latest entrant into the Washington Post Hall of Shame for her story “Man charged in Florida shooting thought victims were Palestinians, police say.” www.washingtonpost.com/...
Apologists for the corporate/oligarch media customarily make the shallowly “cynical” comment that the corporate media doesn’t have an agenda, they are only interested in the clicks and profits. History reinforce the conclusion that kowtowing to Trump and Musk are much bigger priorities for the WaPost than clicks or short term revenue. A lower tax rate and big government contracts worth far more money to Bezos than 100,000 more clicks or the 250,000 readers the Post lost by cynically refusing to endorse a candidate for President. The Post rejected $115,000 accepted by their ad department paid for by Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center because it criticized Bezos’ fellow oligarch — co-President Musk. newrepublic.com/...
In the Florida terrorist shooting of two Jewish Israelis story, Vinall did not tell readers that the shooter was Jewish or that one of the terror victims reportedly posted on Facebook that they were victims of “an antisemitic” attack which post ended with “Death to Arabs.” www.theguardian.com/... www.facebook.com/… www.972mag.com/... That Facebook Post was erased, presumably after the poster learned that the terrorist was Jewish. To date I have not seen articles questioning these reports. Evil psychopaths and mentally ill terrorists occur in all races, religious persuasions, and ethnicities, but when has the Washington Post failed to tell us that a terrorist was Muslim or that someone committing a crime was an undocumented immigrant? How often has the Post headlined a Trump lie about immigrants or Muslims?
Vinall’s Background
What college did Vinall go to where she didn’t learn that the probabilities are that “Mordechai Brafman” (the admitted Florida shooter) is not likely to be a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, a Latino immigrant, or an Arab? I suspect that most other Australians who attended Monash University like Vinall, managed to learn information like this.
Vinall’s Linked in page www.linkedin.com/… shows that she comes to the Post from from Australian media outlets owned or controlled by Australian billionaires Michael Waislitz and Rupert Murdoch.
“Worked as a journalist at News Corp’s wire service NCA Newswire with stories published across news.com.au and newspapers including the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph, and the Australian, mostly covering the Melbourne courts with some shifts covering national breaking news and other general reporting as needed.” “The Examiner newspaper jul. 2018 - jun. 2020 ·Launceston, Tasmania, Australia”
the Daily Telegraph en.wikipedia.org/… Wikipedia reports that it is a tabloid and was voted the least trusted newspaper in Australia, sold to a Murdoch Company in 1972
News Corp Australia en.wikipedia.org/… Murdoch umbrella company
News Corp en.wikipedia.org/… Murdoch company
Australian Community Media en.wikipedia.org/… reports billionaire Waislitz became 50% owner in 2019
Why did the Post omit facts reported elsewhere which would make it a story likelier to get more clicks?
The irony of a Jewish bigot, with or without mental problems, who wanted to kill Palestinians on sight, shooting 2 Israeli Jews because “he thought that they were Arabs” is a “Man bites dog story” or on a higher level “Karma is a bitch” story. God has a wicked sense of humor to have a Jewish racist shoot a Jewish Israeli who reportedly posted “Death to Arabs” and complained of antisemitism. Sick, but a far sexier story than random racist shoots people based on their looking Palestinian. The obvious moral of this story is that terrorist haters stereotyping people based on their appearance is destructive and beyond stupid. But maybe Vinall never read Aesop’s fables either, so she never learned about morals or that hatred can boomerang.
In Israel, shooting someone who “looks Palestinian” is a defense, i.e. 3 shirtless escaped Israeli Jewish hostages in Gaza carrying a White Flag, holding their hands over their heads, and saying “Help” in Hebrew were killed by the IDF because “they looked Palestinian.” www.haaretz.com/... The Florida shooter’s lawyer is smart enough to know that even in Florida, shooting someone because they “looked Palestinian” may not sell, so the lawyer wisely indicates that Brafman had mental health problems.
Whether Brafman had a mental illness and/or a mental health crisis remains to be seen although obviously something is wrong about someone who justifies trying to kill someone because “ they looked...(fill in the blank with whomever you hate). The often ignored truth is that mentally ill people learn racist attitudes tolerated or encouraged by their friends, family, and culture. People with mental illnesses can be racist. Trump’s inciting violence by the January 6 insurrectionists, demonizing Muslims, immigrants, and pardoning those who attacked police officers tells the not so bright and disturbed that violence is acceptable against the right victims. Brafman internalized the message that killing Palestinians is OK. Whatever the status or opinions of Brafman’s or any other terrorists’ victims, there are no acceptable shooting victims.
Not Vinall’s First Rodeo writing to please her bosses
What we don’t know for certain is whether Vinall is lazy or incompetent, an opportunistic sycophant from Murdoch World who self-censored, or a writer who tried to tell the truth, but was censored by Murdoch World Post Publisher Lewis or Trump enabling owner Bezos. If she were censored it is not likely that we will ever learn that from Vinall because she would likely be blackballed by future employers in the corporate media. Having ethics wins praise, but doesn’t help to pay the rent. Asia Scholar Chalmers Johnson observed that Geisha girls don’t need to be told what to do, and reporters don’t need to be told what opinions their publishers want. Vinall’s career trajectory suggests that she is not incompetent and that she knows what billionaires and their publishers want.
Her history with the Post indicates that Vinall is trusted on important stories to confine her reporting to what is acceptable to her bosses. She was trusted as one of two named authors to report on the Supreme Court decision giving Trump immunity for criminal acts. www.washingtonpost.com/…
This immunity story is a master class in how the Post normalizes Trump and his allies like John Roberts. A key feature in the Post’s sanewashing is that when the facts are unfavorable to Trump or Republicans, they confine the story to “he said, she said” so the ordinary reader does not understand the significance of what occurred because there are no referees or experts explaining what happened. This results in stories like “Trump says the moon is made of green cheese, his critics disagree.” It is like a casual viewer seeing Olympic gymnastics, figure skating, or diving without anyone ever explaining why the participant scored 7 or 9.5.
If Vinall had wanted to commit an act of journalism, she would have contacted a law professor to provide history and context to explain how ahistorical, intellectually dishonest, and unprecedented Roberts’ decision was. As Conservative Republican former Appellate Court Judge Michael Luttig observed — The Supreme Court talked about every possible case except the case before them. Below is an example from a student reporter at a university newspaper on how to contact experts to provide context which Post writers like Vinall could learn from:
“I mean, this opinion is an embarrassment,” says Jed Handelsman Shugerman, a law professor and Joseph Lipsett Scholar at the Boston University School of Law. “It’s a historical, constitutional embarrassment. It is incoherent. It is hard to decipher.”www.bu.edu/...
The Vinall story on immunity quoted language from Roberts decision which non-lawyers were unlikely to understand or its implications. By not providing reliable, expert commentary to provide context, WaPost readers are left with “Roberts said, Sotomayor said.” Of course, Vinall relegates Sotomayor’s comments to the last 2 paragraphs, an important tool in the arsenal of Post reporters so they can claim that their stories are “defensible.”
A key immunity ruling which Vinall did not explain was Roberts’ holding that Trump’s motives could not be inquired into if they were “core” executive powers. For example as commander in chief, Roberts effectively gives Trump absolute immunity for declaring that his political opponent was a threat to national security and ordering his assassination by Navy Seals. Since acting as Commander in Chief is a “core” executive function entitling the President-King to absolute immunity, those actions would not be subject to prosecution even if the reason he ordered the killing was that he had been bribed by Putin to give the order. By making almost every act or communication of the President presumptively official and allowing criminal prosecution only if the prosecution “does not intrude on authority and functioning” of the President,” Roberts set up a test that means that the Roberts Supreme Courts will never allow Trump to be prosecuted. The ripples of this decision are the rationale for Trump dropping criminal charges against NYC Mayor Adams for non-legal reasons— having to defend himself from a criminal charge would intrude upon Adams “functioning” to help Trump deport immigrants.
A real journalist writing the immunity story would have learned about a previous Roberts opinion contradicting what he held in Trump’s case. In McDonnell v. United States www.scotusblog.com/ Roberts reversed the conviction of the Republican Virginia Governor for pushing his government subordinates to favor a businessman who had agreed to give him a $50,000 loan the day before. The civic-minded businessman had also arranged to give McDonnell a rolex as a “gift.” The key issue in the decision was McDonnell’s arranging meetings and communicating with state officials subordinate to him to promote the business of his “friend” and whether these were “official acts.” Roberts held that these were not “official acts” but held that similar actions and communication by Trump were official acts protected by absolute or presumptive immunity. The only common thread between the McDonnell case and Trump’s is that Roberts permitted two Republican officials to escape criminal justice, one because his acts were official and the other because the same type of actions were not official.
Writers who stay with the Washington Post are tainted by Bezos and Lewis’ Censorship and the Self-Censorship Bezos rewards
It is already a badge of honor to leave the Washington Post like Jennifer Rubin, Robert Kagan, Michele Norris, and the cartoonist Anne Telnaes. Paul Krugman left the New York Times for similar reasons. contrarian.substack.com/...and Mariel Garza, the editor of the LA Times also resigned rather than pucker up for her billionaire boss who ordered journalists not to endorse Harris for President. www.npr.org/... Those Post writers who call themselves “journalists” who think that they have some integrity but stay at the Washington Post are clouding their reputation bit by bit.
Vinall is far from the only Post writer who censors facts unfavorable to Trump/Vance/Musk. The Post recently framed Trump’s blackmail of Zelensky as a personal difference instead of a stab in the back by a President who says he trusts Putin, the war criminal more than the CIA. www.washingtonpost.com/... The Post writers Robyn Dixon, Siobahn O’Grady, Mary Iluyshina, and Catherine Belton would not or could not print the story published by the Guardian and Reuters that Trump threatened Ukraine with shutting off Starlink to help Putin kill more Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.
Reuters reported that the US was also threatening to disconnect Ukraine from Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet system if Zelenskyy does not accept the Trump administration’s sweeping terms. Ukrainian officials characterised the threat as “blackmail”, saying to do so would have a catastrophic impact on the ability of frontline Ukrainian combat units to contain Russia.www.theguardian.com/...
An American President blackmailing a democratic country to benefit Putin, an international war criminal, is an important story. The fact that the Post censors important stories to appease Bezos and Trump demonstrates how low the WaPost has fallen. To let Post writers know what a free press looks like (and the oligarch controlled press is not free) see the Independent “Why The Independent will not be silent in the face of Trump’s assault on truth and democracy.” www.independent.co.uk/... Those Post writers who try to practice honesty and integrity should not kid themselves about their compromised position. Only the naive give Post writers the presumption of good faith because Post reporters who censor truths inconvenient to Bezos’ brownnosing Trump and Musk are rewarded. What does it profit a man who gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul? In Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia they profit a lot. The price for this type of intellectual dishonesty is loss of credibility: “Those who lie down with dogs get fleas,” but I suspect that the oligarchs are laughing all the way to the bank. Writers who value their reputation should get out while they have a reputation left to preserve.
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