Monday, September 28, 2009

Why Should We Question Their Impartiality?

Top Washington Post editor closes Twitter account.

A few weeks ago Washington Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti rued in this tweet via his Twitter account: “We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not. But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad.” Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander cited the tweet in a Friday night blog post about how the newspaper has issued new guidelines, on the use of social network sites, which state “nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment...”

On his defunct Twitter page, as captured by Google, Narisetti declared, as if he'd buy this contention from any politician (say, Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell and his 1989 college thesis over which the Post has obsessed): “My tweets have nothing to do with my day job.”

The Washington Post relentlessly dogged George Allen over his use of the word "macaca," and are similarly trying to smear Bob McDonnell for a paper he wrote 20 years ago. When left on their own, these same people bash conservatives and espouse liberal ideology. Why should the public assume their reporting is separate from their personal beliefs?