Second Time Farce - Wither WaPo?
Anyone here remember, or ever heard of, the Washington Star?
I hadn't, when I hit the name in All The President's Men, where they were being given "access" by the Nixon WH, publically favoured over the disgraced enemy Post after Bernstein and Woodward continued to dig into the the case.
That's because, within ten years of that public favor, they had become history. Part of that was a failure of business: they had already been losing readers to the Post for ten years by the time of Watergate, because they wouldn't change and adapt, apparently (and had spent millions on a new building, always a dangerous thing) but I wonder how much of it was due to them waiting for a year to jump on the Watergate bandwagon; or rather, I suspect, it was all of the same thing: a conservative newspaper (they were one of the first papers to carry William F. Buckley's column back in the day) slow to move, slower still to challenge the Status Quo, the moneyed establishment, until it became safer to do that than remain silent.
But Nixon alone, the figurehead, left with a few of his most tarnished henchmen, and the Establishment remained.
Now that we have the increasing revelations - and even admissions - by the Post that it's more interested in kissing administration ass than speaking truth to power (despite having made its reputation with Watergate, and coasted like Woodward himself on it ever since) it's particularly notable in that they don't have the excuse of lack of precedent - at one time, they were the ones being denied access, being vilified as liars by the White House spokesman and other administration figures, and persecuted with subpoenas and more or less veiled threats, while their rival the Star faded despite being preferred.
And now the Wheel has turned, and he who was at the apex begins to spin down.
I hadn't, when I hit the name in All The President's Men, where they were being given "access" by the Nixon WH, publically favoured over the disgraced enemy Post after Bernstein and Woodward continued to dig into the the case.
That's because, within ten years of that public favor, they had become history. Part of that was a failure of business: they had already been losing readers to the Post for ten years by the time of Watergate, because they wouldn't change and adapt, apparently (and had spent millions on a new building, always a dangerous thing) but I wonder how much of it was due to them waiting for a year to jump on the Watergate bandwagon; or rather, I suspect, it was all of the same thing: a conservative newspaper (they were one of the first papers to carry William F. Buckley's column back in the day) slow to move, slower still to challenge the Status Quo, the moneyed establishment, until it became safer to do that than remain silent.
But Nixon alone, the figurehead, left with a few of his most tarnished henchmen, and the Establishment remained.
Now that we have the increasing revelations - and even admissions - by the Post that it's more interested in kissing administration ass than speaking truth to power (despite having made its reputation with Watergate, and coasted like Woodward himself on it ever since) it's particularly notable in that they don't have the excuse of lack of precedent - at one time, they were the ones being denied access, being vilified as liars by the White House spokesman and other administration figures, and persecuted with subpoenas and more or less veiled threats, while their rival the Star faded despite being preferred.
And now the Wheel has turned, and he who was at the apex begins to spin down.