Seemingly dead-set on hastening its obsolescence, Washington Post has fired “White House Watch” columnist Dan Froomkin, one of their only unflinching truth-tellers who never stopped telling those truths, even through every dark year of the former oppressive regime when McCarthyesque tactics prevailed, and 99% of the men and women who held jobs like Froomkin’s failed the nation by pulling their punches and folding to the cynicism of fear and intimidation.
Says Froomkin in response: “I’m terribly disappointed. I was told that it had been determined that my White House Watch blog wasn’t “working” anymore. But from what I could tell, it was still working very well. I also thought White House Watch was a great fit with The Washington Post brand, and what its readers reasonably expect from the Post online.”
Ironically, folks like Howard Kurtz and Dana Milbank remain employed by WaPo in the meantime. So do unapologetic wingnut liars and tools such as Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, George Will and a bevy of others. And in more irony, despite the paper’s purge of just about anyone who might have been described as “liberal” or “progressive” (and yes, Froomkin held Obama feet to the same fire he held Bush’s), the still-employed wingnuts will continue to label the hard-right charging WaPo as “the liberal media,” even as the editors and publishers of the paper run out of money, wonder what happened to them, and blame “the Internet” for their own failures in falling for the bait.
“As I’ve written elsewhere,” Froomkin said in his statement, “I think that the future success of our business depends on journalists enthusiastically pursuing accountability and calling it like they see it. That’s what I tried to do every day. Now I guess I’ll have to try to do it someplace else.”
Glen Greenwald notes in his Froomkin “obituary”…
Andrew Sullivan describes Froomkin as “WaPo’s Best Blogger” and decries:
Jane Hamsher helps kickstart that revolt by noting the origins of the fear-based firing, following years of Froomkin getting it right, and even holding WaPo accountable when they didn’t (as they didn’t, so much of the time):
And an organization that has long felt it could change reality simply by refusing to acknowledge its existence runs true to form once again.
UPDATE: Greenwald adds, in a follow-up today, noting (with citations) how far to the right today’s edition alone of WaPo is, even as the pathetically delusional Krauthammer decried on Wednesday that Fox “News” is the “only voice of opposition in the media. … And it makes us a lot like Caracas where all the media, except one, are state run”:
UPDATE 6/26/09: Froomkin pens his final column for WaPo, and we share a few more thoughts…
A purge for the WahPoo translates to more freedom for Dan Foomkin to syndicate his efforts…. at least one hopes so.
Now is the time for the progressive blogosphere to unite around and support truth tellers.
I expect Sibel Edmonds at http://www.123realchange.blogspot.com/ to pick up on this thread as well since she is focusing on praising the honest reporters and pillorying those who have sold their souls.
On Thursday, the Washington Post confirmed it had fired liberal online columnist Dan Froomkin. On Friday, they gave a guest column to Bush war architect Paul Wolfowitz.
Duh!
Thanks for the link, mick.
This is exactly the reason so many papers are going bancrupt and most of us don’t care if they do- please, let me hand you another nail to pound into your own coffin lid.
Isn’t this exactly what happened in the run up to the Iraq War? Disgraced neo-con war pig Paul Wolfowitz gets a pro-Iran War column to replace Dan Froomkin? Iraq War Redux? From the (not) “liberal media”, you know, the corporate media run by those 5 “liberal” corporations? WaPo thinks America needs to hear from recycled war criminal Paul Wolfowitz, not Dan Froomkin. What’s going on here? You KNOW what’s going on here, just say it!
Remember when MSNBC fired their #1 show Phil Donahue around the time of the Iraq War?
msnbc also fired dan abrams for calling rove out about defying congressional subpeonas,and his involvement in falsely prosecuting siegalman
Dead, deader, and how DID YOU DIE?
Dear ACLU Supporter,
The CIA’s rendition and torture program is not a “state secret.” It’s a national disgrace.
On Friday, the Justice Department asked the 9th District Court of Appeals to rehear its argument to throw out our extraordinary rendition lawsuit on the basis that it cannot be tried without revealing “state secrets.”
We must not protect torturers and their enablers from accountability for their actions. And we must not let the government hide behind the overly-broad use of state secrets.
Ask your representative to co-sponsor the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009 and limit the claim of “state secrets” to specific evidence.
The ACLU’s extraordinary rendition lawsuit was filed by five men who were forcibly kidnapped and secretly transferred to U.S.-run prisons where they were tortured. The case targets Jeppesen DataPlan, a subsidiary of Boeing that provided crucial support services to the CIA for illegal torture flights.
The Bush administration initially had the case thrown out by improperly asserting the “state secrets” privilege. The ACLU appealed and in May, won the right to move forward with the case.
Now the government is trying to throw the case out again. On Friday, the Justice Department asked the appeals court to rehear the decision and uphold its bogus “state secrets” claim.
Contact your member of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor the State Secrets Protection Act.
The government has asserted the “state secrets” claim with increasing regularity in an attempt to throw out lawsuits and justify withholding information from the public.
Let’s be clear — no one is interested in taking away the government’s legitimate right to protect sensitive national security information. But, the Bush administration expanded the definition of “state secrets” dangerously beyond its previous limits and set a dangerous precedent that has continued.
In addition to extraordinary rendition, the claim of “state secrets” has also been made about illegal wiretapping, torture and other breaches of U.S. and international law.
Supporting this bill will have an impact on countless civil liberties cases in the months and years ahead.
Please take a moment to contact your member of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor the State Secrets Protection Act.
Thank you for standing with us.
Sincerely,
Caroline Fredrickson, Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office
© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004
As Americans that have lived through bloody deception in our own children’s deaths (many wars included), PLEASE lend your VOICE.
Happy F ing Fathers Day. 🙁
Winning hearts and minds…
I was wondering what happened to Dan Abrams.
Flashback: why was this media study ordered destroyed by the government? What did it show?
Media ownership study ordered destroyed
FCC draft suggested fewer owners would hurt local TV coverage
updated 3:08 p.m. ET, Thurs., Sept . 14, 2006
WASHINGTON – The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.
The report, written in 2004, came to light during the Senate confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. received a copy of the report “indirectly from someone within the FCC who believed the information should be made public,” according to Boxer spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14836500/
Maybe it showed that our media is hoodwinking us and what exactly is wrong and corrupt about it.
Watergate was the exception rather than the rule, and although it put Wapo on the national map, it was a fluke. It was a liberal reporter and an honest conservative reporter (remember back in Nixon’s day there were still a few honest conservatives). They broke the story that eventually brought down a president.
Although I was too young at the time to follow remote newspaper coverages, unfortunately the vast majority of coverage I have seen in the past 10 years out of Wapo has been VERY conservative based. They rarely break out of the conservative mold, they cheered bush into Iraq (both bushes and both wars), they never hesitated to slam Kerry (which is fine) while allowing bush free passes at every turn (which is not fine).
They haven’t given me a reason to pay any more attention to them than any paper in the past 10 years. One magnificent story produced by accident 35 years ago doesn’t make it any more interesting of a paper to read than the new york post, imo.