Washington Post Sends Passionately Pro-Palestinian Intern to Cover Small Palestinian Protest at Israel's US Embassy

"Hundreds of peaceful protesters," the Washington Post story began.

The picture that runs with the story gives no hint at all of "hundreds" of protesters -- I suppose it might just be the camera angle they chose (choosing to focus on a Code Pink prop), but I'm thinking the correct word here is "dozens."

The story went on to quote one Noura Erakat:

"The U.S. is the primary patron of Israel and provides unequivocal diplomatic and military support," said Noura Erakat, a Palestinian lawyer and professor at George Mason University. "It's a complicit third party in what amounts to a massacre of the Palestinian population entrapped within the Gaza strip."

Check the link to see what this Washington Post intern forgot to tell you about Noura Erakat.

Well, it turns out the intern (who cowrote the story with another person) is a stridently anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activist.

Gateway Pundit now reports that the Washington Post has issued an apology, of sorts:

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Post covered a protest outside the State Department on July 20 against U.S. policy in the Middle East and Israel’s actions in Gaza. One reporter sent to cover the protest, Britain Eakin, is an intern who has written opinion pieces elsewhere that sharply criticize Israel in the conflict. The Post should not have sent her to cover the protest and, had it known of her writings, would not have done so.

Emphasis added.

I have several questions here. First, if this is standard newspaper practice, shouldn't this Eakin have known that?

Second, it certainly does not seem to be standard newspaper practice to keep partisans on an issue from reporting on it. Sandra Kliff, for example, was a huge partisan for abortion rights, and yet the Post kept her on that beat.

So it seems like Eakin is being punished for being caught red-handed in breaking a "rule" that the overwhelmingly-Democrat-partisan media doesn't actually enforce.

Rather than taking satisfaction that a single, minor intern is being pulled off the beat, isn't the more useful course to press the media to implement this rule more broadly?

Of course, if reporters were to exclude themselves from reporting on any issue they had a strong political interest in -- that's that for the media, huh?

posted by Ace at 01:30 PM

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