On Saturday, the Obama administration quietly scrapped the "created or saved" rubric for measuring the president's success in job creation.
Covering the story, the Washington Post today also quietly noted the news, placing the story --entitled "Stimulus created 600,000 jobs at the end of 2009, White House says" -- on page A15.
The Post's Ed O'Keefe wrote the 18-paragraph story (emphasis mine):
In what could easily be labeled the understatement of the week and probably of the entire month of November, the Washington Post today headlined a page A22 story today "GAO warns stimulus jobs data could contain inaccuracies."The print story is accompanied by a screenshot of Recovery.gov, which the caption beneath it notes "is the government's stimulus-tracking Web site." Of course, the biggest inaccuracies recently observed on Recovery.gov are non-existent congressional districts purported to have been "saved or created" jobs thanks to stimulus pork sent their way. Yet Post staffer Ed O'Keefe was careful to keep that juiciest tidbit out of his entire 10-paragraph November 19 story.As Michelle Groat of Examiner.com noted Wednesday:
<p>Just six months into his presidency, President Barack Obama's administration is the target of a federal lawsuit, and that by a civil servant who alleges he was dismissed from his post in violation of the requirements of a law that Barack Obama himself once sponsored in the Senate.</p><p>Yet despite all this, the July 21 Washington Post print edition failed to carry the story, directing readers with this 39-word teaser atop page A15 (The Fed Page) to a Post blog:</p><blockquote><p>Former Inspector General Files Suit: Gerald Walpin, an inspector general who was fired last month by the Obama administration, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, arguing that his removal was unlawful. Read more at washingtonpost.com/federaleye. </p></blockquote><p>Here's an excerpt from Washington Post staffer Ed O'Keefe's July 20 Federal Eye blog post, "<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/07/fired_ig_gerald_wal... target="_blank">Fired IG Gerald Walpin Files Suit</a>":</p><blockquote>