By Tim Graham | July 21, 2013 | 7:03 AM EDT

If you were wondering whether any liberal media veteran could have made the networks sound less clueless about the reasons for Detroit filing for bankruptcy, one answer was longtime Washington Post foreign correspondent Keith Richburg. In an article on the Post website (but not in the newspaper), Richburg wrote painfully about the demise of his beloved hometown, and how racial polarization and crime and political corruption have destroyed it.

His personal story, including his relatives who remained in the urban blight, offered the most gripping testimony:

By Ken Shepherd | May 7, 2012 | 4:10 PM EDT

In the domain of what properly constitutes human rights issues, forced abortions and sterilizations have to fall in that category. So why isn't the Washington Post describing Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng as a "human rights activist"?

In two stories packaged side-by-side on page A9 of the May 8 paper, the Post's Andrew Higgins and Keith B. Richburg failed to use the term to describe Chen. Higgins tagged Chen a "blind activist," as in an activist who is blind, not an activist for the blind, but the term could confuse casual readers unfamiliar with Chen's plight. Richburg opened his story by tagging Chen as "the self-taught lawyer who has become the center of a diplomatic crisis between the United States and China."

By Kyle Drennen | March 3, 2009 | 4:06 PM EST

David Shuster and Keith Richburg, MSNBC At the top of the 12PM EST hour of MSNBC news coverage on Tuesday, anchor David Shuster spoke with Washington Post reporter Keith Richburg about the recent divide between Rush Limbaugh and RNC Chair Michael Steele: "Following the latest Republican Party civil war. A complete about-face by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, after calling Rush Limbaugh's show 'ugly' and 'incendiary.' Steele's now apologized in the face of a withering attack from the radio host." Richburg later observed: "You know, it's fascinating. It's like the circular firing squad. I mean, maybe this is what Rush had in mind when he was talking about ‘Operation Chaos.’"

Shuster later asked Richburg: "I mean, when Rush Limbaugh says that all Republicans want President Obama to fail. What's so difficult with somebody saying, 'no, no, we think that his policies may fail, but we don't want them to fail.' What's so difficult about that?" Richburg replied: "...it almost seems like the Republican Party needs a 'Sister Soljah' moment...It seems like the Republicans need somebody who's willing to stand up and say Rush doesn't represent all of the views of the Republican Party and then not rush and apologize to him...I'll bet you whoever does that could end up as the, you know, the nominee of the party or at least the major party."

By Tim Graham | December 2, 2008 | 8:48 AM EST

In reporting on who will replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate in Tuesday’s Washington Post, reporter Keith Richburg unspooled a weird sentence about someone being a conservative Democrat. "There is also pressure to replace Clinton with a woman; one name being mentioned is Rep.

By Ken Shepherd | January 29, 2008 | 2:19 PM EST

The Washington Post is paying due diligence to one of Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's accomplishments as mayor of the Big Apple: cleaning up 42nd Street from its seedy adult-oriented businesses. Ah, but the adult video stores and strip clubs just moved a few blocks over, the Washington Post's Keith B. Richburg reminds us in his January 29 article. Richburg made sure he took an inside look at the matter, interviewing an exotic dancer while she was, uh, working: