dave weigel

David Weigel Affair Reveals Just How Isolated Media Left Is from Conservatives
By Lachlan Markay | June 28, 2010 | 2:28 PM EDT
One emerging narrative from the tale of Dave Weigel's resignation is the extent to which the journalistic left is insulated from opposing views. The two institutions involved, JournoList and the Washington Post, are exemplars of liberal epistemic closure.

Ezra Klein's now-defunct email list provided a forum for journalists to collaborate, as long as they were, in his words, "nonpartisan to liberal, center to left." No conservatives allowed. The Washington Post, meanwhile, hired Weigel, perhaps two notches left of center, to cover the right, while relying on Klein, a full eight notches left, to cover the liberal movement.

The scarcity of conservative views both on JournoList and in the Post demonstrate the insularity of political conversation among legacy media players. They apply intense scrutiny to conservatives, and fail in the most basic measures of introspection.
Washington Post, Fox News Cite MRC Vice President Dan Gainor in Weigel Resignation
By NB Staff | June 25, 2010 | 8:20 PM EDT

The inside-the-beltway media world was turned on its head with leaked e-mails that revealed Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel had some disparaging things to say about prominent conservative figures, including Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge and Byron York.

This ultimately resulted in Weigel's resignation. However, some of Weigel's antics have been previously raised by his critics, including Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor, who offered remarks to Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander.

Alexander included them in a June 25 post on his blog:

Breaking: WaPo's David Weigel Resigns After More Conservative-bashing Emails Disclosed
By Lachlan Markay | June 25, 2010 | 12:31 PM EDT

UPDATE | Lachlan Markay - 6/25, 3:00 PM: A roundup of reactions from all over the blogosphere and twitterverse below the fold.

Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel resigned today after a host of offensive e-mails surfaced revealing his disdain for much of the right - the beat he was charged with covering. Fishbowl DC, which published a number of those emails yesterday, confirmed the resignation with the Post just after noon.

Yesterday I reported on leaked emails from Weigel to a listserve of liberal journalists bashing conservatives and conservatism - you know, the people Weigel is supposed to be covering. As bad as those email were, a plethora of messages from Weigel published in the Daily Caller take the conservative-bashing to a whole new level.

The new emails also demonstrated that yesterday's quasi-apology from Weigel was really not as sincere as he claimed. He said that he made some of his most offensive remarks at the end of a bad day. But these new emails show that there was really nothing unique about them, and that offensive remarks about conservatives really were nothing new or uncommon.

WaPo's David Weigel Again Exposed Trashing the Right He's Supposed to Cover
By Lachlan Markay | June 24, 2010 | 4:52 PM EDT

UPDATE - 6/25, 2:20 PM | Lachlan Markay : Weigel resigned Friday after the Daily Caller published a number of additional emails that put these to shame. Details here.

Many conservatives, including a number of NewsBusters contributors, have been skeptical of Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel since he was hired in March to cover the right. Time and again, those concerns have been vindicated as Weigel has ridiculed a number of conservatives and conservative positions.

It seems that the Washington Post has little interest in an objective blog-based approach to the news -- something this humble blogger has noted previously. Likewise, Weigel seems to have little interest in covering the right with an even hand; he has consistently shown his disdain for the movement and its members.

The website Fishbowl DC today published a number of excerpts of emails from Weigel to an email list created by fellow Post blogger Ezra Klein ridiculing various conservatives. He says he hopes Matt Drudge will "set himself on fire" and dubbed Tea Party protesters "Paultard[s]," a crude reference to Ron Paul.

The Media's Untold Story of Astroturf: Corporate Sponsored Environmentalism
By Jeff Poor | May 12, 2010 | 1:32 PM EDT

It's the American way, right? It is patriotic to exercise the 1st Amendment by petitioning the government for a redress of grievances - unless of course your effort has a tie to some corporation or lobbying interest. Then regardless of its size, it's phony baloney Astroturf activism.

While groups like the George Soros-funded MoveOn.org have managed to elude the "Astroturf" moniker, from its inception, the Tea Party movement has taken shots from its critics. One of the most popular left-wing charges was to call it "Astroturf," meaning it was presented as a grassroots efforts, but wasn't really grassroots. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi labeled the Tea Party movement "Astroturf" back during the original Tax Day Tea Party protest on April 15, 2009.

"This initiative is funded by the high end - we call it Astroturf," Pelosi said. "It's not really a grassroots movement. It's Astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class."

That attitude has been widely echoed in media coverage of the Tea Party, as if it were a corporate effort to subvert the U.S. government's ability to collect revenue and redistribute wealth through public works and social program. Meanwhile, environmental causes, like Earth Day or global warming with their own corporate sponsorship - are rarely labeled Astroturf.

WaPo Drifts Further Leftward in Pursuit of Blog Strategy
By Lachlan Markay | May 5, 2010 | 12:47 PM EDT
The Washington Post is making the transition from a powerhouse liberal newspaper to a network of powerhouse liberal blogs. While the paper's Old Guard is worried that the move will tarnish the Post's supposed reputation for political neutrality, it should be seen more as a embrace of the agenda the Post has evinced for years.

"Traditionalists," wrote Politico today, "worry that the Post is sacrificing a hard-won brand and hallowed news values." One such "traditionalist," Rem Rieder of the American Journalism Review, said a more openly-liberal approach to reporting, mostly done online in the form of various blogs, would be "a danger to the brand."

To the extent that the Post still pretends to be objective -- and to the extent that its readers believe that claim -- then yes, an opinion blog-centric approach is tarnishing the brand. But for those who acknowledge the Post' consistently liberal approach to the news, the only change is the way that that news is delivered.
AOL Blogger Tackles WaPo Blogger Weigel's Liberal Advocacy, Cites NewsBusters Criticism
By Ken Shepherd | May 4, 2010 | 11:44 AM EDT

Blogger Matt Lewis took Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel to task in a post at AOL's Politics Daily site today.

Lewis noted our early skepticism here at NewsBusters as well as reaction from NewsBusters contributor and Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor:

This is how the Post covers the conservative movement: Find someone who doesn't even understand the traditional values that made our nation great and then assign him to report on the right. Throw in the fact that Weigel loves to bash conservatives and he's the ideal Postie. At the same time, the paper hired a hard-core lefty in Ezra Klein to advocate for the left. It's a ridiculous double standard. The Post should be both embarrassed and ashamed.

For his part, Lewis, a conservative writer, lamented that Weigel, whom he considers generally "accurate and fair," has taken to his Twitter feed to bash average Americans as "bigots" for working to protect traditional marriage in state law:

Post’s New Conservative Blogger: 'I Hear' There’s Video of Drudge ‘Diddling an 8-Year-Old Boy’
By Dan Gainor | May 2, 2010 | 9:32 AM EDT

UPDATE: Weigel has officialy responded and claimed it "was a joke about Matt Drudge linking, for more than 24 hours, to a National Enquirer story about President Obama having an affair. "For more details, read after the jump.

***

Even if it's a joke, it's shocking to have an employee of The Washington Post claiming a prominent conservative had sex with an 8-year-old boy. But that's what new Washington Post "Right Now" blogger Tweeted during Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner about The Drudge Report's founder Matt Drudge.

Fairly late in the evening, Weigel wrote this on his Twitter account: "I hear there's video out there of Matt Drudge diddling an 8-year-old boy. Shocking."

The post that followed it was a message to another blogger about what the National Enquirer claimed was an Obama sex scandal, so it appeared to be in that context. At least five people on Twitter repeated Weigel's comment about Drudge. There appeared to be no follow-up comment, explanation or apology.

Weigel, who started his "Right Now" blog at the Post a little more than a month ago, is known for sarcastic and sometimes funny comments on Twitter. Earlier in the evening, he had commented about having too much to drink. "Very cool. I either need to stop drunktweeting or do MUCH MORE drunktweeting." And the rest of his comments during the evening were in a similar sarcastic or goofy vein including photos of MSNBC host Rachel Maddow as a bartended at the dinner and a picture of himself in a tux where he commented, "I am ready to either party or wait your table. Or both!"

Washington Post Hires Washington Independent's Weigel to Cover Conservatives
By Stephen Gutowski | March 23, 2010 | 11:39 AM EDT

With the midterm election season heating up, particularly in the wake of the passage of ObamaCare, the Washington Post is expanding its blogging outfit. Less than a year after I wrote about the Post hiring flaming liberal Ezra "not everything the Nazis touched was bad" Klein, the paper has hired another blogger who has been critical of the Right, and his beat will be, you guessed it, covering conservatives.

Reported Politico's Michael Calderone yesterday: