The Washington Post

Washington Post's Wonkblog: Liberal Anti-Vaxxers 'Ruining Things for Everyone'
By Joseph Rossell | January 28, 2015 | 2:54 PM EST

Only days before USA Today reported that the recent measles outbreak had reached a "critical point," The Washington Post declared that opponents of vaccination were "ruining things for everyone."

Following the recent outbreak of measles at Disneyland, Jason Millman, a reporter for The Washington Post's Wonkblog, called out "the anti-vaccination movement" in a January 22 post, describing them as "over-privileged group of rich people" who "overwhelmingly" voted for Obama. Millman repeated the observation "that you only had to go visit a Whole Foods to find anti-vaxxers."

Claims of 1,800+ Deaths from Binge Drinking Is Wrong, WaPo Fact Checker Says
By Joseph Rossell | January 21, 2015 | 4:21 PM EST

Media outlets and politicians often fall for junk science and misleading statistics. This happened recently with alcohol-related death statistics, which The Washington Post exposed as factually incorrect.

Post reporter Glenn Kessler writes the newspaper's Fact Checker column. He debunked the claim that more than 1,800 college students die from "alcohol-related causes" or "alcohol poisoning" every year, in a January 15, piece. In fact, he gave the claim three out of four "Pinocchios" which meant the claim contained a "[s]ignificant factual error and/or obvious contradictions."

4 Of 5 Top Papers Call For Federal Gas Tax Hike
By Joseph Rossell | January 12, 2015 | 11:27 AM EST

Four out of five top U.S. newspapers have called for federal gas tax hikes on the editorial page since oil and gas prices began falling significantly June 19, 2014.

In spite of polls that show most Americans oppose it, The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times newspapers have all published editorials that called for increasing the gas tax.  Gas prices fell from $3.675 on June 19, 2014, to $2.168 on January 9, 2015, according to AAA. The Wall Street Journal was the only publication not to editorialize in favor of higher gas taxes of the five national newspapers.

Washington Post: When Will GOP ‘Stop Worrying and Love Obamacare?’
By Joseph Rossell | November 19, 2014 | 10:18 AM EST

“Bad publicity” was the reason a Washington Post writer came up with to explain Americans’ dislike of Obamacare, ignoring recent negative news about enrollment and rate increases.

Catherine Rampell, an opinion writer with The Washington Post, argued that “most Americans” who got insurance through Obamacare exchanges were “happy” with it. Of course, she failed to ask why the government had to lower its estimate for how many would enroll in 2015 and news reports of rising premiums.

Hey Journalists! 15 Ways NIH And CDC Wasted Taxpayer Money
By Joseph Rossell | October 16, 2014 | 9:58 AM EDT

Amidst the Ebola crisis, the government’s premier health agencies are burning their taxpayer funded budgets on wasteful programs faster than drunken monkeys. Based on a recent $3.2 million NIH study focused exclusively on getting monkeys drunk, that’s an analogy researchers should readily understand.

That’s not the story that is getting told by journalists. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are busy leveraging the Ebola crisis to demand more taxpayer dollars from Congress with the media's help.

Wash Post Touts Pro-Abortion Study Showing Arduous 'Hurdles' for Women in VA
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 2, 2013 | 1:02 PM EDT

The Washington Post has a tendency of hyping pro-abortion advocates in its pages and the July 2nd edition of the paper was no different. In a 17-paragraph piece in the Metro section, author Ian Shapira lamented a study from the pro-abortion group NARAL which claims that numerous pregnancy crisis centers across Virginia refuse to provide services to women if they plan on aborting their child.

In the heavily pro-NARAL piece, Shapira provided an extremely slanted view of abortion in Virginia, with the shocking revelation that a grand total of “three crisis clinics- advertised on the state’s list of no-cost ultrasound providers – indicated they would refuse copies of ultrasound images, preventing women from getting approval to terminate a pregnancy at an abortion clinic.”

WashPost Hypes Texas Abortion Filibuster, Ignores Polling Showing Americans Support 20-Week Ban
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 27, 2013 | 12:14 PM EDT

Following Texas Democratic state senator Wendy Davis's successful attempt on Tuesday to block legislation that would ban abortions in the Lone Star State past 20 weeks as well as put in place other safety measures for abortion clinics, the liberal media have lionize the lawmaker, labeling her a “star.” Take, for example, today's 24-paragraph front-page puff piece by the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty and Morgan Smith, headlined "Stand-up day makes Tex. senator a star."

Tumulty and Smith began their article by defining the debate in pro-abortion terms, claiming that Davis “stopped passage of one of the nation’s toughest set of abortion restrictions.” After noting that her filibuster ultimately fell short and the Texas legislature will likely pass the bill in a second special session to convene July 1, Tumulty and Smith continued to promote Davis’ cause, noting how “as she spoke, Twitter registered 400,000 tweets with the hashtag #standwithwendy.”

WashPost Devotes 26-Paragraph Front Page Puff Piece to Hillary Clinton Joining Twitter
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 11, 2013 | 10:40 AM EDT

Another day, another Hillary Clinton for president story by the Washington Post. On Monday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially joined Twitter. Today, the Post devoted a 26-paragraph puff piece to this development and on the front page no less.

Staff writer Philip Rucker all but begged Hillary to run for president in his story headlined “One-tweet wonder draws followers, and anticipation.” Contrast that with how Post editors allotted a mere 12 paragraphs to an Anne Gearan piece on explosive allegations about drugs and prostitution use by diplomatic security staffers who protected Mrs. Clinton. That story, blandly headlined "State Dept.'s handling of cases reviewed," was placed on page A2.

'PoliticsNation' Panel Mocks Republican Outreach to Minorities
By Andrew Lautz | May 24, 2013 | 5:45 PM EDT

On his May 23 program, the Rev. Al Sharpton’s PoliticsNation panel turned to the thorny issue of race in politics. As could be expected, it was not a balanced discussion as Sharpton’s panel was an Amen pew of liberal pundits: the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank and left-wing XM Radio host Joe Madison.

For his part, Milbank snarked that the GOP is made up of “a coalition of white southern men,” but even more outrageously, Madison railed that Republican leaders “really don’t know people who look different than they are.” Sharpton, a Baptist minister, did not rebuke his guests for bearing false witness.