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Edited on Mon Mar-20-06 06:15 PM by abernste
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As a longtime reader and subscriber of the Washington Post, I regret that I must inform you of my decision to cancel my subscription, effective immediately.
When I first moved to the Washington area in the winter of 1994, I became an avid reader of your paper which I viewed as one of the leading and most reputable newspapers in the country. Steadily, however, the quality of the Post has declined, largely due to the brow-beating by those on the political right who have long contended that it displays a so-called “liberal bias.” The result is now a paper that is known for sloppy-journalism, heavy-handed editorial policies, and outright bias. Specifically, I note the following examples – by no means an exhaustive list – of the paper’s shameful record during the past five years:
(1) In the build-up to the second Iraq war, the Post eschewed any semblance of investigative journalism and, instead, adopted a policy of parroting the party-line of the Bush Administration. By not questioning a group of individuals who, even at the time, were known to have ulterior motives and a less than stellar record for honesty, your paper deceived millions of people into supporting a three-year debacle that has destabilized the Middle East, put millions of Americans in danger, and has led to the loss of more than 2,300 American lives.
(2) Continuing to employ Bob Woodward, whose acknowledged role in exposing Valerie Plame’s covert status is nearly as despicable as his efforts to cover it up.
(3) Endorsing Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Alito’s record on the bench is replete with opinions that are biased against the rights of individuals and in favor of governments and corporations, hostile to women and minorities, and openly cruel to the most needy members of our society.
(4) Deborah Howell’s spurious attacks on those who dared to challenge her objectively untrue description of the Jack Abramoff scandal. Rather than admit to being wrong and/or misinformed, Ms. Howell decided that the best way to prevail in the debate would be to throw out charges against her political opponents with no evidence to back them up, and to foreclose any further debate by cowardly shutting down the paper’s electronic feedback section.
While it pales in comparison with the above-examples, the Post’s March 15, 2006 article of Senator Russ Feingold’s proposal to censure President Bush for admitting that he violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), was the final straw. This shameful article contained false information regarding public opinion on the President’s violations of the law, it furthered the GOP talking point that the President’s actions had a debatable legal basis, and it attempted to paint all Americans who object to this policy as nothing more than the “liberal base” of the Democratic Party. While I proudly characterize myself as a “liberal,” it is simply irresponsible of your paper to lump all Americans who disagree with the Administration into one particular category, namely one that was manufactured by the political right to serve as nothing more than a simple and intellectually palatable way to smear their opponents.
The Post should be ashamed of what it has done to its legacy, to American print journalism, and to our nation. I am canceling my subscription immediately and would like a full refund of any unused money in my account.
Sincerely,
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