Remember: WaPo Couldn't Wait To Crucify Kavanaugh But They Spiked the Fairfax #MeToo Story
Establishment media outlets like The Washington Post really, really want you to trust them — but the way the liberal-owned newspaper handled two similar sexual harassment stories is showing exactly why Americans are so leery.
If you watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday, you probably saw the sanctimonious commercial that The Post ran at the cost of a cool $10 million. “Knowing empowers us,” the ad declared, promoting the billionaire-owned newspaper. “Knowing helps us decide. Knowing keeps us free.”
But it looks like the paper is much less interested in the public “knowing” when there’s a Democrat facing harassment allegations instead of a Republican. It was recently revealed that The Washington Post refused to run a story about sexual assault accusations against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, citing a lack of evidence.
The problem, as journalist Becket Adams just pointed out in a scathing Op-Ed piece, is that the very same newspaper tripped over itself to publish a similar story about Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who of course was forced to defend himself on national television for unsubstantiated claims before being confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Oh, we should probably point out that Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is a liberal Democrat. Kavanaugh is a Republican. That shouldn’t matter, but apparently it does.
“Almost as notable as Fairfax’s denial (of alleged 2004 sexual assault) is the fact that the Washington Post was first approached by the alleged victim more than a year ago and decided not to publish her story,” Adams wrote for the Washington Examiner.
“The Post explained Monday that it declined to report the woman’s allegations due to an absence of corroborating evidence,” the journalist continued.
That by itself seems fine. After all, a man’s reputation and future shouldn’t be ruined over flimsy allegations without careful investigation. But The Washington Post and much of the mainstream media used a very different playbook when it came to tarnishing Judge Kavanaugh.
“What’s the paper’s excuse for running multiple stories repeating totally uncorroborated allegations of sexual abuse aimed at Kavanaugh?” Adams wondered.
“When the Post got (accuser Christine Blasey) Ford on the record amid the fight over Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, the paper didn’t seem to be so concerned by the fact that she couldn’t provide a single piece of evidence to verify her claim that the judge tried to rape her when they were both in high school — or even that they’d ever met,” he continued.
Sure enough, a comparison between how the same newspaper covered Kavanaugh versus how they’re covering Fairfax now makes their bias fairly obvious.
As accomplished attorney Ted Frank — who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court — pointed out, there actually seemed to be more reasons to believe Fairfax’s accuser than the vague allegations made against Kavanaugh.
* Fairfax accuser identifies time and place with specificity
* Fairfax accuser shares Fairfax’s politics
* Fairfax accuser immediately identified herself
* Fairfax allegations not sandbagged
* Fairfax ISSUED A STATEMENTI don’t think that’s enough to report. But it’s more. /7
— (((tedfrank))) (@tedfrank) February 4, 2019
“(T)here are fewer red flags in the Fairfax accuser’s story then there were in Ford’s,” Adams summarized. “Unlike Ford, Fairfax’s accuser identifies the exact year and location of the alleged assault. Unlike Ford, Fairfax’s accuser belongs to the same political tribe, and therefore speaks against interest in at least one sense.”
Yet The Post buried the Fairfax story and pushed the unproven Kavanaugh scoop as national news.
“But it’s hard to see the Post’s decision to spike her story as anything but politically biased considering how the paper gorged itself on nearly every flimsy and fantastic allegation hurled in Kavanaugh’s direction, no matter how ridiculous, again with no evidence to back any of it up,” Adams concluded.
This is exactly why Americans no longer trust high-and-mighty outlets like The Washington Post, CNN, and all the rest to accurately report the news without bias.
From Kavanaugh to Covington, respect for the media has been replaced by disdain — and $10 million dollar Super Bowl ads can never replace honest journalism.
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