Ben Domenech, who blogs at RedState.org, very briefly had a career at The Washington Post. Like the week, it just ended. Domenech was hired to write for the online edition of The Washington Post, to write a column. Issues of plagiarism in his past work (including student work) were raised, Domenech denied that he had plagiarized himself (others, according to Domenech, inserted lines written by published writers into his writings before they were ran in student publications -- we're unclear on the issue of alleged plagiarism at The New York Press). As The Washington Post launched an investigation into his past writing, Doemenech resigned.
There are a number of issues raised by this. One raised by a professor is what was the aim of The Washington Post's investigation? If they were suspicious of the origins and authorship of Domenech's writing, they should have reviewed the issue of plagiarism with him and then fired him as soon as they came across something. The professor's view was that if the investigation was to determine Domenech's employment status for The Post, this "was a bit like Burger King preparing to fire a new hire because of rumors that he had spit on burgers while working at McDonalds." Jim Brady, the executive editor of the paper, has confirmed that this was indeed the purpose of the investigation. Farhad Manjoo, reporting for Salon, writes:
Brady said that Domenech had "not necessarily admitted to the fact that he did or didn't do it," and that the Post site -- which is managed separately from the print version of the Washington Post -- had not come to any conclusions on whether Domenech was guilty of plagiarism. "But certainly there was enough smoke there and not any good explanations to convince me otherwise," Brady said. He added that if Domenech had not offered to resign, the paper would have fired him. (Domenech did not respond to Salon e-mail inquiries for comment.)
The paper would have fired him? Where "there was enough smoke" there was fire? That's an interesting attitude for an executive editor to have while admitting that the paper's own investigation had yet to determine whether or not someone was guilty of plagiarism.
Our focus isn't too pile on Domenech. He was hired by The Washington Post which should have known his work before they hired him. He was hired for a reason and the fact that they now question the hiring, says more about their own lack of judgement than anything else.
Their response to Domenech resignation is disturbing. Manjoo writing for Salon:
Brady said the site picked Domenech for two reasons: He's conservative and he's provocative.
[. . .]
And the site still wants someone on the right. "A conservative columnist, a conservative blogger, whatever it ends up being. Certainly we're looking, but I don't know the time frame," Brady said.
Asked if the site is looking for a liberal, he said, "Potentially, potentially."
Potentially, potentially. We'll add "Eventually."
Was a time I remember
Hope flashed and went dim
When assassins just happened
To do the right people in
And love was the slogan
Coincidentally
And they told us they'd work it out
Eventually
-- "Eventually" words and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, available on Carole King's CD Writer
See the thing is, The Washington Post doesn't have a liberal. A party columnist that leans left, yes. A liberal?
They did have one. No, it's not the one who died shortly after disgracing herself by cheerleading an illegal war. They had Colman McCarthy. They dropped him. They said he wasn't syndicated enough. Other columnists haven't done any better (actually, some haven't done as well) but he got dropped. They dropped McCarthy in 1997.
He did write a column, a guest column, for them on April 19, 2003:
That the news divisions of NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox sanctioned this domination by military types was a further assault on what the public deserves: independent, balanced and impartial journalism. The tube turned into a parade ground for military men -- all well-groomed white males -- saluting the ethic that war is rational, that bombing and shooting are the way to win peace, and that their uniformed pals in Iraq were there to free people, not slaughter them. Perspective vanished, as if caught in a sandstorm of hype and war-whooping. If the U.S. military embedded journalists to report the war from Iraq, journalists back in network studios embedded militarists to explain it. Either way, it was one-version news.
That ran one month after the invasion began. You've heard that criticism a lot these days. (Not in the corporate media, but elsewhere.) So The Washington Post could actually point to one person who offered a real critique, one not part of the "we were all wrong" crowd. And yet, though they claim the next hire will have a stronger journalistic background, they're not even contemplating hiring McCarthy.
Why is that?
That's our focus of this entry. The Washington Post feels there are not enough conservative voices getting play, apparently. The paper needs a conservative, Jim Brady feels. That's the voice missing from the media landscape.
Affirmative action is attacked by the right. But they won't say a word about Brady's "preference quotas." They'll continue to benefit from the system the way they always have, the way they continue to do. Jayson Blair's plagiarism is turned into a discussion of how much race played into his hiring and whether he was given breaks because of his skin color. Did Brady give Domenech breaks for his skin color? Or just for his ideology?
If Brady's attempting to argue that conservatives are in the minority in this country, we'll quickly agree with him. We will, however, add that we think they are a highly over-represented minority (in office and in the media).
Regardless of what Domenech did or did not write in the past (at other publications), the paper's job was to know the work before offering him a job. They gave him a job because he was conservative. They are intent upon hiring another conservative. That's a quota system. And, unlike true Affirmative Action programs, it doesn't exist to even the playing field. Conservatives are over represented, centrists are represented. Where are the liberals?
They do exist. Norman Solomon, Barbara Ehrenreich, Howard Zinn, Katha Pollitt and others are prime examples. So why is it that they are not represented in the corporate media?
Brady told Salon, "We didn't have anybody on the site who is on a consistent basis discussing issues of conservatives, someone who's loyal to the cause of conservatism and not the administration." And they have no one, in print or on the site, who is on a consistent basis discussing issues of liberals, someone who's loyal to the cause of liberalism and not a political party. They have centrists, they have some left-leaning centrists, and they have a variety of right-wingers among their columnists. They just don't have an honest to God leftie.
Like Clifford Odets, we're left Waiting For Lefty. And the best Brady can do is offer that someday, "Potentially, potentially," we may get one. Brady's statements are far more disturbing than anything that Domenech is alleged to have done.