Ethics and Hypocrisy: Turmoil at the Washington Post

For the time being, at least, it appears that the inmates at The Washington Post have gained the upper hand, forcing management to terminate plans to put British journalist Robert Winnett in charge of the asylum. Much to the inmates’ chagrin, one supposes, this entire episode in American journalism has been far less a dramatic battle for the future of one of the nation’s greatest institutions than a modestly entertaining reenactment of the Iran-Iraq War, in which many outside observers are hoping to see both sides lose.

Perhaps the most entertaining—if also somewhat dispiriting—aspect of the Washington Post slap fight has been the insistence by the paper’s old guard that Winnett simply could not be their new editor because he lacks the requisite “ethical” standards to do so. He is, as the Post’s long-timers fear, too morally compromised to be the leader they so richly deserve. For example, NPR reported that David Maraniss, a “highly regarded Post writer and associate editor,” penned a Facebook post in which he “expressed disgust” at Winnett’s lack of character. Maraniss went so far as to say that “the scandal that has erupted this spring around [Post publisher Will] Lewis and Winnett is worse than the revelation that a Pulitzer Prize-winning account was fabricated by Janet Cooke, a junior Post reporter fed by the hunger of her editors to land a story.”

That’s quite a charge from Maraniss, who, as NPR noted, is among The Washington Post’s most respected and beloved longtime employees. It’s also, one might conclude, an invitation to examine other examples of journalistic ethics as they are practiced at the Post by its old guard, perhaps starting with David Maraniss. […]

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