The Washington Post sat on the Alito upside-down flag story for over three years. Only in May 2024, when The New York Times broke the story, did the Post acknowledge this. Why? Well, “objectivity” of course.
Deja vu all over again.
As Semafor reports:
The decision was a matter of “consensus,” said Cameron Barr, the former senior managing editor, who said he takes responsibility for the decision not to run the story. … “In retrospect, I should have pushed harder for that story,” Barr said in a phone interview with Semafor Sunday.
Robert Barnes, the Post‘s Supreme Court correspondent at the time, was at the Alitos’ home on the day of Biden’s inauguration. Customarily, Supreme Court justices attend inaugurations; Samuel Alito did not. Barnes ran into the Alitos outside their home, and in between Mrs. Alito’s shouts to get off their property, Barnes asked about the flag display. “It’s an international symbol of distress!” she replied.
As Chris Lehmann aptly quips in The Nation, she said this while “somehow failing to explain how and why military personnel patrolling nearby would be expected to come to her rescue.” But Samuel Alito “denied the flag was hung upside down as a political protest, saying it stemmed from a neighborhood dispute and indicating that his wife had raised it,” the Post (much) later reported.
So, apparently, “objectivity” means taking the word of a government official, even when implausible, and killing a story that would put him in an uncomfortable position. You can’t make this stuff up. Unless you sit on the oh-so-un-political body that has the final say (as decided by the Supreme Court itself) on American law. Then you can make **** up all day long.
No ghost, no machine, only human 