The Telltale 11th Paragraph
Dave Weigel’s JournoList-related departure from the Washington Post ends up being a lateral move, but you wouldn’t know it unless you made it to the 11th paragraph of this article for Yahoo’s “Upshot” column by Michael Calderone, who also frequently contributes to the Politico, which like the Post, is another JournoList-tainted publication:
The Washington Post hired Weigel from the Washington Independent in March to write a blog about the conservative moment, a beat he’d excelled at in recent years. But Weigel’s tenure was cut short after FishbowlDC and The Daily Caller published emails he wrote on Journolist, an off-the-record, left-leaning listserv. [That's some "lean" -- Ed]
On Journolist, Weigel had harshly criticized a few conservative political and media figures, raising questions about whether he could be perceived as a fair arbiter in covering the movement for the paper. Weigel offered his resignation, and the Post accepted the following day. And that led, predictably enough, to an avalanche of meta-media debate about whether reporters can share personal opinions and still be perceived as reporting fairly.
[Slate editor David Plotz] said that Weigel “paid a price” for his comments on Journolist. “But I don’t think it in any way reflects on his editorial independence, his skill as a reporter, his writng, his energy, and his curiosity,” he continued. [It doesn't? -- Ed]
Weigel may have lost the Post job over his off-the-record comments, but he wasn’t completely out of work for long. Within days, he signed on as an MSNBC contributor and filled in for Andrew Sullivan on his popular blog, The Daily Dish.
Slate contacted Weigel shortly after he left the Post to discuss what he could do for the online magazine (which, oddly enough, owned by the Washington Post Co.) Plotz said that the Post Co. has been informed of the hire, but pointed out that Slate is “editorially independent from the newspaper.” [Though, as with Newsweek, it embraces an identical liberal POV to the mothership -- Ed]
Since leaving the Post, Weigel wrote a freelance article an the tea party movement for Slate. Now he’s signed a one-year contract with the publication, which Plotz said he hopes will last longer.
It’s fortunate for Weigel that he still has some friends at the Washington Post-owned publication; Dan Riehl spots others on the left attacking him for not completely toeing the party line.
Update: At Newsbusters, Lachlan Markay posits, “The news that Weigel has been hired by a Post-owned publication suggests that his resignation was just a move to shield him — and possibly the Post — while the controversy blew over. Though the biosphere is still buzzing about the JournoList scandal, pundits have been largely silent on Weigel’s role in that scandal since shortly after his resignation.”
Update: Daniel Foster at the Corner: “One wonders if he has to fill out new W-4s.”
There’s a certain ring to the epithets “Journolist-tainted publication”, or “Journolist- tainted contributor”. Both should be continually associated with all those involved, with the possible exception of “the heroes”, of whose existence I’m still skeptical.
To paraphrase The Who…
Meet the new employer…same as the old employer.
Who reads Slate?
“Weigel had harshly criticized a few conservative political and media figures”
Criticized? He made it clear that he despised them. That’s a bit different.
Can you imagine any other field where employees conspired to undermine the public standing of their employers and yet met with so little retribution from the employers on discovery of the conspiracy?
It’s like they don’t even care anymore, not even about appearances.
After reading the light and fluffy piece Weigel wrote for the losers at Slate (losers is the sense that they got stuck with Weigel), I note that he has not lost his penchant for partisan left pseudo-reporting as is evident here:
“Muth didn’t pick that number at random: 428 votes was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s margin when he narrowly defeated Republican John Ensign in 1998. (Ensign went on to win the state’s other Senate seat and, allegedly, get his parents to pay off his mistress’s family.)”
Now what the **** does the parenthetic comment have to do with his story about the tea party??
Yet for some reason there it is, I mean the “allegedly” paid off mistress of a Republican candidate defeated 12 years ago must be pertinent to the story line somehow.
Journalism majors, any help? I’m just a layman so maybe I am missing something complicated and/or nuanced. Where’s the journolist when you need it?!