The first criticism I read was “The 14 things you need to know about Trump’s letter in the Wall Street Journal” by Philip Bump in The Washington Post. From the headline, you might think you’re going to get a point-by-point fact check, but that’s not what this is. Bump’s list begins with the assertion that “The Wall Street Journal should not have published it without assessing the claims and demonstrating where they were wrong, misleading or unimportant.”
That’s not a fact “you need to know,” just an opinion about journalistic professionalism. Is there a general rule in journalism — a rule Bump’s newspaper follows — that you don’t publish accusations before you’ve independently checked them? If so, I see that rule broken every day. Maybe there’s the idea that Trump’s challenge to the 2020 election is a special case, because we need to be committed to the legitimacy of the current government and because there’s too much discord and a decent newspaper shouldn’t be roiling people up on this subject.
“We need to be committed to the legitimacy of the current government” is always a journalistic “principle” so long as the current government is controlled by Democrat. And “too much discord” is bad unless it’s promoted by leftists shouting “no justice, no peace.”
Plus: “Now that Trump’s letter is published, it’s time to do the point-by-point fact checking.”
But the Washington Post didn’t do that, did it? Why not?
Here’s Trump’s letter to the WSJ, non-paywalled. Read it for yourself.