Internal censorship at the Washington Post

In the blog entry, "Censorship at WaPo," retired teacher Guy Brandenburg compares the sanitized version of a blog entry written by Bill Turque, the Post's DC K-12 education writer, to his original entry, which had pointed criticism of the Post editorial board's overtly sweetheart relationship with Chancellor Rhee.

It's just as bad an exercise of judgment as the recent hullabaloo over the attempt to create sponsorship opportunities for salon meetings with key editors and writers ("The Media Equation - A Publisher Stumbles Publicly at The Post" from the New York Times).

I haven't read the Columbia Journalism Review for awhile, but an analysis of the media's mostly hagiopic coverage of Rhee, particularly the national media, would be a great cover story.

As for this incident, it will definitely make the Darts and Laurels column features about egregious errors (and great jobs) in journalism, if someone submits it. (When I worked at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, I got an item in the D&L column, over a magazine that was soliciting advertising to support an issue that was going to include an article criticizing the organization's position on focused programs marketing alcohol to minority groups. CSPI was against this type of marketing. The magazine preferred the advertising revenues.)

In the late 1980s, one of the first things Michael Moore did that had national exposure was write a piece for CJR on the Flint (Michigan) Journal and its ultra-cozy relationship with General Motors and the Mott Foundation, and on projects they espoused (a number of which failed miserably) for the city.

CJR influences the media and has a national position of authority that far exceeds its paid circulation.