The reign of the Washington Post’s Boy King has come to an end. Let the peasants of his Maryland fiefdoms raid the castle and plunder the royal pantry!
Multiple spies report that local editorial intern Steven Stein, forever to be remembered as the Post’s blithering Boy King, is leaving with the return of editorial writer Lee Hockstader. It was Hockstader’s sabbatical last year that opened the local editorial seat for intern Stein, who abused that authority with the colicky caprice of a Dark Ages adolescent monarch.
And oh, what memories we shall cherish from the Boy King’s reign! Let’s see... there was his branding collective bargaining a “ruse,” his designation of the Fire Fighters Union as “the worst offender” for offering to give up a mere $7 million in compensation and his libelous allegation that unions had “funneled contributions” to Nancy Navarro’s campaign. And that’s just the worst of his many anti-union ravings.
Want more? How about his advocacy that the state government should pass down teacher pensions to the counties despite his admission that it would be “crippling to local governments?” Or how about his virtual rewriting of a county press release on public schools Maintenance of Effort? Does any of that beat his multiple endorsements of Ben Kramer in the County Council District 4 special election?
What more should we expect from a neophyte who grew up in Los Angeles, went to school at Emory College in Atlanta, landed his first job out of college as a Post intern and was soon handed the local editorial pen by the Post despite the fact that he had never before lived in the D.C. area? Indeed, the Boy King was so ignorant of Montgomery County politics that he called multiple people after the release of Nancy Navarro’s negative mailers asking how they felt about the first negative campaign tactic in the county’s history. (News flash – our politicians have been doing that for a long time.) But what truly attracted the ire of our elected leaders was his gleeful delight on the Post’s website about “infuriating a high-ranking politician or the residents of a major city” and in “writing things that anger people.”
Soon after this blog outed Stein, MCGEO distributed an open letter at the Democrats’ spring ball criticizing him for his anti-union screeds. That caused the Boy King to dispatch an old college friend to defend him on this blog under a false name. When we traced the minion back to Stein, his credibility was destroyed. Any other journalistic outlet would have fired him, but Stein was lucky enough to work for an employer that is remarkably tolerant of ethical failures.
The Washington Post Company is one of this blog’s most frequent readers. Their bosses knew full well of the monumental embarrassment caused by their decision to let an intern with no local experience write local editorials. Hockstader’s return created a ready opportunity for them to quietly kiss good-bye to the Boy King.
Too bad for them that we found out!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Fall of the Boy King
Thursday, May 14, 2009
WSSC Wild Child Takes on the Boy King
OK, it’s not King Kong vs. Godzilla. Or Darth Vader vs. Doctor Doom. Or even Moe vs. Larry vs. Curly. But in a throwdown that just had to happen, two of MPW’s favorite targets are going at it: Washington Suburban Sanitary Commissioner Juanita “Wild Child” Miller and Washington Post editorial intern Steven “Boy King” Stein. Let’s get ready to RUUUMMBLE!!
The Boy King fired the first shot with a tartly-worded Sunday editorial blasting WSSC. The Post’s Katherine Shaver has been doing some excellent reporting on the woes of the Maryland suburbs’ most dysfunctional agency and Stein followed by criticizing its “corrosive politics.” Stein’s critique of WSSC echoes ours – so closely, in fact, that we wonder if he used our blog post for his research. After all, everyone knows how attentive the Boy King is to MPW.
Well, leave it to the Wild Child to come blasting back! We know that Juanita Miller is a talented email writer and she did not disappoint. Here’s what she sent out to all of WSSC on Monday night. Can you imagine what she would have written if she knew Stein was an intern?
From: Miller, Juanita [mailto:jMiller@wsscwater.com]
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 6:17 PM
To: Hawes, Jennifer; #Commissioners; #Change Leadership Team; #Commission Employees
Subject: RE: Clips: 5/11/09
It is quite apparent that the Washington Post's editor is on a "witch" hunt in its continued attempts to denigrate Prince George's County and its Commissioners. The article "Water Fight" (05/10/2009, editorial) contains little substance with lots of fabricated and manipulated the verbiage contrary to the two "balanced " articles on WSSC written last week by reporter Katherine Shaver.
The truth is in the facts and detail which the editor has clearly and apparently purposefully omitted! The editor demeans the "process" (labeled "dubious" in the editorial) which six commissioners developed, approved and initiated. The editor omitted that Rudy Chow was the highest ranking candidate from a national search. Equally as important, he is a 30-year Montgomery County resident and has worked at WSSC for more than 25 years. Mr. Chow was selected by the former GM to run the largest department in the agency-- Customer Care, and he has demonstrated leadership and management skills based on his performance for the GM to make that selection. Mr. Chow has earned the right to be WSSC’s GM. He is hardly a pawn of Prince George’s County since his lifelong ties have been and are to Montgomery County. The characterization of Mr. Chow made by the Post editor undermines Mr. Chow and the integrity of the process.
Montgomery County commissioners have blatantly "refused" to adhere to an established process (approved and sanctioned by them) only after Mr. Chow was identified as the winner of that process--that is the FACT!! They have clearly shown on two other occasions preference for "less qualified" persons to lead the agency, i.e., they supported an employee who had only two months working at the agency, with no engineering experience, rather than the more senior, experienced and qualified employee to serve as the interim GM. They supported a candidate (recommended by the two County Executives) with a checkered past over its own "home grown" employee. Their conduct has made a mockery of "succession" planning and been an insult to the committed employees who seek to grow with this agency.
Yet it is apparent that the Washington Post editors have little concern for truth when expediency and continued desire to denigrate and demean all that is Prince George’s County, simply because they can do so in anonymity. The editors who wrote this editorial have little to no knowledge of WSSC's MBE program and process and have continued to rehash the same misinformation as if or because it is the singular most important crutch the Post has to lean on when it seeks to cast aspersions on the minority commissioners and the MBE program. The editor dug deep once again to a 1997 reference in an attempt to "impugn" this Commissioner’s leadership in carrying out fiduciary responsibilities. The FACT is the staff member who was the project manager at that time for the sludge contracts and was responsible for investigating firms prior to award of the sludge contract, had not done due diligence and was reprimanded for that shortsightedness at the public hearing. It should also be noted that the State Ethics Board cleared and exonerated Commissioner Miller from the unfounded allegations made 12 years ago. This case is a matter of State record and can be easily checked by Post researchers; yet the Post editors have continuously and purposely mischaracterized that matter.
Another fact relative to Commissioners’ expenses is the three year cumulative amount of $10,000+ paid by the GM for this Commissioner to attend the national AWWA conferences. It is to be noted that each year the cost for attending this conference comes out of the GM's budget for each Commissioner from both counties who chooses to attend the conference. It also should be noted that Commissioner Counihan's expenses of $9000-plus for 14 months far exceeded that of Commissioner Agarwal's expenses of $5000-plus for the five years he has served. I surmise that it wasn't newsworthy since it didn't involve a Prince George's Commissioner exceeding expenses.
I am "adamant" about adhering to established policies and procedures and have documented many accounts of irregularities that the Post is apparently not interested in publishing. I am also adamant about supporting a process that identifies a person who happens to be the most qualified for GM and who happens to be Asian. The Post should be questioning Montgomery County representatives who have manipulated and engaged in underhanded tactics to circumvent a process that identified one of its own longtime residents as the winner of the GM process.
It's apparent that news must be slow at the Post for the editor to continue to misrepresent certain facts relative to Prince George's Commissioners and their position on issues.
The only "pet" in this matter is the "peeve" as well as the "unspeakable and capricious" journalism exercised by the Washington Post editor who obviously has a penchant for attempting to denigrate Prince George's County's Commissioners, especially this one. This explains why the Washington Post readership appears to be suffering, especially in Prince George’s County. It’s apparent the Post editors are determined to print disparaging articles about Prince George’s County.
As has been stated previously in the public forum and is reiterated in this missive, the Washington Post does not guide the actions or operations of this agency nor the functions of its Board.
It appears that the Post is on a mission to fabricate and manipulate information in an effort to cover up the corrupt activities occurring at this agency and provide a distraction of the facts. It's ironic that these articles began to appear shortly after an audit/investigation of certain activities at the Commission was requested by Commissioner Miller.
The Post did not find it "newsworthy" to further research/investigate Commissioner Miller's assertion to its reporter about the corruption at the agency, i.e. an employee being arrested for stealing $10,000 plus of ratepayers money and other risks that leave the agency exposed which need to be mitigated . And did I mention that Commissioners allocated funds to hire an Ethics Officer, conducted interviews and then the process got halted (and not by the Prince Georges' Commissioners)? Also the agency spent well over $100K for the original GM search only to have the Montgomery County Commissioners balk at the results and continue an exclusive search outside of Commission authority and then had the agency billed for the Montgomery County process. This means that the ratepayers paid for a duplicate yet exclusive process conducted by Montgomery County.
Let the truth be told, the Post editors’ determination to impugn the integrity and character of Commissioner Miller and Prince George’s County have blinded them to the FACTS.
Commissioner Juanita Miller
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Boy King Sends Minion to Troll MPW, Part Two (Updated)
The Washington Post’s Boy King - editorial intern Steven Stein - has been seething over our exposure of his presence at the newspaper. So when we blogged about MCGEO's handing out a flyer outing him, we were not surprised to see a counter-attack in the comment section. We originally thought it was Stein himself, but we were wrong. Today we reveal the identity of Stein’s minion and heap even more embarrassment on the Washington Post.
The key to unraveling the mystery is the email address used by “Xavier Shepherd”: serpico1127@gmail.com. Here is what a Google search on serpico1127 yields.
Clicking on the first entry produces this Twitter record identifying the address with one Andrew Carlin.
Carlin happens to be a former colleague of Stein’s at the Emory Wheel campus newspaper.
Stein himself mentions “my friend Andrew Carlin, a Chicago resident,” in the very last post on his now-defunct blog.
On Facebook, Stein calls himself “Hamlet Hamlet."
No one should be surprised that Andrew Carlin is one of his Facebook friends.
Carlin has never worked at the Washington Post, so how would he be able to make this statement in his comment?In point of fact, every editorial that goes to print is reported out and that includes talking to the unions. Moreover, four of the people on the Post's editorial board live in Montgomery County. Many of them reported on local politics; one of whom was even the Metro editor.
Of course, his source is Steven Stein himself. That also explains why “Xavier” was ignorant of the work produced by longtime editorial writers Lee Hockstader and Bob Asher, both of whom preceded Stein.
As for Stein, he is busy covering his tracks. He deleted his LinkedIn profile listing his position as “intern.”
Luckily, it is still available in Google cache and we saved the original as a screenshot.
So the Washington Post has never commented on our story but its intern sends a juvenile lackey to troll this blog under a false name. These actions disgrace the august institution of Graham, Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein. Where are Steven Stein’s supervisors?
The Post now faces three choices:
1. Justify to its Maryland readers why an intern who is less than one year out of school, has never before lived in our metro area and behaves like a bratty child is qualified to write our editorials.
2. Remove the intern and install an experienced veteran like Hockstader or Asher at the editorial desk.
3. Become even more of a laughingstock among our political class than they are now.
Update: Just like Stein, Andrew Carlin has tried to cover his tracks by deleting his Twitter page. It is truly shocking that such infantile behavior is tolerated by the management of the Washington Post. See the screenshot of the deleted page below.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Boy King Sends Minion to Troll MPW, Part One
The Washington Post may be ignoring our exposing its use of out-of-state intern Steve Stein to write its Maryland editorials, but Stein is not. The Boy King launched an undercover operation against Maryland Politics Watch that we are now exposing, starting today.
Our post on MCGEO’s handout of anti-Stein flyers at the Montgomery Democrats ball prompted this comment exchange, which we reprint below:Xavier said...
Well, we jumped the gun. The troll is not Stein, but he is Stein’s minion. We’ll reveal his identity tomorrow.
Dear Mr. Pagnucco,
At first I wondered why your blog posts have so few comments attached to them. Admittedly, the average number of reactions to your postings hovers somewhere just above zero. Now I understand-- as a moderator, you simply don't approve any comments that disagree with you.
As an individual who is not a journalist, but merely plays one on the internet, I would be happy to give you a little insight regarding the Washington Post. In a May 4 post, you said: "That means turning over the editorial duties to long-time Maryland residents who know our county and state. As for the interns... is it too much to ask that they start at the bottom of the organization and not the top?"
In point of fact, every editorial that goes to print is reported out and that includes talking to the unions. Moreover, four of the people on the Post's editorial board live in Montgomery County. Many of them reported on local politics; one of whom was even the Metro editor.
To your other point, shocking as it may seem to someone who has no newspaper experience, writing staff editorials, is in fact the bottom of the organization. These editorials include no bylines, the author does not receive credit for them, and because they're typically written by someone new to the paper, each one is edited and re-edited to make sure it accurately represents the views of the Post.
Your ignorance on these fundamental issues would be less disconcerting if it weren't so incendiary.
Added to this, for someone who readily engages his right to free speech, it's ironic that your readers are gagged from expressing theirs. Don't your readers deserve the right to voice the same dissent that yourself place such a high premium on? Your said: "If the Post wants us to take them seriously, they must take us seriously."
This is why they don't take you seriously.
All the best,
Xavier Shepherd
serpico1127@gmail.com
12:40 PM
Adam Pagnucco said...
Mr. Shepherd:
Our comment policy asks readers to submit their full names when commenting. As you have signed your name, we have run your comment even though you disagree with our blog post.
Disagreement has a long history on this blog. MPW founder David Lublin and I have a long-standing disagreement on the Purple Line. He favors bus-rapid transit and I favor rail. Supporters of both approaches can find material here to back up their points of view.
More recently, we have allowed comments from people like Robin Ficker and representatives from Help Save Maryland. Some of them have named me personally, but we are happy to let them in.
The Post does not share our philosophy of dissent and disclosure. Steven Stein's editorials are unsigned. The fact that they are authored by an intern is something that the Post would never have admitted on its own. That's why we exposed the truth. The Post also feels no duty to portray candidates' positions accurately and allow them to respond for themselves, as Cary Lamari has said.
But thanks for pointing out that the editorials come from "the bottom of the organization." If that is really true of the Post, it explains a lot. Maryland readers deserve better.
1:04 PM
Xavier said...
Thank you for clarifying your comment policy, Mr. Pagnucco. I will retract my earlier statement with my apologies, of course. I suppose there must be another reason for the conspicuous absense of comments on your site. Perhaps a lack of a traffic?
You said: "The Post does not share our philosophy of dissent and disclosure. Steven Stein's editorials are unsigned."
It's disingenous to imply that these editorials have gone unsigned because the Post is trying to hide something. Hopefully your readers are aware that staff editorials do not have bylines, even if you are not.
You said: "But thanks for pointing out that the editorials come from 'the bottom of the organization.'"
Quoting me out of context like that serves only to undermine your argument. It's irrelevant whether staff editorials are written by the editor-in-chief or the night watchman. If they are printed, then they reflect the opinion of the staff and of the paper as a whole.
I also noticed you neglected to respond to my other points entirely. I suppose I'm not surprised.
You said: "That's why we exposed the truth."
Oh, if only there were readers out there who cared to listen.
All the best,
Xavier Shepherd
3:54 PM
Adam Pagnucco said...
Mr. Shepherd, our online traffic is not a problem. We are the most-visited political blog in Maryland, have experienced a 595% increase in traffic since the fall of 2007 and our coverage (along with Just Up the Pike) dominated online reporting of the District 4 special election.
I believe all editorials should be signed. We sign every single blog post here. News articles carry bylines and yet undergo editing. Furthermore, your contention that Post editorials have always been written "at the bottom of the organization" is factually incorrect. Former Maryland editorial writers Lee Hockstader and Bob Asher were experienced professionals who were MANY levels above intern status and were not "new to the paper."
I give you credit for defending Stein by saying it does not matter if the night watchman writes the editorials instead. You get points for creativity on that one!
Finally, our readers should know that we have been unable to locate any voter registration, property ownership, telephone number or consumer bureau information for anyone named Xavier Shepherd in Maryland, Virginia or the District. The only data on individuals by that name applies to residents of Georgia, California, Michigan, Missouri and New York.
So perhaps that is not your real name, Mr. Stein.
6:31 PM
Monday, May 11, 2009
Massive Interest in Police Disability Post (Updated)
Right now, 44% of the traffic to this site is comprised of direct visits to our article, "What the Post Does Not Want You to Know About Disability."
That's fairly uncommon for this blog, on which the vast majority of visits usually come from regular readers clicking on our home page. The last time an individual post attracted this much interest was on April 8, when the District 4 Mail Scandal went national. A LOT of people are now seeing the other side of the story on the police disability program.
Updated: Now it's 49%. The word is definitely getting out.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
What the Post Does Not Want You to Know About Disability
We will give anti-government employee Post intern Steven Stein credit for one thing: he’s a persistent young man. His latest editorial attacks a County Council compromise on the disability issue as “an unacceptable outcome that would speak to the undue influence that union leaders exert over some council members.” But Stein has been sitting on a significant number of facts that, if known to Washington Post readers, would paint the issue in a far different light.
Last fall, Stein contacted the Fraternal Order of Police about the disability program, which was then the subject of a report by Montgomery County’s Inspector General Thomas Dagley. The police provided him the research below which showed that the number of officers retiring on disability has averaged 11 per year since 1985. Those officers include managers who are not in the bargaining unit.
The police updated this data and provided it again to the Post. Through 2008, disability retirements only accounted for 1.2% of the county’s actual sworn officers. The percentage in 2008 (1.0%) is the lowest since 2004. It’s difficult to portray the system as “absurd” or “outrageous” when it is so seldom used. Neither Stein nor Washington Post reporter Ann Marimow have ever revealed this data to their readers.
Another point that Stein refuses to discuss is that the Inspector General’s report primarily relates to management oversight. Dagley states in his enclosure letter:The findings relate to the need for the Office of Human Resources (OHR) to improve internal controls and management oversight to ensure SCDR [service-connected disability retirement] benefits are protected against abuse, and for the Department of Police to ensure compliance with medical examination program requirements and related standards regarding the health status and functional capabilities of police officers.
The report went on to recommend improving “internal controls and management oversight” and ensuring periodic medical examination procedures. The first issue is under the direct control of department management. The second issue has actually earned the agreement of the police union, who presented a proposal calling for mandatory medical reexaminations overseen by a Disability Review Board of 4 impartial doctors. Their proposal, which has been ignored by Stein but printed on this blog entry, appears below.
Several months ago, County Council Members Phil Andrews and Duchy Trachtenberg proposed a bill calling for a two-tier disability system, a measure that was not suggested by the Inspector General’s report. The Post promptly endorsed the bill. But in bashing the police union and the “spinelessness” of the bill’s critics, Stein ignored the Post’s own reporting identifying two Assistant Police Chiefs who benefited from the system. Those Assistant Chiefs are not members of the union bargaining unit and were directly supervised by MCPD Chief Tom Manger. Where are the anti-Manger editorials?
As the bill advanced, the County Council’s staff produced two memos on its legality and effects. The staff estimated that the savings from a move towards a two-tier system would amount to “more than $1.5 million” based on the experience of the career Fire Fighters’ move to such a system in 2002. First, that amount equals just 0.26% of the county’s $587 million budget deficit and 0.03% of the $4.3 billion operating budget. Second, the Fire Fighters’ experience should be considered in light of the fact that they negotiated a new deferred retirement option plan at the same time they went to a two-tier disability system.
Here’s another fact that Stein has never told his readers: the police union itself offered a three-tier system starting with 2009 hires to the County Executive, as we show in their proposal above. That would establish a similar system for the police as currently prevails for the career Fire Fighters. Stein also never gives credit to the union for giving back its 4.25% general wage adjustment, a move that saved the county $4.9 million. If the union is as greedy and obstructionist as Stein would have us believe, what can explain these concessions?
Stein’s views are rooted in his characterization of collective bargaining as a “ruse.” He prefers that the County Council unilaterally set working conditions for employees, which is the same position as all employers who oppose workplace democracy. If Steven Stein knew anything about Montgomery County, he would remember that county employee collective bargaining was approved by multiple charter amendments that attracted overwhelming support from voters. Most of our residents do not believe that employees should get everything they want, but they do believe employees should have a voice at work. As an intern who is one year out of college and has no acquaintance with our history and politics, Stein does not appreciate that basic fact.
Finally, let’s go back to the Inspector General’s report, which started this entire debate. It identified the disability issue as a management oversight issue requiring corrective action by management. Chief Manger is free to tighten oversight of the system and the police union – by its own written proposal – agrees with that goal. But because of the overlapping anti-government employee agendas of intern Steven Stein, the Washington Post Company and multiple members of the Montgomery County Council, the issue has mutated into an attack on labor. The County Council is on the verge of settling the matter through an amendment proposed by Council Member George Leventhal codifying some items agreed to by both management and labor and sending the rest back to bargaining. A reasonable compromise may therefore be in reach.
That would be good for the county. Too bad that it’s not good for the Boy King’s crusade against the men and women in our government service.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
MCGEO Takes On the Post (Updated)
The Municipal and County Government Employees Organization (MCGEO) has launched a vigorous counter-attack against labor’s nemesis, the Washington Post. Its weapon of choice: Maryland Politics Watch.
Back in January, a Post editorial entitled, “And the Oscar Goes to...,” slammed MCGEO President Gino Renne for opposing the disability bill sponsored by Council Members Phil Andrews and Duchy Trachtenberg. In hindsight, we now believe that that editorial was written by union-bashing Post intern Steven Stein, who has no knowledge of Montgomery County politics but brags about “writing things that anger people.” After we revealed Stein’s presence beyond the Post’s curtain, MCGEO returned fire.
Sunday’s Montgomery County Democratic Party ball saw an attendance of over 500 party loyalists including Governor Martin O’Malley, Attorney General Doug Gansler, Comptroller Peter Franchot, several members of Congress and nearly every politician in the county. Greeting the attendees were several MCGEO representatives handing out the flyer below:
Attached were our posts on the Boy King and the newspaper’s most recent anti-union campaign. The vast majority of Montgomery’s party activists, officials and politicians received a copy.
The Washington Post has been an anti-union business for decades. No one expects the Post to treat labor fairly. But when the Post employs an intern who is new to our area and has no grasp of our community to write its propaganda, the newspaper destroys its own credibility.
If the Post wants us to take them seriously, they must take us seriously. That means turning over the editorial duties to long-time Maryland residents who know our county and state. As for the interns... is it too much to ask that they start at the bottom of the organization and not the top?
Update: Washington Post reporter Ann Marimow noted the distribution of this flyer but failed to mention one of its central contentions: that the Post’s editorial writer is an intern. Why is the Post afraid to discuss that fact? Her article also does not credit Maryland Politics Watch for the flyer’s source material. Finally, her sole quote comes from Council Member Trachtenberg, one of the flyer’s targets. She never asked MCGEO for its point of view.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Politicians React to Boy King
Last week, we revealed that the Washington Post had hired an intern from Los Angeles and Emory University who knew nothing about our metro area to write local editorials. That post attracted MASSIVE attention from Maryland politicians. Here is a sample of the opinions we received from current elected office holders in the Free State.
Office Holder #1:
It is a sad comment on the state of print journalism today.
Office Holder #2:
I think it’s a sign of the direction the remaining newspapers are headed.
Office Holder #3:
This confirms what I have thought for a long time: Maryland, and specifically Montgomery County, is seen by the Post as a provincial back water.
Office Holder #4:
This is just one more nail in the coffin for how I perceive of the Post’s respect for Montgomery County. Most of the time, the Post ignores us and when it doesn’t it dumps an individual who lacks the maturity - and most importantly knowledge of the area - to editorialize about my county.
Office Holder #5:
It used to be that readers looked to the Post editorial page for mature institutional insight, thoughtful assessment and contextual history. Apparently clever writing has become a satisfactory substitute for wisdom and judgment derived from some modicum of community experience. Let’s hope he came cheap.
Office Holder #6:
I would like to have thought that the Washington Post held Montgomery County in higher regard by having someone with more experience and, as important, some greater connection to Montgomery County than Steven Stein. While I am not offended by “hard-hitting journalism” or “infuriating a high-ranking politician or the residents” if the facts back up such opinions or stories, I do have a problem with an editorial writer of a large metropolitan area of nearly 1 million residents who “writes things that anger people” as an “interest” for the sake of angering people. Based on your blog, I hope the Post considers replacing Steven Stein with someone who has a little more maturity - actually a lot more maturity! And where is Steven Stein’s or The Post’s response to your blog?
Office Holder #7:
I’m very glad that someone is pulling the curtain to reveal the real “Wizard of the Post.” When you consider the extraordinary influence that Washington Post editorials have demonstrated by a rather arbitrary selection of winners vs. losing candidates in past Montgomery County elections, it is appalling to discover the “little man pulling the levers.” How many people were fooled? The Post endorsement process appears to be no more rigorous, research-based, and comprehensive than tossing a coin up in the air. By hiring an inexperienced neophyte to deliver their editorial messages, Post editorial senior management did not show respect for its readers and for the diverse, changing communities their newspaper serves.
Office Holder #8:
I’m sure the young man is a very talented writer with promising career potential. But the Post’s putting a largely ignorant, totally inexperienced, right-leaning Virginia resident in the position of crafting their editorials on Montgomery County would be a bit like having Britney Spears hand out Pulitzer Prizes; not just absurd, but an act of contempt. It’s further evidence of the Post's growing disdain for local reporting and analysis, perhaps any newspaper’s most essential role.
Office Holder #9:
No wonder newspapers are collapsing and everyone is going to the blogs. If you are right about this, the Washington Post has turned over the political concerns of more than a million people in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties to a recent college grad who has never lived in our state. Why don’t they just outsource their election endorsements to free-lance contractors in India? You can get underage writers real cheap there and they’ll e-mail you anti-union propaganda within minutes. Seriously, we would be much better off if the editorials were written by editors of the Diamondback — at least those are college kids who know something about our community and have something at stake here in Maryland.
Office Holder #10:
Adam, I was troubled to read that an unqualified ideologue with an inflated sense of self-importance is writing the Post editorials for Montgomery County. Usually we call such people “elected officials.”
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Washington Post’s Boy King
Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite was once called “the voice of God.” And for some people, that’s how the Washington Post editorial page appears. After all, there’s the elegant masthead and logo, the rich tradition of legends like Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee, all the Pulitzers (8 in 2008 alone) and the often excellent national and international reporting. So the editorials should carry some weight, right?
Not the ones about Montgomery County. Because their until-now anonymous writer is a 23-year-old intern who has never lived in Maryland and is less than a year out of college.
Steven Stein is a Los Angeles native and current Virginia resident who graduated from Emory University in 2008. His first job out of school was an internship at the Washington Post. The Post had him write a handful of blog posts last fall, but it didn’t work out. One reader complained on his last post, “I continue to be mystified at the Post’s rationale for giving Mr. Stein a platform as he never has anything remotely insightful to contribute to any public debate,” and Stein was yanked. But the Post had another job for Stein because longtime Maryland issues writer Lee Hockstader was taking a break. And so Stein was given a task that was a low priority for the Post Company, something that wouldn’t matter even if it was screwed up by an intern: editorial writer for Montgomery County.
Now the Post has always had an anti-union lean to its editorials because it is an anti-union business. But with Stein at the writer’s desk, the propaganda reached new lows: clobbering the Fire Fighters, calling collective bargaining a “ruse,” ranting about “the sway that unions exert over county politicians” and congratulating Delegate Ben Kramer (D-19) for supposedly being willing to criticize unions. The Post even ran an election-day smear alleging that the unions were “funneling contributions” to Nancy Navarro.
But Stein is no ordinary intern; he has an agenda. At the Emory Wheel (the campus newspaper), Stein wrote this about Barack Obama:For all his talk of unity, Obama has a platform only a far-left liberal could love. He’s Edmund Muskie with sex appeal, Walter Mondale with charisma. If you’re a diehard liberal, Obama is your man. If you actually believe in unity, you might want to look elsewhere.
And on the Post’s intern profile page, Stein wrote this about his career goals:The ultimatum came early my freshman year of college: “Get a job or forget about us paying tuition!” my mother frostily exclaimed. Having no discernible talent other than the ability to string sentences together semi-coherently, I sought refuge in the Emory Wheel, my university’s student newspaper. Three years and more than 150 articles later, I’m preparing to make journalism a career. I’ve interned as a reporter at the Garden Island (Kauai, Hawaii), where the governor of Hawaii publicly criticized one of my first articles. I’ve also interned as an editorial writer at the Austin American-Statesman, where a tongue-in-cheek blog post about San Antonio left the Alamo City up in arms. Needless to say, my goal at The Washington Post is to practice hard-hitting journalism — even if it means infuriating a high-ranking politician or the residents of a major city. Besides writing things that anger people, my interests include playing bad basketball, playing worse golf and raving to anyone who will listen about the genius of the film “Being There.”
How on Earth could the Post permit such a thing to appear on its website? Stein is in bad need of an adult in the company to approach him and say, “Look, kid. This is the Washington Post, not the Emory Wheel. The goal of our editorial page isn’t to infuriate politicians for its own sake. We have opinions, but they have to be fact-based and fair.” But no one is interested. Montgomery County just doesn’t matter to the Post leadership.
But the Post leadership does matter a lot to Montgomery County politicians, a few of whom still regard the editorial page as the Voice of God. Some in the County Council building have been working Stein for months, feeding him all the propaganda he can regurgitate. They gleefully cavort before the Boy King’s throne and Montgomery voters are none the wiser.
What does this say about the Post’s senior management? Their pick of an intern who has never lived in Maryland to write Montgomery County editorials reveals their true regard for us. Montgomery County politics is irrelevant in their world and, in any event, the editorials supply a pleasant way for a callow neophyte to hurl invective at government employees and move up in the ranks.
And what about the Post’s editorial integrity? It lies in shredded tatters, decaying at the feet of the Boy King.
