The Washington Post Thought It Might Be Nice To Provide Free Book Marketing To Insurrectionist Josh Hawley

Too Much Free Time

from the zero-accountability dept

Let’s be clear about something. The U.S. doesn’t really do “accountability” particularly well. It’s a major reason why we often repeat the same mistakes over and over again without learning much from history or experience. That’s been made particularly clear by a U.S. press that continues to not only platform the insurrectionists who spread election fraud lies leading to the violent events of January 6, but treats these lies as valid and meaningful opinions. That, understandably, has led to concerns that it’s going to happen again. But worse.

Case in point is the Washington Post, which this week decided, for whatever reason, to give Senator Josh Hawley oodles of free publicity for his latest book. Washington Post Live hosted Hawley as part of a chat, providing him ample free marketing for his book complaining about the “tyranny of big tech” (tyrannically sold by Amazon, and heavily marketed by Hawley on Twitter). Not only that, the Post couldn’t be bothered to craft an accurate bio for Hawley, instead using the one provided by his publicist that paints Hawley in an aggressively inauthentic light:

Not too surprisingly, the Post marketing doesn’t really bother to inform readers that Hawley’s anti-monopolist credentials are largely nonexistent. Like most of the GOP, it’s literally impossible to find an instance where Hawley, for example, so much as criticized a telecom monopoly. And, like most of the press, it’s rare you’ll find outlets like the Washington Post pointing out that a primary platform of the GOP for forty fucking years has been to encourage monopolization, whether we’re talking about telecom, airlines, banking, or countless other marginally competitive and largely broken U.S. business sectors.

The GOP isn’t engaged in histrionics over “big tech” because it genuinely cares about monopolization or unchecked corporate power. Decades of policy history make it abundantly clear that’s not remotely true.

The GOP is angry at big tech because a handful of social media companies belatedly started policing disinformation and race-baiting, cornerstones of party power and recruitment in the face of an aging, sagging, and shifting electorate. There are plenty of very valid criticisms of “big tech,” but the U.S. press seems incapable of acknowledging that many of the GOP’s concerns on this front aren’t entirely in good faith.

NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen has long lamented the U.S. media’s obsession with the “view from nowhere,” and how this undermines accountability while letting bad actors off the hook. Rosen wasn’t particularly impressed with the Post offering free book marketing to a guy who just got done spending months filling the American public’s heads with dangerous fluff and nonsense, and shows absolutely nothing that could be mistaken as contrition in the wake of January 6:

Even if you just want to ignore that Hawley’s anti-corporate power and anti-monopolist credentials are nonexistent, it shouldn’t be that hard to see how treating Hawley’s (read: Trump’s) lies as valid can easily help undermine accountability for recent attacks on democracy. And while the Post did challenge Hawley somewhat on his role in the insurrection, the very act of free marketing and platforming Hawley then gives him ample opportunity to muddy the waters and distort his actual role in triggering the events of January 6, which he happily proceeded to do:

Rosen wasn’t the only media scholar to take issue with the Post’s decision to give Hawley’s book free marketing in the wake of his attacks on democracy:

Comedians routinely critical of the U.S. press also took issue with the Post’s decision to provide free book marketing to Hawley:

Of course the folks most in need of hearing and understanding this message, didn’t hear it at all. In reality, Hawley has been facing nonexistent to very light accountability for lying repeatedly about the 2020 election results, which put the very fabric of democracy at risk. But for the “cancel culture” set the very act of questioning the Post’s failures of accountability and journalistic standards is itself somehow viewed as “censorship”:

Again, light accountability for lying about the results of an election is not “censorship.” And criticizing someone for spreading lies that put elected officials’ lives at risk shouldn’t be seen as “conservative.” One major reason America keeps stumbling through the same issues over and over without learning anything from the experience is because for the ad-based, impression-obsessed U.S. press. It’s more profitable to heavily market Hawley and enjoy the resulting controversy than it is to do the right thing and not platform his dangerous lies at all. The age-old internet concept “don’t feed the trolls” isn’t adhered to because adhering to it harms profits.

That doesn’t mean the Post shouldn’t cover him when he does something of note (like being the only Senator to vote against a hate crime bill protecting Asian Americans), but they don’t need to be helping him sell a book five months after his lies contributed to numerous human deaths, normalizing his behavior and setting an ugly precedent for something even worse just over the horizon.

Filed Under: big tech, censorship, insurrection, josh hawley, journalism, news coverage, platforming, promotion
Companies: washington post