The Washington Post is one of the largest daily newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1877 and since that time it has grown into one of the most influential mass media companies in the country. Currently, its circulation equals approximately 700,000 copies. Marcus Brauchli is the present executive editor (The Washington Post, unpaged). It is very difficult to determine its readership. The publication is primarily intended for people living in Washington and related areas, but in the age of information technologies their articles can be accessed from any part of the world via the Internet (The Washington Post, unpaged). The company has several affiliates such as International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and so forth. It has foreign bureaus in such cities is Jerusalem, Tokyo, Moscow, Beijing, Rome etc (Nam, 80). This newspaper maintains close relations with information agencies as Reuters, BBC, CNN and others. Overall, we may say that this organization cannot be called only as a newspaper, because it has several partners among broadcasting companies. This network constantly extends.
This paper aims to evaluate the authoritativeness and credibility of the information which this media company offers to the general audience. In particular, it is necessary to determine whether there is any political, religious, or sexist bias in their articles. This bias may not always be easily noticeable as a good journalist is always able to prompt the reader to a certain conclusion in a very subtle way. Apart from that we need to assess the quality of the accuracy of their data.
Several research works have been conducted in order to analyze the impact of mass media on the community and the Washington Post has frequently been accused of biased presentation of facts. First many political observers believe that the journalists of this newspaper were not quite objective during the conflict in Yugoslavia (Auerbach & Bloch-Elkon, 83). Certainly, one cannot suggest that they deliberately distorted or misrepresented the events. Yet, their framed public opinion so that the majority of the US citizens did not object to the governments foreign policy and bombing of Yugoslavia. They used such frames as “American role”, “Serb aggression”, “ethnic cleansing”, “crimes against humanity” and so forth (Auerbach & Bloch-Elkon, 83). These words and phrases were effective tools for the manipulation of the public opinion. They make people believe that that there is an urgent situation which calls for immediate measures from the international community. Such headlines immediately draw the readers attention. But in fact, they are just rhetoric devices, which produced strong emotional impression on the population.
Their key objective was to convince the reader that the US had to intervene. Moreover that this was the governments direct responsibility as it could stay aside and allow the havoc to occur in the heart of Europe. However, they did not actually tell the reader that their information was not fully verified. Even now many claims about the atrocities and genocide in Bosnia have not been proven.
In this regard, we need to say that a journalist must tell the public about the accuracy of the data. This was not always done. To some extent this is strong evidence of bias. Nevertheless, one has to bear in mind that the representatives of the press cannot be absolutely independent in the treatment of facts. First, their sources may not be reliable. Apart from that, the officials are not always willing to disclose information (Weaver & Wilhoit, 49). So a journalist may not be always accused of deliberate distortion of facts.
Several studies have been carried out to assess the accuracy of this media company. Many of them point at the famous scandal involving the President Jimmy Carter, who suited the newspaper for libel. They published an article claiming that the US government guest house was bugged by the CIA (Nam, 83). In fact they simply relied on the rumor spread by a yellow-page magazine. Naturally, such mistakes were not numerous otherwise the reputation of the Washington Post would have been ruined. However, these examples prove that this publication can give invalid news just for commercial purposes, in effort to boost their sales rates. It should be remembered that the main task of a newspaper is to tell truth as closely a possible and this key principle was ignored. In fact, editorial board was balancing between the blatant libel and rumor. We need to set stress on the idea that these inaccuracies in the reporting are not typical of the Washington Post. The newspaper is renowned for its credibility and polite correctness (Logan et al, 37).
At this point, it is of vital importance for us to discuss one of the articles published five years ago. It covered the elections in Afghanistan. Pamela Constable, the author of the report, says, “the Bush administration had eagerly sought elections that would give Afghans a chance to pick their leaders and would be seen as a major U.S. foreign policy success” (Constable, unpaged). She emphasizes the idea that American forces acted like liberators in these country. Furthermore, by mentioning the problems with infrastructure, staffing, delivery, the writer frequently hints at the deficiency of the incumbent Afghan administration and their inability to prevent fraud and falsification of the results. Yet, she does not pay any attention to the fact that this infrastructure was virtually destroyed by bombing. The tone of this report is rather conservative. Pamela Constable argues that the US promotes democratization process in this country. However, she does not take into account the fact that democracy cannot be imposed from outside. The results can be achieved but they will be short-lived.
The role of mass media in contemporary society has recently become immense. Newspapers play a very important part in the formation of public opinion. Hence, it is crucial that they offer verified data to people. The major responsibility of a journalist is to tell the facts in an impartial manner. Judging from the analysis of scholarly works and the article published by the Washington Post. We can conclude that this media company takes a rather conservative attitude towards the international policy of the US. Particularly, many of their contributors believe that the US has a right to interfere into the affairs of other states. In some cases, they rely on the unreliable sources and even rumors. Still, it has to be admitted that people, belonging to this profession cannot be held responsible for every inaccuracy, because the most up-to-date data may be inaccessible to them. Even despite these drawbacks, the articles published by the Washington Post may be used by general audience. However, readers should always be critical why they interpret this information.
Works Cited
Auerbach Y, & Bloch-Elkon Y. “1992–95 Media Framing and Foreign Policy: The Elite Press vis-à-vis US Policy in Bosnia”. Journal of Peace Research, 2005 vol. 42, pp 83-97.
Constable, P. Afghan Election Disputed. The Washington Post, 2004. Web.
Logan, R. Zengjun, P, & Wilson N. “Prevailing Impressions in Science and Medical News: A Content, Analysis of the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post”. Science Communication, 2000, vol. 22, pp 27-45.
Nam, S. “The Washington Post Story”. International Communication Gazette, 1982, vol. 29, pp 79-91.
The Washington Post. Official Website.
Weaver, D.H, Wilhoit, G. C. The American journalist in the 1990s: U.S. news people at the end of an era. Routledge, 1996.