Post falls from Nixon to Delvey
The Washington Post is famous for publishing stories that forced crooked President Richard Nixon to resign. But today, it published a story on ex-con Anna Delvey that crystallizes the decline of journalism. It ran under the headline:
Anna Delvey’s ankle bracelet means New York Fashion Week came to her: The fabulist and convicted felon co-hosted a rooftop party at her East Village apartment
Of course, it’s bad enough that the Amazonization of the news has seen about 2,500 local newspapers fold since 2005. But it’s the decline of journalism itself that moved me to bemoan the state of this Fourth Estate in commentaries such as
- “Journalism is Having a Very, Very Pathetic Moment” on November 13, 2013, and
- “Humping Trump Exposes News Anchormen as Worse than Car Salesmen” on May 2, 2016.
Bezos, blackmail, and below-the-belt journalism
As indicated, the Post was once the bastion of hard-hitting journalism. Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and even the Monica Lewinsky scandal were the stuff of journalistic legend.
Today, Republicans announced their plan to impeach President Biden. They couldn’t care less that everyone knows they’re doing this only so Trump can cite it as the political equivalent of his two impeachments and four indictments.
Yet the Post seemed oblivious to the irony that its story on Delvey’s fashion party upstaged the one about the Republicans’ impeachment stunt. Mind you, this is the same Post whose owner, Jeff Bezos, accused the National Enquirer of attempting to bribe him in 2019 with “below the belt” photos.
But talk about irony. This is the same Bezos whose newspaper is now publishing stories that seem more fit to print in the Enquirer.
The Post’s role in the Trumpocalypse
But the Post was in the vanguard of mainstream media, leading the decline in journalism I bemoaned. As indicated by the dates of my earlier commentaries, Trump only accelerated this decline.
His presidential candidacy should have provoked a new golden age of journalism. Indeed, if journalists covered him like journalists instead of click-baiting groupies, Trump would never have been elected president of the United States.
The Post covered one outrageous comment after another, each more shocking than the last. It framed them as documenting his brazen lies to justify covering Trump’s vaudevillian antics as hard-hitting news. Never mind that the Post was blithely chronicling the making of an American dystopia that would make even George Orwell shudder.
Its motto asserts, “Democracy dies in darkness.” But the Post fails to show due appreciation for its complicity in dimming democracy’s light switch. But I digress.
The delusional Delvey
Her real name is Anna Sorokin. Suffice it to know that she pretended to be so rich that gullible nouveau-riche Americans thought it was a privilege to pay her exorbitant bills. You know, like Trump pretends to be so rich that MAGA Republicans think it’s a privilege to fund his campaigns and pay his legal bills. Suckers.
Indeed, to be fair to Anna, she probably saw rich fools get notoriously played by a fake Rockefeller and thought she could play them, too. And she was right — until she overplayed her hand.
The same Manhattan DA’s office that indicted Trump for lying about paying off a porn star also convicted Sorokin of larceny in 2019. She’s now serving the rest of her four to twelve years under house arrest.
But the Post is covering this “fake heiress” as if she were the second coming of “Poor Little Rich Girl” Gloria Vanderbilt and Coco Chanel combined.
Why Not Julia Fox?
The Post was hellbent on making a celebrity of a woman bringing Fashion Week to her. But it should have featured a story on Kanye’s ex-girlfriend Julia Fox.
She’s been strutting in all sorts of risqué Haute Couture on New York sidewalks. More to the point, she’s been stealing the show from and upstaging the models at New York’s Fashion Week.
In any event, I fear that the Post has abandoned its journalistic integrity. Only that explains it veering from Nixon’s Watergate to Delvey’s clickbait. Their journey from esteemed newspaper to glorified tabloid is now complete. And if you’re not profoundly disappointed, you’re part of the problem.
Legacy Note: With over 5,600 posts spanning 20 years, I am easily the most prolific blogger on the most eclectic array of topics on the web. That makes The iPINIONS Journal an unparalleled archive of informed political and cultural commentary. Visit the ARCHIVES section in the sidebar or search by topic. You won’t find a more consistent, independent voice on world affairs.