Ask washingtonpost.com's executive editor why he hired an unqualified, bigoted conservative activist
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Last week, we told you about the launch of Red America, a washingtonpost.com weblog written by Ben Domenech, a Republican activist who worked in the Bush administration and co-founded RedState, a "Republican community weblog ... focused on politics, and ... dedicated to the construction of a Republican majority in the United States."
Domenech had a history of bigoted and homophobic comments like calling Coretta Scott King -- on the day of her funeral -- a communist and suggesting that blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability." However, a review of his articles also made it clear that he was a serial plagiarizer.
Domenech is no longer employed by washingtonpost.com thanks to the efforts of progressive media critics. He "resigned" amid a public outcry over his plagiarism.
But Domenech's resignation doesn't erase the hard questions about why he was originally hired. Washingtonpost.com still needs to explain why a partisan operative who admits he is not a journalist and who has a history of racially charged rhetoric, homophobic bigotry, and serial plagiarism was given a platform on washingtonpost.com in the first place -- and what steps the paper is taking to ensure that such a fiasco does not happen again.
Take Action! Click here to contact Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com and ask him why he decided to hire Domenech, a rabidly partisan activist with no real credentials and a history of bigoted comments.
Resources:
Media Matters to Wash. Post brass: Fire bigoted blogger [3/23/06]
More invective from Domenech [3/23/06]
Statement from Media Matters for America President David Brock on Resignation of Washington Post Blogger Ben Domenech [3/24/06]
Complete coverage from Media Matters ["Red America"]
I doubt that Mr. Brady is seeing these letters: I have emailed him a number of times and repeatedly get responses from "custhelp@washingtonpost.com" with an "incident number". I don't suppose you could publish his work number?