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WaPo Forced to Change SOTU Headline After Liberals Have a Meltdown

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The Washington Post’s new slogan, after Donald Trump’s election, has been “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Thankfully, the newspaper’s capitulation to its own liberal readership was caught in the full light of Twitter.

The capitulation, as noted by The Daily Caller, had to do with President Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday. The Post had originally titled its front page package on the address, “A call for bipartisanship.”

Then the Post shared it on its Twitter feed, and all hell broke loose.

Here was the original headline:

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And here was the unmitigated meltdown that happened on social media when The Washington Post called the speech what it was — a call for bipartisanship.

Actually, there was quite a bit that was bipartisan about it (even if top Democrats didn’t answer the call.)

Trump asked lawmakers to come together on a plan for immigration, infrastructure, and other problems facing the country. He also saluted American heroes, which would have appealed to even liberal Democrats not all that long ago.

Do you think the media is biased against Trump?

But the Post’s readers weren’t buying it.

https://twitter.com/Count_Phantom/status/958568709207003136

https://twitter.com/LikusPJ/status/958569460167790592

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It didn’t take long for the WaPo to announce that the headline was altered after the first edition.

In fairness, it’s not unusual for a large newspaper to change headlines between editions on a major story. And the new headline is hardly an attack on the president. But in an era when the established news outlets have dropped even a veneer of “objectivity” in their zeal to revenge Hillary Clinton’s embarrassing loss in 2016, giving a newspaper like the Post the benefit of the doubt borders on naive.

The new headline used a quote from Trump’s speech. But to a slavering anti-Trump activist in D.C. and its suburbs, “A ‘new American moment’” could have just the right ambiguous, ominous tone the newspaper was looking for.

The Post’s decision to change its headline had to have some connection to the whiny “cancel my subscription” meltdowns that made up a goodly portion of its readership’s reaction to the first one. I suppose any publication is ultimately answerable to its readership, but by so obviously capitulating to it, The Washington Post has proven exactly what it is. I don’t want to hear anything more about how “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” especially when the paper’s objectivity (such as it was) died long ago.

One can imagine readers’ responses to this one. “Not as bad, but where’s the reference to Hitler?” “Sorry, but you’re no longer part of #theresistance, WaPo! Give up your pink hat!” “WORSE THAN NIXON IMPEACH NOW!!”

Actually, one doesn’t need to imagine, thanks to the magic of Twitter:

https://twitter.com/beccafrank/status/958678218562768897

From the sounds of things, an informed democracy dies not in darkness, but in groupthink and reactionary anti-Trump bias.

Do better, indeed.

Please like and share on Facebook and Twitter with your thoughts on the WaPo’s capitulation to its readership.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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