“The editorial page of the Washington Post,” Charles Krauthammer once wrote, “is the best in the country.” The Post writer, who died in 2018 after penning some 1,600 columns, believed that the newspaper had the “best editorial page around.” It was, he thought, “quite balanced.”
But that was then, this is now.
Krauthammer championed thoughtful debates, underpinned by a careful consideration of the facts. But facts, and careful consideration, were absent in the Post’s Nov. 15, 2022 editorial, “Accountability is justified — and needed — in a U.S. reporter’s death.” The newspaper’s editorial board championed the decision by the US Department of Justice to investigate the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al-Jazeera reporter who was fatally shot on May 11, 2022, while covering Israeli counter-terror raids in the town of Jenin.
From the very beginning Abu Akleh’s death was shrouded in confusion — which is not unusual given that she was killed in what was effectively a combat zone.
(Read the rest of CAMERA’s Nov. 21, 2022 Algemeiner Op-Ed here)