The Washington Post is looking for a new reporter with a certain set of skills that equips them with the ability to connect with an alien culture and way of life that is apparently so foreign to the editors and writers at the Washington Post, they simply had to go outside the company to find such a person; WaPo, as folks inside the Beltway call it, needs a journalist who can cover what it is like living in the red state of Texas.
Of course, in posting this job, they are illuminating their own biases in the process.
On April 12, the D.C.-based media outlet tweeted that it “is looking for an enterprising reporter based in Texas to document life in red state America and develop a new beat mapping the culture, public policies and politics in a region shaped by conservative ideology.”
The job listing notes that the “ideal candidate is a seasoned journalist who will unearth revelatory stories about a part of the country that is governed largely by one political party.”
That statement alone makes it sound as if Texas is the only state to be governed mostly by one certain political party. It is doubtful that the editors at the Post view California, a Democratic state, through the same lens.
The outlet is also looking for a “reporter who is a graceful writer and can deliver both intimate personal stories and high-elevation pieces that illuminate the forces driving political polarization.”
We can take “graceful writer” to mean one who is not pompously liberal and would turn off everybody in the state of Texas from even talking to them. For example, former Bush advisor Matthew Dowd, who lives in Texas, claimed Wednesday that if Jesus Christ were still living, people might call him a “groomer.” Objectively, there is nothing graceful about that comparison. He would not match what the Post is looking for in a job candidate.
Don’t worry, don’t worry, this writer won’t have to actually get down and dirty with Texas conservatives. He or she will just have to keep the story at a high enough elevation so that the Post can explain how a conservative reading the Bible affects an atheist in New York City or something.
Also, has the Post ever stopped to consider that mainstream media outlets who treat conservatives like creatures in the wild that need to be studied are the “forces driving political polarization?”
As covered on Wednesday, perhaps the plethora of inaccurate stories and in some cases outright lies from the Democratic Party and its media allies about conservatives over the last eight years are what is creating a divide in America.
This phenomenon in mainstream media is nothing new. In 2010, former National Review writer Jonah Goldberg opined that it is essentially anthropology, not journalism. “… whenever I read liberals reporting about the goings-on of conservatives I always get the nature-documentary vibe,” Goldberg said in one blog post.
“A liberal reporter puts on his or her Dian Fossey hat in order to attempt to write another installment of Conservatives in the Mist,” he explained. “I’ve followed this particular brand of reporting for years, it’s almost a fetish of mine.”
Comparing conservatives to “gorillas,” Goldberg noted that the liberal reporter often writes rather insulting articles. Eventually, “we conservatives grow comfortable enough around them to return to our old patterns. We scratch and fight and do our gorilla things and the chronicler dutifully takes notes.”
Goldberg remarked that those notes “make their way into an article for the New York Times or The New Yorker or Vanity Fair” — or in 2022, the Post.
Goldberg ended his column with a rather humorous fictional morning scene:
“Who knew?” the readers will say over their morning bagels and coffee in Southampton or Fire Island, “I had no idea conservatives were such intelligent creatures. Why they even have the capacity for emotion and even some rudimentary forms of kindness.”
Of course, the irony here is now that Goldberg has signed on to appear on the liberal network CNN, arguably to serve as the token conservative. To play off his example of “Gorillas in the Mist,” perhaps his new role would be similar to the gorilla being brought to the zoo for further study under captivity?
Whatever the case, if the Post simply focused on reporting the truth — rather than advancing the progressive agenda as it often seems is the case — they would not need a red state reporter. They would just need a Texas-based reporter for coverage of the state to report accurately, wherever the story may lead.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.