The Washington Post Made the Right Call

There seems to be some discussion, mostly on the part of leftist bloggers, regarding the decision of the Washington Post to publish this Op-ed by soon to be former, but current, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. I'm no Palin apologist, in fact, I think the GOP's electoral prospects are inversely correlated to Sarah Palin's level of publicity, however this seems to be a classic case of "haters" beginning with the conclusion "Palin is wrong" and developing premises to reinforce this conclusion.

The over-analysis of Tommy Christopher, in this piece, is particularly penetrating. Now Tommy is a generally well-balanced blogger and remains a writer that I respect, however, I think in this particular case he sort of wildly misses on his analyis. Tommy makes some good point in this post in other areas, but I am specifically addressing his position on the decision of the Washington Post to publish the op-ed.

The premise of Christopher's piece seems to be that the Washington Post made an error in judgement when it decided to publish Sarah Palin's piece by failing to follow generally accepted rules of journalistic integrity as well as, more narrowly, the Washington Posts's own standards and practices. Christopher cites the Washington Post's guidelines for publishment of Op-eds which, in part, states rather subjectively,

"having an important title doesn’t mean we’ll publish your op-ed. In fact, because we realize that senators, business leaders, heads of state and the like have access to various platforms where they can express their views, we hold them to a particularly high standard when considering whether to publish them in The Post."

Christopher then makes what he seems to believe is a prima facie claim that "it’s tough to argue that Palin’s piece meets this bar." I call it prima facie because he provides no supporting facts or evidence of any kind to back up his rather bizarre position on what is clearly a subjective, not objective, standard. Without such, we are left to wonder why exactly a governor with undisputed credentials in energy policy and former candidate for national office does not meet this "particularly high standard."

Whether you agree with Palin or not, I would love to hear an argument for why she is not an important voice in this policy area. Regardless of what different individuals predict for her future in electoral politics, she is clearly not a current candidate for office, thus, this is not, nor could it be legitimately construed as, a campaign action. Additionally, from a purely business perspective, should the editor of any news or editorial periodical really turn down the opportunity to exclusively showcase the opinion of a well-known, controversial, and quasi-expert public figure? What a terrible business decision that would be. Christopher ponders if Palin's "clickability didn’t play a major part in the Post’s decision to carry it." Of course the "clickability" factor played a role in the decision. Why shouldn't it? That is not mutually exclusive from journalistic credibility. One can be an important, legitimate voice, meeting a "particularly high standard," and have "clickability." Its hard to deny that Sarah Palin showcases this duality of characteristics.

There are certainly plenty of topics to discuss when it comes to Sarah Palin. More importantly, there is an incredibly important debate that should be had regarding this piece of cap and trade legislation. But, to answer this narrow question: was the Washington Post correct in its decision to accept an op-ed from Sarah Palin? Of course they were. To do anything different would have been inexplicable.