Voices of the 99% Radio examines local D.C. politics and news coverage

Listen to Bullet Points with Navid Nasr on Voices of 99%

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TheFightBacks Pete Tucker joined Bullet Points with Navid Nasr on Voices of the 99% for a discussion on the Washington Post’s selective scrutinizing of politicians, as well as the paper’s education business interests.

The Post’s recent call for the resignation of D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham doesn’t fit the paper’s pattern of going after councilmembers whose base of support comes from the African American community, but it nevertheless points up the Post’s willingness to go after the lesser transgressions of those its targets while ignoring more serious improprieties of others supported by the downtown business elite.

This bias was never more apparent than in the 2010 mayoral contest between Vincent Gray and Adrian Fenty, who the Post backed to the hilt, in no small measure because of then-schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. In addition to being anti-union, Rhee pushed an agenda that called for greatly expanding the testing of students and teachers.

The Post owns Kaplan, the for-profit testing company and online school that came under federal investigation. Speaking to investors in 2007 at a time when more than half of company’s revenues came from Kaplan, CEO Donald Graham rebranded The Washington Post Co. as an “education and media” company. With its primary focus on education, not media, it may not be too surprising that the paper’s education coverage has often seemed to coincide with its business interests.

These were among the issues discussed in the hour-long discussion on Bullet Points.

Related stories: On Education, the Post is Profitable, Not Objective; D.C.’s Double Standard; Navid Nasr on the Middle East Protests

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