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How the media downplayed Jesse Helms' racism
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Brandonius Maximus |
| Last Edited | Brandonius Maximus Jun 26, 2006 05:05pm |
| Category | Commentary |
| News Date | Aug 31, 2001 05:00pm |
| Description | Aug. 31, 2001 | Washington Post columnist David Broder caused a splash in D.C.'s usually placid August press pool this week when he wrote that retiring Republican North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms was a "racist" in his Wednesday column.
The reason for the name-calling? Broder was irked at how Helms' retirement had been handled by the supposedly liberal mainstream press, with most major news outlets airbrushing Helms' distasteful race-baiting and segregationist past. Broder even singled out his own paper for its weak-kneed reporting, which gingerly touched on the topic of race in just two of the 54 paragraphs the paper ran on Helms last week. Instead, the Post and other media Big Feet were busy lionizing Helms as "one of the most powerful conservatives on Capitol Hill for three decades."
All well and good, wrote Broder, but more importantly, "What is unique about Helms -- and from my viewpoint, unforgivable -- is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans."
Tough talk indeed. And commendable at a time when there seems to be little serious self-examination among the D.C. press corps.
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