The unasked question of Journolist

During the last election, Slate revealed that virtually every single person on their staff voted for Obama (Shafer, a Dave Weigel type – i.e. a liberal posing as a libertarian – says he voted for Bob Barr). I’m not as much interested in screaming “liberal bias!” at this as I am uncovering exactly how this situation came to pass. At various points in its history, Slate hired writers and editors. They – as they are advertising now – took on interns.

Who got these jobs, and who didn’t? Were 99 percent of the applicants lefties? Did a single qualified conservative or moderate apply?

The mainstream media, like Major League Baseball, has a farm system. Years ago I did some freelancing for the Washington City Paper while Shafer was the editor. Several of the writers there – Katharine Boo, Liza Mundy, Mark Jenkins, Alona Wartofsky, to name a few – went from the City Paper to the Washington Post, either as freelancers or as full time staff. I don’t recall the Post calling any interns from National Review. Shafer went to work for Slate, which was being edited by former New Republic editor and well-known liberal Michael Kinsley. Slate is now owned by the Washington Post. David Carr, now a popular writer at the New York Times, also did a stint as editor of the Washington City Paper. In his book “The Night of the Gun,” Carr admitted to wife beating, drug addiction and child endangerment. Imagine if his name was Andrew Breitbart. Would he be at the Times?

More? This summer a new website, TBD.com, will launch. It is being backed by Allbitron, the media conglomerate that owns Politico and ABC affiliate WJLA. TBD is promising to merge blogging, video and traditional journalism. They put out a call for journalist and editors, and announced that they had gotten hundreds of resumes. As head editor they hired Erik Wemple, the editor of the Washington City Paper. Four out of the first six other editors and writers then hired were from…the Washington City Paper. In the comments section, a man named Ken noted:

Four out of the 6 reporters and editors shown here (excluding the community engagement crew who it sounds like were hired separately) worked for City Paper, and one more almost worked there. Considering the hundreds (maybe thousands?) of journalists in this city, and the hundreds that you say applied for reporting jobs, you can’t deny the blatant favoritism. But hey, I guess that’s the way the world works.

Is there anyone left in the City Paper newsroom?

It’s amazing to me that so many people, on both the left and the right, assume that journalists just seem to kind of appear at their jobs at Slate, the New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS and the Washington Post. Nobody bothers to ask who did not get the jobs. Forgotten are all the conservatives, maybe even some potential H.L. Menckens, who never made it out of the gate.