The Washington Post has no problem making a mountain out of a molehill of protesters – when it’s a pet liberal cause like race. (Take the tiny protests at a Redskins home game last December.) It happened again on Thursday when “dozens” of leftists assembled to protest Donald Trump at a hotel he’s building in downtown DC.
The local TV stations also promoted the protest as critics "turned out in force” (said the CBS station WUSA). But their own video showed they could barely fill up a street corner. The TV stations avoided any numerical information on the crowd.
Perry Stein and Jonathan O’Connell opened their Post story hyperbolically:
Behind makeshift barriers along Pennsylvania Avenue, construction workers were transforming the Old Post Office Pavilion into the luxury Trump International Hotel.
Outside those walls, Donald J. Trump’s billion-dollar brand was unraveling.
Protesters and local officials gathered Thursday in front of the future hotel, calling on Trump’s landlord — in this case, the federal government — to pull the whole project, or at least remove the massive “TRUMP” sign that adorns the construction site and is visible to anyone traveling along the busy thoroughfare.
The reader would have to go deep inside the article to paragraph 19 to find the admission that only dozens attended:
On Thursday, dozens of protesters called the Old Post Office Pavilion “the people’s building.” They carried signs stating that immigrants “are not rapists” and chanted in English and Spanish, “Donald Trump has got to go.” One banner said: “We the people declare Donald Trump morally bankrupt.”
“I’m concerned that [youths] are watching racism become the new normal,” said Catalina Talero, executive director of the nonprofit organization One World Youth Project. “This is a building, but it’s also a historic landmark. The idea of Trump acquiring it is deeply offensive.”
The second half of that quote was lovingly posted at the top of the Metro section front page, with one color photo on the front, and two more inside.
In paragraph 23, the Post story also admitted “Near the rally Thursday, a handful of Trump backers criticized undocumented immigrants.” But the Post didn’t include any of their thoughts in the newspaper.
The Post made sure to link to its latest front-page bucket full of joy: “GOP leaders fear damage to party’s image as Donald Trump doubles down.”
