The Washington Post made no space in Thursday's newspaper for Martin Bashir's resignation from MSNBC. Instead, splashed in the story's natural spot at the top of the Style section came a story on a fake newsman -- Will Ferrell appearing at the Newseum in DC to plug "Anchorman 2." So much for the liberal notion that "news is what people don't want you to know."
All they offered on the front page was glittery publicity. The largest story on the Style front was a huge spread on "The White House opens its doors to military families to usher in the holiday season." The large headline is "Baubles, Boughs, Sunny & Bo." Between many column inches of colorful photographs, readers are told of hyper White House dogs, and amazing gingerbread-house facts.
Not only is there a gingerbread house, complete with chocolate versions of Bo — the Obamas’ first Portuguese water dog — and Sunny, but it is sitting on more than 1,200 Springerle cookies made into a custom-made hearth. The hearth is framed by sugar paste re-creations of the tiles commissioned for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireplace, to evoke memories of his “fireside chats.” According to Bill Yosses, the White House executive pastry chef, this is the first year the gingerbread house has running water — a carpenter rigged up a functioning replica of the North Lawn fountain, to which blue food coloring was added.
Home and design reporter Jura Koncius also had all the obligatory details about what a charming hostess Michelle Obama was to the military families.
To be fair, the Post did offer one negative news bit on MSNBC. The "Reliable Source" gossip column reported a kids' ballet troupe was thrown out of its theater rental at American University so MSNBC could put together its "Hardball" interview with President Obama. But all the controversy was focused on the college.
The Post website ran an AP dispatch on Bashir's departure -- which was this morning sitting at number 4 in the most popular articles on washingtonpost.com.
