Won't Be Long Until Wapo Goes Under With Hard News Like This

News Flash: for a paper that likes to talk about its world-class reporting, it's strange to find little real news of late on the cover of the Washington Post.

On the front page of the Wapo's March 6 edition was a pair of lead articles about the hardships of U.S. corporations and plummeting stocks-- nothing exactly earth-shattering there. Above the fold, there was a soft news piece on the Obama White House feuding with Rush Limbaugh and a story detailing how investors could be asked by the government to help bail out failing banks.

Below the fold was a feature on a clean coal project in the stimulus bill-- oooh, stop the presses! The one foreign piece reported on a very moldy story about the hunger crisis in North Korea. And by the way-- not one article concerning news or events in the Washington region.

And just in case you think I'm nitpicking-- check out today's front page and decide for yourself.


Before you go away thinking that the Wapo is an unfair victim of a thin news cycle, here is a sampling of what has hit the wires in the last 24 hours and would have been much more deserving of in-depth coverage:

• Amid concerns of another assassination attempt, Zimbabwe opposition leader and Prime Minister MorganTsvangirai was injured-- and his wife killed-- in a car accident.
• On the heels of the fatal attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team this week, seven people (including five policemen) were killed when a suspected car bomb hit a police van on the outskirts of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.
• Amid rumors of a renewed FBI investigation of suspicious 2006 campaign payments, RNC Chair Michael Steele is coming under fire and facing new calls for his resignation after a public conflict with radio personality Rush Limbaugh.
• Two senior U.S. envoys are heading to Damascus for the first high-level contact with Syria since 2005.
• Two Korean airlines are being forced to re-route flights after North Korea said it could not guarantee their safety-- seen as a veiled threat to anyone flying near North Korean air space and a possible indication of an upcoming test rocket launch. Pyongyang's threat follows its warnings that a US-South Korean military exercise, due to take place next week, could trigger a military clash.
• In a surprise development, the winner of the controversial auction of Mohandas Gandhi's personal effects turned out to be the "Richard Branson" of India, who now says that he will donate the items back to his native country.