WaPo Vs. WaPo
The Washington City Paper’s City Desk blog notes that WaPo’s Colbert King “took to the Washington Post opinion page in another attempt to wrest D.C. politics from the grip of modernity. This time, he lashed out at the trend of candidates and/or their supporters doing personal opposition research,” although his own paper got caught in the crossfire.
King’s piece was in response to “the anonymous deliverance to King of a 146-page dossier on mayoral candidate Adrian Fenty. It was given to him, he writes, by ‘a longtime supporter of council chairman and mayoral hopeful Linda Cropp.'” The same day King’s piece ran, scolding the media for taking this research and using it as their own, Yolanda Woodlee had a piece in the Metro section “that looked like it could have come from the opposition dossier — with no explanation of where the info originated.”
While King said he did not know the story was coming out on the same day, he did know it was in the works. He also warned reporters what his column was about, but they refused to discuss sources. According to The City Paper, a Post source says that Woodlee’s story did not originate from the opposition research, but from a tip that led her to search civil records in Montgomery County. “Woodlee wouldn’t comment about the chastising.”
