The Washington Post took a subtle dig at independent journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weis for their work on the Twitter Files, exposing internal documents at the social media giant that have showed some of the most controversial decisions at the company prior to Elon Musk’s takeover.
In a report published Monday evening about the site’s Trust & Safety Council getting dissolved, WaPo labeled Taibbi and Weiss as “conservative journalists.”
"As head of trust and safety at Twitter, Roth was involved in many of the platform’s decisions about what posts to remove and what accounts to suspend. His communications with other Twitter officials have been posted in recent days as part of what Musk calls the Twitter Files, a series of tweets by conservative journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss," the Post story initially stated.
Taibbi, a Substack writer, once covered politics for Rolling Stone and has described himself as “run-of-the-mill, old-school ACLU liberal.” Weiss, meanwhile, previously served as the opinion page editor at The New York Times. Neither is considered conservative, but as critics pointed out, that label has become a “smear” to discredit them and the work they’re doing.
“Conservative” is just a smear to the MSM. It has no other meaning except to brand someone as unworthy. To signal to its readership that such a person can be safely ignored. https://t.co/SEyb6ebMPw
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) December 13, 2022
“Conservative” is no longer an ideological label. It’s a cue to the audience to dismiss a person without consideration.
— Benjamin Carlson (@bfcarlson) December 13, 2022
It's ridiculous that these people believe tacking a 'conservative' label on someone should function as a means to discredit them, but it's more ridiculous how willing they are to lie in order to discredit people who report information they don't like https://t.co/CjTavfkvDQ
— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) December 14, 2022
Hilarious… “conservative journalist” now just means “anyone whose journalistic practice doesn’t revolve around parroting standard left-liberal pieties 24/7” https://t.co/6VjM0KCcQw
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 13, 2022
The Post eventually stealth edited the label after Fox News Digital asked about it, but no editor's note was issued indicating a correction took place.
"That is hilarious," Taibbi told Fox about the Post's report. "Anyone who steps out of line in any way is labeled conservative or pro-Trump now. It's automatic and predictable."