News Ombudsman, The Washington Post

Ms. E.R. Shipp
News Ombudsman
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Ms. Shipp:

As you well know, The Washington Post has a reputation as one of the nation’s most respected, influential newspapers. As such, it has a responsibility to the public to report information objectively. During the past three years, however, we feel that The Post has crossed over the line from objective to biased journalism in its coverage of gambling issues. This coverage makes it impossible for your readership to get a fair picture of this issue.

Since 1995, The Post has sermonized on legalized gambling 40 times on its editorial pages - averaging more than one every month. Gambling - in stark contrast to the content of these editorials - is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans: 92 percent of U.S. adults believe that gambling is acceptable for themselves, according to a recent survey conducted by Yankelovich Partners, Inc., and some form of legalized gaming exists in 47 of the 50 states. Despite this public support, The Post has published only a few op-eds or letters to the editor reflecting an opposing viewpoint.

Furthermore, the volume of coverage of gambling issues by The Post is disproportionate to its level of importance to Americans. The Post has mentioned casinos in more than 1,300 stories since 1995, compared to only about 500 on health care reform, and even rivaling the number mentioning campaign finance reform - two issues widely recognized as major concerns among the general public.

But last week, The Post reached a new low in credibility when it published a story Oct. 30 about a suspected cause of the Swissair Flight 111 plane crash. The subheadline on the front page, headlines on pages A14 and A15, the lead and the body of the story all said that a “gaming” system was being investigated as a possible cause of the plane crash. No other major daily newspaper or wire service examined (The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Associated Press, Reuters) took it upon themselves to specifically point the finger at gaming, as did The Post. Most reported that the suspected defective wiring was part of the “in-flight entertainment system,” which provides audio, video and children’s games, as well as gaming services. In fact, only USA Today even used the words “gaming” or “gambling,” and only within the body of the story in describing the full range of capabilities of the system.

This is not the first time The Post has misled its readers with biased news coverage related to gaming. In another front-page story, printed Aug. 6, 1998, readers learn in the lead that a man responsible for killing his entire family and himself had “$10 million in gambling and other debts.” Two paragraphs later, also on the front page, a similar statement is made: “… Ramachandran had written nearly $2 million in bad checks in an attempt to cover mounting debt totaling more than $10 million, some of it from gambling losses at Atlantic City casinos.” Only after following the jump to page A8, near the end of the story, would the reader discover that of the $10 million debt, only $2,240 could be attributed to gambling.

The Post’s position on legalized gaming is no secret. While The Post is entitled to editorialize on legalized gaming, it ceases to become an objective newspaper when its editorial opinions seep into its news coverage. News coverage of these events does not warrant such prominent inclusion of references to gaming or gambling. The Post does its readers a disservice by perpetuating old, inaccurate stereotypes about gaming and depicting gaming as the catch-all cause of unrelated, tragic events.

As ombudsman, I hope that you will examine The Post’s pattern of misleading news coverage relating to legalized gaming to ensure that, in the future, irrelevant references to gaming are not used to promote individuals’ personal biases.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr.