The Washington Post has been highly criticized since launching a biased blog titled “Red America” written by 24-year-old Ben Domenech, the founder of, as his Post profile puts it, the “web’s leading Republican community blog.”
Why the WPI found it necessary to publish a biased blog (by a bigoted author, no less) without even attempting to balance it led many on the left, and later on the right to demand its removal.
Today, we find Jim Brady red-faced as ever, revealing that Domenech is a phony and a plagiarist:
In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.
A former employer of Domenech, the National Journal, has documented the plagiarism charges leading to his resignation. Salon lists several passages that Domenech lifted from its site. Jay Rosen of PressThink encourages the Post to hold an “open competition” on the web for its next blogger, and FishBowl DC is accepting nominations. Marty Kaplan notes President Bush’s own history as a plagiarist.
As part of the Bush Administration’s campaign to label the media as liberal reconstructionists, they hired Domenech as a speech-writer and encouraged plagiarism and deception as a political tool
Plagiarism is among the most classless and lowly crimes. Many are calling for a major shake-up at the Post, on the heels of the lies printed by WaPo’s clueless ombudsman Deborah Howell, her criticism of columnist Dan Froomkin and her mysterious defense this week of Domenech. The revelation that they hired a writer who had previously plagiarized a multitude of material disgraces not only the Post’s reputation, but belittles the high journalistic standards demanded by the blogging community.
Zhao Yan, the New York Times research based in Beijing who was