BY MICHAEL JOHNSON
 
For six days the Washington Post conducted what, in the extreme, could be described as a smear campaign against Presidential candidate Rick Perry. At best it was a case of highly prejudicial and irresponsible reporting, editing and ‘ombudsing’.  
 
It was irresponsible, regardless, because it raised the ugly specter of racism without clear reason. It lowered the journalistic bar yet another notch, setting a precedent that will only encourage even less responsible media and partisans along the long, long road to next November. 
 
The campaign began on October 1, with a front-page story about a rock that stood near one of the entrances to a ranch leased, not owned mind you, by the Perry family. On the rock was inscribed the word “Niggerhead”, a grotesquely offensive term apparently once used to describe everything from products to geographic locations.
 
The Perrys claimed they painted over the name of the rock in 1984. The Post reporter Stephanie McCrummen said she talked with 12 people, seven of whom said they saw the name still on the rock in the 1980’s and/or the 1990’s. One anonymous source claimed the rock wasn’t painted over until a few years ago.
 
There are a number of flaws in the original story, to say nothing of its intent, that deserve scrutiny by independent regulators of journalistic standards and ethics, except of course, that there are no universally recognized independent regulators of journalistic standards or ethics. The industry has only the trade association and in-house variety such as Post Ombudsman Patrick Pexton, who brushed off criticism of the article and gave it his seal of approval.  
 
Pexton could have been critical of a good many of the news judgments, or lack thereof, which led to the publication of the original story and several stories that followed. For openers he could explain why the story appeared on the front page with only four others and why it consumed an entire second page in the front section and why there was the need for yet another sidebar story in the same paper and two other major stories in subsequent papers. 
 
The space the story consumed by itself said much about its intent and implications.
 
Speaking of implications, he could then have explain why the Post published a story that clearly implied that a candidate for President of the United States was a racist and did so on the word and memory of six anonymous sources and one named individual, who were asked for recollections 20 to 30 years old.  
 
If you are going to inject race into a presidential campaign you better damn well reveal your sources so the public can make their own judgments about intent and prejudices. To suggest, as Pexton did, that Post editors knew who the sources were so we could all rest easy, is a complete cop out and an insult to our intelligence. The use and abuse of anonymous sources in the media, as in the Perry article, is a national scandal.
 
Pexton could also explain why there were no photos of the rock or any attempt to search the archives for photos. The story said the rock was turned over at some point, another piece of information never clarified. The questions, the vagaries and the conflicting pieces of information run rampant throughout the Post pieces.
 
Then there is the relativity of it all. The Perry family didn’t own the land, nor did they name the land; they didn’t inscribe the name on the rock and, at one time or another, they attempted to obscure the name either by painting over it or turning the rock over, or both. You get the impression that most of the time, they and their guests didn’t even enter the property from the side of the property where the rock was located. 
 
Yet, the Post implies that Perry is a racist – to say nothing of his entire family – and, in Pexton’s words, a liar, solely on the basis of disagreement over when the rock was painted. 
 
The Post went to great lengths to remind us of the segregated history of Texas when Perry was growing up and then drove their point home with this:  “Perry has spoken often about how his upbringing in this sparsely populated farming community influenced his conservatism.”  So, if the area was segregationist and Perry was influenced by his upbringing there, of course, Perry must be…   One plus two is ten. True, the story doesn’t say Perry is a racist but the story’s content and the manner in which it was presented does. 
 
And that was just the original article. The Post beat the story to death with at least three more in a week.  And because the Post ran the story, so did the television and cable networks. Then of course, Al Sharpton punched it up a notch, saying he was going to be “all over” it on MSNBC and Rep. Jesse Jackson took it up another notch actually introducing federal legislation insisting that Perry apologize.
 
It all strongly suggests that the media must exercise greater caution and circumspection when publishing material that even indirectly brands anyone as racist, bigoted or prejudiced, forms of human behavior that are the fuel for ugliness in our society and more particularly, in our politics. If we are going to accuse one another, we better damn well be sure we are on solid ground to do so.  I don’t know Rick Perry from a bale of Texas hay, but I think for the sake of civil and honest political discourse and social fairness he deserves more of the benefit of the doubt than the media have given him. 
 
Bigotry and prejudice have become two-way streets. They can be applied to both the accused and the accuser too easily. So it just makes sense that we should all exercise vigilance and restraint, regardless of our color, or whether we are politicians or journalists, preachers or protestors. We’ve got enough real problems. We don’t need more of them fabricated and then blown out of proportion. The campaign will guide us to the gutter soon enough. So if you’re going to start a fire, make sure it is for light and not just heat.