I can’t even comprehend that The Washington Times exists

Friday, September 19, 2008

Robin and I were on the train yesterday, coming home from the Mets game (or, as you Nats fans like to call it, the Nats game). We’re sitting there, staring across the car at this add for the Washington Times when Robin says to me, “The other day I realized the Washington Times is a GOP rag. I don’t know what took me so long to realize that.”

I gave her a confused look and replied, “What are you talking about? The Post is one of the most liberal papers in the country!”

“Not the Post, the Times.”

“The Times?”

“The Times.”

“I completely forgot the Times even existed.”

Despite living in DC for 8 years, working with various area papers, and being a bit of a newshound I couldn’t even comprehend the existence of the Times despite the fact that I was looking right an ad for the Times. I even heard Robin say “Times” and substituted “Post.”

So I went to the Times website and Robin’s right – totally a GOP rag. It sells one-seventh of the amount of papers that the Post sells (in the interest of fairness, I’ll categorize the Post as a liberal rag but it’s my liberal rag and I love it to death). I don’t understand how a paper like the Times can exist in one of the most liberal areas in all of America. The answer is: It can’t.

According to Wikipedia (ok, ok – I didn’t have time to do real research, shoot me) the Times has received billions of dollars in subsidiaries from its founder, Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, since its 1982 inception. Sun seems to believe the Times is his heavenly calling, claiming that, “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world.”

I wanted to go out and buy a copy of the times today, just to see what its stories were like, and I couldn’t find a copy. I will get one, however – hopefully the Sunday edition – just to see how bad the paper is. But that’s beside the point and here’s the real question: Why hasn’t anyone made a movie about The Washington Times yet? I’d pay good money to see a flick about a church leader with not newspaper experience trying to tear down the liberal institution that is Washington DC by putting billions of dollars into a rag that people who live here forget exists. That’s a great story!

Labels: dc, editorial