WASHINGTON -- Robert Brannum, an ardent supporter of D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, is accusing The Washington Post of having an editorial agenda designed to antagonize the mayor. Again.
After this weekend's new revelations in the Post on the current course of the intensifying federal investigation into alleged misconduct on Gray's 2010 mayoral campaign, Brannum, writing in an Examiner.com column, wrote that the Post's front-page story was ill-timed, just as thousands of civil rights leaders and others were in town for the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial and Gray was leading a D.C. voting rights rally and march.
From Brannum's blog post:
The editors of The Washington Post not only chose instead to report the D.C. Full Democracy Rally and March inside its newspaper on page A-8 , they also decided to suborn the intelligence of District residents and to re-characterize the rally and march. It is doubtful The Washington Post published this re-hashed story on the day after Mayor Gray's rally because it became ripe facing the sunlight while sitting on the window sills of [Publisher] Katharine Weymouth and [editorial page writer] Jo-Ann Armao.
Brannum went on to also accuse the Post of publishing a story about the legacy of former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on the front of the Metro section as a way to thumb its nose at Gray and said newspaper editors and editorial board members "politically pine" for former Mayor Adrian Fenty.
Brannum has been a sharp critic of the Post and once sat outside the newspaper's 15th Street NW offices with a loudspeaker letting the world know his criticisms of the Post and its editorial page.
Brannum, who was recently elected chairman of the Ward 5 Democrats and had a temporary city job to help plan for the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, himself has been the subject of some unflattering press. The Washington Times in September reported that Brannum is at the center of an inquiry of alleged misuse of a debit card of the Metropolitan Police Department's Fifth District Citizens Advisory Council, which he had control over. Brannum has denied the allegations and said the Times' reporting is incorrect and should be retracted.
WATCH: Robert Brannum Outside The Washington Post
Flickr photo by dbking