{"id":1500678,"date":"2022-06-02T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2022-06-02T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1500678"},"modified":"2022-06-02T08:01:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-02T12:01:04","slug":"the-real-loser-in-the-johnny-depp-v-amber-heard-defamation-drama-is-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-real-loser-in-the-johnny-depp-v-amber-heard-defamation-drama-is-the-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Loser In The Johnny Depp V. Amber Heard Defamation Drama Is The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-real-loser-in-the-johnny-depp-v-amber-heard-defamation-drama-is-the-washington-post%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1500678&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Johnny_Depp-2757.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Because the corporate media focus on only The Most Important Things, you\u2019ve likely received a hefty helping of the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard courtroom drama whether or not you wanted to. In case you hadn\u2019t yet heard, Depp won the defamation suit on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>The real loser in the whole sensationalized mess, however, isn\u2019t the \u201cAquaman\u201d actress, who now owes some $15 million to her actor ex-husband. It\u2019s The Washington Post, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/ive-seen-how-institutions-protect-men-accused-of-abuse-heres-what-we-can-do\/2018\/12\/18\/71fd876a-02ed-11e9-b5df-5d3874f1ac36_story.html\">printed<\/a> Heard\u2019s infamous \u201csexual violence\u201d claims in 2018 that cost Depp, in his own words, \u201ceverything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all such a degenerate nightmare of he-said-she-said from start to finish, with claims of everything from drunken outbursts and drug addiction, to sexual and physical abuse, to poop on bedsheets and the inadvertent chopping off a fingertip with a vodka bottle in a bout of blind rage. These are just the snippets I picked up from the inescapable news cycle because there\u2019s really no other justifiable reason for watching such nonsense. None of it matters outside the ex-couple and their immediate circle.<\/p>\n<p>What <em>does<\/em> matter to the rest of America is the pitiful state of elite journalism that enables such a weighty claim as sexual violence to be published unchallenged. Perhaps our cultural lie that nothing more than silence can constitute \u201cviolence\u201d has watered down the word, but phrases such as \u201csexual violence\u201d do have meaning \u2014 and weighty ones at that \u2014 and it\u2019s the duty of journalists to gatekeep those definitions and fact-check claims of them.<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/arts-entertainment\/2022\/05\/25\/johnny-depp-amber-heard-summary\/\">reported<\/a> also on the trial, attempting to distance itself from Heard\u2019s op-ed with facts that came out after the newspaper published her claims, such as how much each person is suing the other for, what the fallout of the article has been, and the fact that \u201cDepp has denied all claims of abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A publication with any semblance of ethics might have asked Depp for comment about the sexual violence claims <em>before<\/em> running with the allegations \u2014 then subsequently spiked the op-ed or sicced its reporters on the case for more fact-finding. But not The Washington Post.<\/p>\n<p>That paper, which loves to blather in its self-important tone about how \u201cdemocracy dies in darkness,\u201d didn\u2019t bother to turn the lights in the direction of Heard\u2019s claims. Instead, it gave her a free pass to air her dirty laundry against her ex-husband and consequently enabled her to paint herself both as a victim and a crusader of the Me Too era.<\/p>\n<p>The whole situation offers two takeaways, and they aren\u2019t that Depp is a dreamy hero or stand-up husband. The first is that \u201cBelieve All Women\u201d is not only a lousy standard for our culture generally but it\u2019s a disgraceful standard for legacy newsrooms. Good journalists live by a principle known as \u201ctrust but verify,\u201d and The Washington Post traded it for \u201cbelieve and print \u2014 or you\u2019re complicit in wife-beating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To that end, the second takeaway is that if The Washington Post can\u2019t be bothered to verify a simple but heavy claim of sexual violence against an A-list actor, it can\u2019t be trusted to tell the truth about <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/03\/03\/trump-campaign-files-libel-lawsuit-against-washington-post-for-false-reporting-on-russian-collusion\/\">Russia collusion hoaxes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/04\/20\/dont-let-washington-post-get-away-with-memory-holing-its-anti-kavanaugh-campaign\/\">rape allegations<\/a> against Republican Supreme Court nominees, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2017\/01\/10\/washington-post-reporter-doubles-down-on-fake-news-about-guns\/\">guns<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/08\/31\/washington-post-lies-about-the-democratic-partys-support-for-infanticide\/\">infanticide supporters<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/05\/22\/washington-post-publishes-abortion-article-stupid-wont-believe\/\">abortion<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/11\/03\/washington-post-targets-group-exposing-faucis-cruel-beagle-experiments-to-shield-his-flailing-reputation\/\">corrupt bureaucrats<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/06\/22\/washington-post-clarifies-error-riddled-hit-piece-on-top-anti-crt-investigative-journalist\/\">critical race theory opponents<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/10\/29\/judge-to-reconsider-covington-catholic-teens-defamation-lawsuit-against-washington-post\/\">kids wearing MAGA hats<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefdrlst.wpengine.com\/2019\/07\/29\/covington-catholic-teen-lost-first-court-battle-will-probably-win-next\/\">brutal ISIS leaders<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/11\/17\/washington-post-predictably-covers-for-leftists-who-attacked-trump-supporters-waving-flags-in-dc\/\">peaceful Trump supporters<\/a>, or even <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2018\/01\/03\/washington-post-tweet-debunked-hit-piece-jesus\/\">Jesus<\/a> \u2014 among <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/page\/2\/?s=%22washington+post%22\">countless other people and things<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Amber Heard might have lost the lengthy defamation battle, but The Washington Post is the one with a habit of <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/movies\/amber-heard-denies-leaving-poop-in-bed-as-prank-on-johnny-depp\/\">crapping the bed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts\/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religious liberty, and criminal justice. Follow her on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kyleezempel\">@kyleezempel<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because the corporate media focus on only The Most Important Things, you\u2019ve likely received a hefty helping of the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard courtroom drama whether or not you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":514,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1500678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/514"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}