Blankley falsely claimed Wash. Post gave no front-page coverage to French riots

In his November 9 syndicated column, Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley falsely claimed that as of Monday, November 7, The Washington Post had yet to run a front-page article on the recent rioting in French suburbs. In fact, the Post printed three front-page (page A01) articles on the French riots in the four days preceding the publication of Blankley's column, two of which were published before November 7.

The Saturday, November 5, edition of the Post featured a front-page article titled "As Youth Riots Spread Across France, Muslim Groups Attempt to Intervene," and the Sunday, November 6, Post featured an article, also on the front page, titled "Rage of French Youth Is a Fight for Recognition."

The Post published another front-page article on Tuesday, November 8, titled "France Beefs Up Response to Riots."

From Blankley's November 9 Washington Times column:

Now, two weeks into the appalling explosion of violence in Europe (and the equally appalling French governmental passivity in the face of such violence) most of the world's media treats this huge event as the third or fourth story on the evening news. From the BBC and CNN to the major newspapers of the world, the story is underreported and misreported. On Monday The Washington Post was still not reporting the story on the front page.

Notably, Blankley's own newspaper ran the same number of front-page articles as the Post. According to a Nexis search,* The Washington Times has published three front-page articles on the French riots: "Unrest hits Paris as riots spread afar," November 6; "Paris police fear rioters' heavy arms," November 7; and "Riots spread across borders," November 8.

*Nexis search was for articles containing (France w/10 riot!) or (French w/10 riot!) or (Paris w/10 riot!) for all Washington Post and Washington Times articles over the past month.