And It's Gone: "War In Ukraine" Quietly Scrubbed From WaPo Masthead
"It's over" - comments investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg after noticing that The Washington Post quietly deleted a prominent tab from its Masthead.
What was a long featured "War in Ukraine" tab, which had been there from the start of the war going back to Feb. 2022 has disappeared...
An Internet Archive search and review of all Washington Post frontpages shows the tab was there throughout all of 2022. It was also present through most of 2023, until very recently.
Ironically just yesterday Ukraine's President Zelensky again complained that the world's focus has been taken off supporting his country's struggle due in large part to the events in Israel and Gaza.
In an interview weeks ago, he had laid out that "We already can see the consequences of the international community shifting (attention) because of the tragedy in the Middle East. He added at the time: "Only the blind don't recognize this."
WaPo's change in its frontpage is certainly emblematic of this trend, but also the war fatigue that has long gripped the American public, and the widespread acknowledgement that Ukrainian forces are losing.
Still, readers can navigate the WaPo's homepage and still eventually get to a "War in Ukraine" tab, by first clicking on the "World" tab located third from last on the masthead. Ukraine's supporters are none too happy about this highly symbolic development...
⚡️A tab dedicated to the war in Ukraine has been removed from the main page of The Washington Post website. pic.twitter.com/lcQlOVXPm7
— UNITED24media (@United24media) December 20, 2023
@washingtonpost We still care about this ‼️
— Lisa Farrar 🇺🇦 (@Kembleford) December 20, 2023
Is it time for the Zelensky government and its external powerful backers to get serious about peace negotiations yet? While Zelensky still says no, it seems the rest of the world and Western public is long past ready.