Communist Sympathizers in the Media

By Cliff Kincaid

January 7, 2026

I was a young journalist covering the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) when I heard Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post at the “think tank” teaching a “journalism” class and commenting that the leftist guerillas in Latin America were considered “the good guys.”

DeYoung participated in the IPS “class” at a time when President Ronald Reagan was repelling a Soviet-Cuban invasion of the hemisphere.

Reagan had commented, at the time, that the Democrats were becoming Marxist in orientation, and he urged Congress to investigate Marxist members of the Democratic Party. He was asked by Arnaud de Borchgrave, “What is to be done when two dozen pro-Marxists, with real political clout, can in our own Congress influence great issues of defense, arms control and international policy?” He replied: “Well, Arnaud, that is a problem that we have…”

Now the problem is much larger and one of their comrades has captured the mayor’s seat in New York City.

A caller on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program many years ago wondered where people such as Rep. Ilhan Omar came from. She is the Democratic Party Muslim who counts communist Angela Davis as her idol.

These people have not emerged “out of the woodwork,” as the caller said. One of my mentors, Reed Irvine, endorsed and helped publish the 1990 book, Communists in the Democratic Party.

The number of communists in the Democratic Party is now so large that books have been written about it. Anti-communist analyst Trevor Loudon has written a number of them.

To understand how journalism has been “fundamentally transformed,” please read this report, “Saving the World For Socialism: How Soviet Dupe and Fellow Traveler Curtis MacDougall Trained Today’s ‘Progressive’ Journalists.” MacDougall conceived “interpretative reporting,” the name of his textbook, and drove many young journalists to embrace this far-left worldview.

The report is based in part on my own experience in journalism. I saw it from the inside.

Karen DeYoung had told that IPS class, attended and tape-recorded by this reporter, that “most journalists now, most Western journalists at least, are very eager to seek out guerrilla group leftist groups, because you assume they must be the good guys.”

DeYoung herself demonstrated the truth of that remark when she wrote a series of stories datelined “At a Sandinista Training Camp,” during the Cuban-backed revolution in Nicaragua. “At that time, she reported that despite claims by Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza that the Sandinistas were Communist terrorists, the Sandinistas said they favored the establishment of a “pluralistic democracy,” not a “new Cuba.”

But look at the current coverage of the Washington Post, supposedly taking a new turn under owner Jeff Bezos. While the editorial board ran an editorial supporting President Trump’s action on Venezuela, its “news” coverage still shows a sympathy for the fate of the left-wing “good guys” in Latin America, as defined by Karen DeYoung.

The paper’s January 3 article tries to pick apart the capture of Maduro, calling it “audacious” rather than brilliant.

Here’s an actual quote from the article:

“The audacious move makes good on Trump’s long-held desire to remove the Venezuelan strongman, but was done without congressional authorization, is in apparent violation of international law and leaves open questions about Venezuela’s future.”

By contrast, the Post editorial said, “Maduro’s removal sends an important message to tin-pot dictators in Latin America and the world: Trump follows through. President Joe Biden offered sanctions relief to Venezuela, and Maduro responded to that show of weakness by stealing an election.” It called Maduro “illegitimate.”

The “strongman?” Maduro is an indicted narco-terrorist and illegitimate leader.

By the way, Karen DeYoung is still at the Post. She is associate editor and senior national security correspondent.

Let’s take a hard look at one of the most prominent communist sympathizers at this paper.

I remember a Washington Post “journalist” by the name of Laurence Stern, who was then the national news editor of The Washington Post. When Laurence Stern died in 1979, I covered his memorial service, noting that among those who eulogized him at the memorial service presided over by Post executive editor Ben Bradlee was the Washington station chief of the Cuban intelligence service, Teofilo Acosta. I reported that he had praised Stern as a “friend.”

In fact, Acosta said, “I’m from Cuba, I am Marxist-Leninist. I am human. Larry Stern was my friend, one of my best friends. I loved him.” He said he taught Stern how to rhumba.

It was Laurence Stern who used his key position at the Washington Post to try to whitewash rather than expose Orlando Letelier. Documents recovered from the briefcase of Letelier, a former ambassador and later cabinet officer in the government of Chile under the Marxist president, Salvador Allende, demonstrated that he was being financed out of Cuba and tasked with manipulating American journalists and others.

The Post dismissed the significance of the documents possibly because Letelier’s address book included Stern’s business and home phone numbers.

Post owner Jeff Bezos shifted the paper’s editorial direction in early 2025, mandating that its opinion section defend “personal liberties and free markets.” He said that “viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

It turns out those contrary “viewpoints” are in the paper’s news coverage.

If Bezos wants his paper to defend “personal liberties and free markets,” he must extend this mandate to the news pages, starting with those who consider leftist guerillas “good guys” and offer flimsy reasons to oppose the liberation of Venezuela.

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net