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The Washington Post’s Deborah Howell has a long history of sending readers to the dictionary to determine whether the term "ombudsman" entails systematically perverting journalistic standards. But her column today (h/t Julia) proves again the problem is not the term but the fact Ms. Howells has no idea what it means.
Lamenting WaPo’s declining revenues and circulation, Ms. Howell notes the numerous complaints she receives from "conservative" readers that the WaPo is "too liberal." She then adds this fact-free observation:
(1) Neither the hard-core right nor left will ever be satisfied by Post coverage — and that’s as it should be. But it’s true that The Post, as well as much of the national news media, has written more stories and more favorable stories about Barack Obama than John McCain. Editors have their reasons for this, but conservatives are right that they often don’t see their views reflected enough in the news pages. . . .
The Post’s latest circulation losses were less than many large papers suffered, and business executives say the advertising downturn has more to do with the economy than with political coverage. That said, the imbalance still needs to be corrected.
It seems we imagined all those stories about Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers, about Obama’s presumptuousness and elitism and Michelle’s disloyalty and all of the media’s endless repetition of McCain/Palin lies about Obama’s tax plans, the insinuations about his being an alien, unAmerican, a Muslim, a radical, a terrorist sympathizer, a socialist (no! communist!), and in general a threat to the American way of life and civilization as we know it.
If the WaPo pushed back against the McCain-Palin statements and determined they were lies/distortions or vicious smears and innuendo, do those count as anti-McCain stories?
I just watched a McCain stump speech in Virginia, and virtually every sentence was a misrepresentation, a lie, a smear, a sneer, an insult, fear mongering or an insinuation about Obama’s patriotism. How would Ms. Howell want the WaPo to report this? Does she agree with Sarah Palin that any WaPo criticism of such dishonesty violates McCain’s/Palin’s 1st Amendment rights to free speech?
Shorter Li’l Debbie: "Truth and reality have a well know liberal bias. We should correct this by shilling for McCain, lying more and validating right wing fantasy land."
39 Comments
Goodbye journalism, we hardly knew ye.
WaPo is barely journalism any more. The fact “conservatives” see it as “liberal” say a lot about how far to the right the ‘pukes have gone.
Fuck ‘em.
OK..I’ve got it…for every positive comment the WaPo makes on Obama…they have to make a positive comment for McCain..and vice versa..because THAT, doncha know, is teh real journalism, right?
Or, is it that for every positive comment about Obama, they have to make a negative one..like “President obama is very tall and thin…but he has big ears.”
The liberal media reports that as “he doesn’t take too much room on a crowded subway, and is a good listener.”
Main Street Media should be “relegated to the dustbin of history”
Their business model presumes an oligarchy and bloggers are by nature democratic.
All the MSM has done is spout Pravda like Potemkin Villages(CV)
Digg this post please.
dugg
I’ve seen many media outlets apply this “fairness doctrine.” Never mind that the right-wing attacks on Obama seem to range from specious to outright slander.
The woman is nuts. Next time the Post has layoffs, and they will, lay her off.
no, they won’t, she is now part of the corporate spin machine
how bizarre
here’s a news flash for these “journalists”;
when john mccain or sarah palin says or does something stupid, reporting that DOES NOT get a ballancing story against obama
when obama says or does something good, mccain does NOT get a ballancing rerport
when you do something bad you get reported, there is NO ballance, if it winds up unballanced, THAT IS THE POINT.
what a bunch of pathetic republican tools we have running our supposed fourth estate
Reporting that McCain’s crowd yells “kill him” is negative reporting about McCain by the WaPo…while reporting that Obama wants to raise up our country is just attacking McSlander. Facts are useless by Republican standards.
I DEMAND MORE FAKE BALANCE!!!
Is it really so difficult when McCain or Palin or any of their goons step in the shit, for a WaPo reporter to take a little spin around the internets to say NRO or LGF and snag a story about Obama being the love child of Malcombe X and Angela Davis or about his involvement in the death of Vince Foster so that the conservatives have something to cheer too?
BALANCE PEOPLE!!!
The main political story of the last two weeks is that Obama has been subjected by the McCain/Pali campaign and its surrogates and supporters to incessant, vicious demonization, slander, misrpresentation, hate-filled and often violence-inducing rhetoric, less-than-subtle racism, jingoism and red-baiting. His supporters are being systematically discouraged from voting and there have been at least three nascent attempts at assassination.
That’s the story of this campaign. Those are all facts. No major media outlet is reporting this story — they’re just covering the speeches and interviewing the spinners.
It is miracle Obama is still ahead, and will be a greater miracle if he wins.
And the NYT wonders why their revenues are off 50%! It’s because they don’t have a “flavor” anymore.
and when was the last time anybody won or lost an election based on WaPo smear reporting? a good expose maybe.. but hardly day to day Dem bashing. WaPo readers are, for the most part, cynical members of the elite or sophisticates by fully committed partisans for one side or another. WaPo never committee Joe the unemployed thug to go to the poles… Faux maybe.
Speaking about Faux, I noted that they’re trying to invent their own Oct surprise by hinting that Obama aunt is, gasp, an illegal alien! ummmmm
I went out to see what the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press had to say about Norm Coleman’s $75,000 kerfuffle.
Coleman: ‘Stop attacking my family’
Late suit throws fuel on heated Senate race
Is a Texas lawsuit a last-second political attempt to twist an already twisted race for a Minnesota U.S. Senate seat?
For a state that has Obama leading by 16% the coverage is always pro-right. Now I remember why I wouldn’t line a bird cage with these rags.
She’s an idiot. Should form a club with Fred Wertheimer, who is also a proponent of false equivalence.
L’il Debbie must belong to the Ron Fournier school of journalism. And then there’s that other graduate with a degree in journalism who doesn’t understand what the First Amendment is.
Give me just the facts, ma’am. And frack your frickin’ “balance.”
I’d like to take credit for training my bird to unload over pictures of McCain and Palin but it didn’t require any coercion. He has good progressive instincts.
Jane is up top with a new piece on Boehner
So a wealthy old geezer suffering from mild cognitive impairment combined with a lifetime of bad judgment hooks up with a shallow narcissist and there must be, MUST BE something just as bad in the “No Drama” campaign of Obama-Biden?
Jeebus. This is yet one more reason why mainstream media is tanking.
If even conservatives like Charles Fried as well as Colin Powell, William Ruckelshaus, Russell Train and more have endorsed Obama, then WaPo is allowing themselves to be hijacked by conservative extremists to even contemplate forced equivalency.
Fish wrapper. That’s what Little Debbie wants to make of WaPo.
Oh, I would strongly encourage the WaPo making this change. It should fully and completely transition into the “Fox News” of print, eliminating any residual veneer of journalistic credibility it currently tolerates.
Y’know how an individual’s “published” picture is always about 300% better than what they look like in real life?
Well take a gander @ Lil Debbie above, and then imagine what she looks like trotting into the WaPoo building to work.
Ms. Howell seems to confuse “coverage” with journalism. Stenography is not journalism, it’s taking down the politico’s message word-for-word without comment, context or fact-checking. Journalism, on the other hand, requires giving the reader objective, verifiable background information, and checking it against the speaker’s prior statements. It also involves asking other people what they think, and delving into why they might hold their opinions. Have they acknowledged or hidden conflicts of interest that might deprive their opinion of objectivity?
It would be coverage, for example, to repeat McCain’s statements. Observing that McCain said the opposite the day before would be a start at good journalism. Observing, further, that he’s spoken eight times about an issue and held eight different, mutually contradictory opinions, while pointing to no relevant change of facts or circumstances, would be better journalism. Pointing out that his party or the entire senate or 78% of Americans disagree with him would be thorough journalism. But none of that would be negative coverage; it would simply be accurate, fair journalism. If there’s a negative effect, it’s McCain’s doing, not the press’s.
Ms. Howell had a superb career becoming the Post’s ombudsperson. She knows that what I’ve just written is Journalism 101. She also knows that if she’s no longer willing to practice it, she should retire or change her position’s title to Fred’s Mouthpiece. Refusing to do either is to remain a propagandist, not a journalist, let alone be an ombudsperson. The latter’s job is to represent statistically significant reader opinion, not the opinions of those paid to criticize her to improve their boss’s ratings.
Scarecrow!
Good one!
Did you send it to WaPo or Debya herOWNself?
I would have.
Dear WP, I’m canceling my subscription because your ombudsman is biased. Cut, paste, mail, cancel.
Dugg!
Blue America up at the Mothership
Isn’t Miss Gulch’s tour of doody about up?
Perhaps Donny can’t find another news and opine twister who has the rhetorical prestigitation skills of his best Gooper gurl.
According to republicans dishonesty and hypocrisy are inherent rights. The same applies to slander and libel. After all, just because a republican makes a statement does not imply that he must mean it. Without the inherent right to lie what possible good can come from the other rights?
In an unguarded moment Senator Kyl said that John McCain will lose, but to hear him tell it, he did not mean lose as in will lose he meant the election was McCain’s to lose.
Reality is an unfair straight jacket for republicans’ freedom of expression.
There are three political parties in the U.S. They are the Pimp Party, (corporations,) the Whore Party, (republicans,) and the john Party, (democratic representatives.) The ambition to become a Whore so that with a little luck in the future one might become a club or honorary member of the Pimps is destroying America.
Sure, where constructive criticism is deserved and as soon as conservatives display they can disobey their extreme loyalty to an level that they would be able, willing to show some inkling of independent thought to observe on their own party?
Sure, do that and have you people get with our people.
The polls are in the tank- just like the dishonest media has been. They are perpetrating a fraud on the the American peple and that fraud is Obama.
They are trying to discourage people from getting to the polls (voter suppression).
Add that to the illegal voter registration and voter fraud courtesy of Obama’s ACORN and Project Vote- EVERYONE must get out and vote McCain-Palin on Tuesday.
For a preview of an Obama Presidency- go to this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05kzfW3SQHk
What Michelle Obama thinks about America:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRdg3qpvNzo
McCain-Palin 2008
And PLEASE don’t waste your precious vote on your favorite candidate like Hillary, Huckabee, Paul, Nader, Barr or Romney.
It’s a 2 man race and it will either be -shudder- Obama or McCain November 4th.
GO McCain-Palin 2008!
I take it you believe that having been registered by some slacker too lazy to get an actual human to register, Mickey Mouse will actually show up at the polls and vote?
And that he and Minnie and Donald Duck and whatever other characters were registered will show up in sufficient quantity to win a majority of the Electoral College?
Whatever drugs you’re on, you should share. Or would that be too socialist a concept?
.
Equal coverage of the issues is one thing equal coverage of the candidates making news is an other. I remember tons of I would like to have a beer with Bush columns from the Brain Dead media and tons of Al Gore is boring stories.
Years later I have to ask just what has Bush done right during his entire term? Years Later Al Gore has won a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award while the press has to eat their words about who they would rather have a beer with.
hey! check this out, it’s rediculous!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGF-HEd6XnA
How is she anything more than a homeless person who lives in the WaPo editorial offices?
Thanks Scarecrow.