PressThink: Transparency at the Post: Q & A with Jim Brady of Washingtonpost.com

Transparency at the Post: Q & A with Jim Brady of Washingtonpost.com

"I don't think there are many reporters who oppose thoughtful criticism of their work. What they oppose is being called vulgar names and assigned all sorts of evil motives by people who don't know them. That's not a dialogue, in my opinion, it's akin to shouting insults from a moving car."

When Jim Brady decides to shut down the comments at post.blog to prevent even bigger problems we’re going backwards in our ability to have a conversation with the Washington Post. That isn’t good. If the press decides to close itself off because the costs of participating in the new openness are judged to be too high, that is a loss for everyone. (For background, see the AP story, the summary by Editor & Publisher; Vaughn Ververs at Public Eye here, and here; Fishbowl DC on Media Matters vs. Deborah Howell; and this blogger for a detailed chronology with links.)

Maybe we can get it changed back to open again. I hope so because I was the one who reminded Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake that the post.blog had a comment function. It had taken heavy use, including some very angry people making themselves known, during the argument over Dan Froomkin’s White House Briefing. Posts that Froomkin, and national political editor John Harris wrote attracted 1,000+ comments, some of them quite heated, and over the top. Jane took my suggestion and recommended that her readers bring their reactions to the “Maryland Moment” thread, which was at the top of the post.blog. From there it snowballed.

I understand why people were angry at Deborah Howell. She seems to have taken the concept of balance to new lengths, where not only news accounts and ombudsman columns need to be balanced, but the Jack Abramoff scandal itself “needs” to be balanced between the two major parties.

Her both-sides-fed-at-the-trough statements have been called inaccurate, outrageous, unfortunate, less-than artful. “He had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties…” I read these strained descriptions of bipartisan exposure as more of a wish— a wish for balance in the facts of the scandal itself. (See also Deborah Howell responds at the post.blog.)

But I also understand why Brady did what he did. If washingtonpost.com lets stand extreme charges aimed to maximize rage at Howell, and some of the charges contain ugly personal insults, then Brady’s position becomes impossible if the staff of the Washington Post objects, and demands to know:

Why are we giving Post.com space to people who wish for our destruction and call for our heads?

Jim, it’s not like there aren’t other spaces online where that can and will be said robustly.

Does transparency really mean making room for: death to the Washington Post, and down with their ombudsman too?

And I don’t think Brady had good answers to any of that—do you?—so he shut down the comments for now. The only good thing about his decision is the room he left for practical suggestions. (Got any? Head to comments.) That, and he’s willing to explain himself and talk about the controversy. Here’s my Q & A with Brady, which we did by e-mail late last night and this morning.

Q: Has transparency at the Washington Post taken a hit with your decision to close comments at post.blog?

Jim Brady: Despite all the names I’m being called—and there are some creative ones in my e-mail, I assure you—I’m all for transparency and am more than willing to talk about this decision publicly. It’s pretty simple, actually: As a site, we’ve decided there have to be limits on the language people can use. I’m getting a lot of e-mail saying, essentially, that I need to accept the fact that profanity and name-calling are part of the web DNA. That may be true for the Web as a whole—though I hope not—but I don’t run the Web as a whole, I run washingtonpost.com, and on our site, we get to make the rules. Readers can reject those rules, and post elsewhere. That’s their right. There are plenty of blogs that will allow commenters to say whatever they want; we’re just not going to be one of those.

I think evidence would suggest that we’ve been working hard at being transparent. We make reporters and editors of the paper and site available for Live Onlines on a daily basis (in fact, I’m doing one today at noon.) We cut a deal with Technorati that points to blogs discussing Post content (often in a negative fashion). We have used post.blog to try and communicate with readers during the Dan Froomkin controversy last month and over the past week.

So this isn’t about our unwillingess to hear criticism, it was an unwillingness to continue to have Post staffers viciously attacked on the site and an inability on our end to work quickly enough to avoid those posts from showing up. The readers who have complained that there was nothing offensive or profane in the comments should remember that they didn’t see the ones we removed. If they had, they would better understand why we did what we did. If you look around the site, we’ve built great communities in other blogs and through Live Online, so I feel pretty comfortable about our willingness to engage our readers.

Q: So do you still want to encourage criticism of the Washington Post and its writers?

Jim Brady: I’d say that we want to encourage discussion of Post content. Some of that will obviously be critical, and that’s fine. I don’t think there are many reporters who oppose thoughtful criticism of their work. What they oppose is being called vulgar names and assigned all sorts of evil motives by people who don’t know them. That’s not a dialogue, in my opinion, it’s akin to shouting insults from a moving car.

In this case, obviously people were angry at Deborah’s column, so they vented for a few days. Then, in an act that actually displayed transparency, she responded to the readers online — three days before her column in the paper — to address the complaints. And because she didn’t say exactly what the commenters wanted her to say, she was attacked again for most of Thursday before we decided we couldn’t effectively manage the flow any lomger. So you could say that our attempt to be more transparent is what got us in trouble here.

Q: Some of the stuff I saw, I would definitely have taken it off, and if I couldn’t get to it fast enough then I would have no choice. So I understand your decision to pull down the comment boards. In my experience, open forums in “visible” places without moderation simply don’t work. Have you come to the same conclusion?

Jim Brady: Not yet. I still have hope that we can do this without moderation at some point, though I’d be lying if I said this didn’t shake my faith. But it should be noted that we’ve had blogs on the site for more than a year now, and we’ve had very few problems. We’ve built really energized communities all around the site, and that’s more important to me than what’s happened in the past week.

Q: A lot of people thought that Deborah Howell engaged in escalation of a kind by not correcting or clarifying what she wrote about Jack Abramoff and the Democrats. I would like to know your opinion on that. And wouldn’t the ombudsman be better off with a blog where she could add to, clarify, and further report on things in her column, and answer questions that have constituencies made of thousands of active readers?

Jim Brady: Well, as I said, she did eventually post on our blog, a few days before her column was scheduled to appear in the paper. Maybe we should have done that sooner, but I’ll be honest, I don’t think the tone would have been much different if she’d posted something on Monday or Tuesday. The basic issue here is that she didn’t deliver the exact message her critics wanted her to. So I’m not sure how much the timing had to do with it, though it’s a valid question

As far as the blog goes, Deborah just started in this position a few months ago, and like all ombudsmen, she’s swamped with letters, calls and e-mails. Deborah has worked closely with washingtonpost.com since she started, and there’s been some discussion about her doing more online, but I doubt the events of the past week have helped that mission much.

Q: It seems to me that when the complaint is about the adjudicator of complaints you’re in a different situation. In this case, where was discontent with the ombudsman’s misstatement—or “inartfully worded” one, as Howard Kurtz said—supposed to go? And what about discontent with her performance in the job? To whom are people supposed to complain, or is that one that is better taken outside the Post domain?

Jim Brady: Well, I think it’s safe to say everyone at the web site and the newspaper are aware of this particular issue, so the openness worked in that regard. Even with comments closed off for now, readers can submit letters to the editor, or an Op-Ed. And once we make some changes in how we manage comments, we’ll look to reopening those areas.

Q: “We’re not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers,” you wrote, “but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it.” PressThink readers might fancy some of that, but give us a better sketch: think more carefully about what? What are the problems rearing up that you need better answers for?

Jim Brady: There are two factors: human and technical. In the human case, we need to take a better look at how many people we have handling comments areas on the site. We’ve actually been working on a few projects that would expand site interactivity, and with this experience under our belts, we’re going to need to re-evaluate how many people need to patrol these new areas, what hours they need cover and how they deal with problematic posters.

On the technical side, we need to be more creative with our profanity filters. We do block a handful of profane words, though for reasons I can’t yet explain, it didn’t seem to work in all cases here. But, either way, our list was not long enough or creative enough. Also, we’ll be looking at whether we need to review comments before going live, either across the board or only for particularly controversial topics. Additionally, we need better measures for blocking users who continue to cause problems. So those are some of the things we’re re-evaluating.

Q: Under what conditions would you re-open comments at post.blog?

Jim Brady: Probably only after we make some of the changes mentioned above. But it should be noted here that we did not turn comments off on any other blogs, just this one.

Q: Let me tell you a danger I see and get your reaction to it. This isn’t a comment on your decision with the post.blog, but a larger problem. There’s a danger when journalists look at complaints about the news from people involved in a political struggle and discount them because they come from partisans. The highest rates of participation in politics and in the arguments found in newspapers have come during periods in our history when things were intensely partisan. A partisan might be defined as someone who gives a shit about the outcome of the political stuggles read about in the Washington Post in such splendid detail.

It seems to me if you’re dismissing the complaints of the partisans you’re reacting in exactly the wrong way; they’re your best customers. They’re way involved in the news. You have to find a way of hearing them, or your sunk. Of course some of them are crazy, excessive, extremely rude and they say things for shock value or just to rage at the machine. Maybe it’s hard to find the signal in the noise, but that is exactly what the press has to do. There’s an idiocy to partisan complaints; there’s also the heart and soul of politics in them. No political journalist can afford to ignore that, and no online editors, either. I’m afraid that after an incident like this, more will. What do you think?

Jim Brady: I guess my quibble would be with the core assumption that the issue here was partisanship. The issue here was civility. Whether it’s from the left or the right, we’ve decided as a site that we’re not going to have an “anything goes” policy. If you want to take issue with articles in The Post or on washingtonpost.com, go right ahead. If you want to complain that you think we’re biased to the left or right — and, believe me, we get it from both sides — have at it. But if you want to viciously attack and insult Post or Post.com staffers or other blog commenters, then go somewhere else to do it. That’s the deal we’ve had with a large majority of our loyal readers for years, and we’ve decided that’s going to be our policy going forward.

Q: Thanks, Jim, for answering my questions. (End.)

My commentary: About transparency and the need for the Post to engage with critics, you’re not going to find anyone in the national press who gets it more than Jim Brady does. And so Jane Hamsher is wrong in her post about the comment shut down, where she raged at Brady, claiming he wanted to silence critics of the newspaper. “I’m assuming WaPo management just imperiously decided they didn’t want to have a public record of opposition to the embarrassment that is Deborah Howell, and Brady was forced to make some excuse for shutting it down.”

That’s a reckless assumption. I think he’ll try to bring the comment board back at post.blog, although I’m not sure “civility” should be the watchword there when he does. In fact Brady said in his online chat today that he hopes comments critical of Howell will be returned to their place in the dialogue. “We’ll go back through them and restore the ones that did not violate our rules.”

Meanwhile, flaming the friends of transparency isn’t helping anyone. Get it, Jane?

I don’t think “civility” gets Brady anywhere. And I’m not confident I know what he means when he says, “The issue here was civility.” Absent enforcement by pro-active moderators, The Rules the Post declares in force will simply not be in force. This is not a new finding about the Internet.

Jane Hamsher was therefore right when she said at her blog: “anyone who runs a board open to the public just knows that people who show up are often not going to play by the ‘rules’ you set up, in fact they’ll break them just because you have them.”

If that is correct (realistically, I think it is) then a commitment to having open comments means a commitment to moderating them carefully. If you don’t do that, then you can’t really say: it’s a shame a few rotten apples spoil it for everyone. To demand civility is one thing, to expect it something else.

Brady said he was expecting breakdowns with the outpouring at Howell, but it just got to be too much. I wonder what the results would be if “trusted readers” did the moderating for a few hours (2-3) a week, or something like that. Probably it wouldn’t work, but maybe someone reading this knows better.

We could just say: hire the people you need and re-open the boards, washingtonpost! But then Brady’s cost of being open to comment just increased, and that has consequences for future acts of openness. Bad for transparency at the Post. Driving up the internal costs of opening outward is not smart politics for those who want two-way newspapers that speak, listen, hear and get heard.

After Matter: Notes, reactions & links…

Deborah Howell answers back: The Firestorm Over My Column.

Going forward, here’s my plan. I’ll watch every word. I’ll read every e-mail and answer as many legitimate complaints as I can. The vast majority of my work takes place outside this column. But I will reject abuse and all that it stands for.
To all of those who wanted me fired, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. I have a contract. For the next two years, I will continue to speak my mind.

Keep smiling. I will.

She also revises her language on making a mistake about Abramoff: “I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn’t. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties. My mistake set off a firestorm…” Sure to be talked about.

David Carr of the New York Times weighs in with a column arguing that comments are not worth the trouble. “It was not that long ago when readers enraged by something they had seen in the newspaper would have to find a pen, a piece of paper, an envelope and a stamp to make their feelings heard. Now, mainstream media outlets find themselves under attack for not providing bandwidth and visibility to people who wish them dead.” He has more on Howell being “stunned” by the reactions to her. And he says if you want to respond to him, write a letter and mail it— like, with a stamp.

Farhad Manjoo of Salon interviewed Howell and Post editor Len Downie and winds up with the best reported piece I’ve seen. A must if you’re following the story closely.

Saturday’s Post had Deluge Shuts Down Post Blog (Jan. 21) Paul Farhi:

The deluge, which overwhelmed the Web site’s screening efforts, began after Howell wrote in a column published Sunday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff “had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties.” That is incorrect. As Howell noted on Thursday morning in a short piece on Post.blog, Abramoff did not make direct contributions to Democrats but directed his lobbying clients to do so.

“That is incorrect” is what we weren’t hearing before. “Howell said yesterday she felt ‘stunned’ by the reaction to her Sunday column, which she called ‘imprecise’ in its characterization of Abramoff’s actions.”

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly:

Flame wars aren’t pretty things, to be sure, but I think Jim Brady is dead wrong when he says, “I don’t think the tone would have been much different if she’d posted something on Monday or Tuesday. The basic issue here is that she didn’t deliver the exact message her critics wanted her to.” In fact, if Howell had posted a simple correction to her column on Monday saying that she had made a mistake and Jack Abramoff donated money only to Republicans — and left it at that instead of straining to justify her original error — none of this would have happened. The messenger may have been rude and crude in this case, but the messenger was also right.

“When you actually watch — from the inside — how mainstream newsrooms work, it is really not too much to say that they operate on two guiding principles: reporting the facts and avoiding impressions of ‘liberal bias,’ says Josh Marshall. Things like the Howell blow-up aren’t pretty, but they’re “evening the balance, creating a better press.”

Brad Delong on Howell’s “Firestorm” column:

I’m happy that she’s changed her line on why Democrats aren’t in the first tier of people being investigated from “stay tuned” to “it’s not a bipartisan scandal; it’s a Republican scandal.”

“Jay, you’re wrong.” Steve Gilliard responds:

The Post doesn’t want transparency. They didn’t like the fact that they were challenged on a major issue of credibility and factual error. Deborah Howell refused to conceed this major error and when challenged, they mischaracterized the response and then shut down comments.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit: “Given the Post’s addition of technorati links to many of their stories, they’re in a better position than most to say ‘the blogosphere is our comment section.’ And, you know, it is.”

Slashdot is on the case.

Jim Brady did Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, and talked about the suspension of comments. But Jane Hamsher and Atrios are not impressed with his choice of venue.

Harry Jaffe of the Washingtonian has questions about where blogging is going at the Washington Post. He sees dangers ahead.

“I sympathize with the managers at the Post, but the reality is that they chose to play in a Media 2.0 space by launching blogs in the first place,” writes Terry Heaton. “Just because you don’t like the outcome doesn’t justify juvenile behavior like taking your ball and going home.”

Heaton points to Umair Haque at Bubblegeneration, who has a wilder take. We’re in a different risk climate but there’s value for those who can handle it. How Not to Manage the Edge: Washington Post Case Study: “I’m not saying that lunatics should be given free reign to comment. But neither should editors and execs think they have, anymore, totally free reign to dictate how the resources of the firm are used. In many cases, they’re much better off thinking of those resources as common resources - in this case, editors are much better off thinking the paper belongs to both readers and writers.”

Reader’s suggestion in comments: Why not host a debate between Howell and a “civil” proxy for the blogger critics/readers, such as Brad DeLong?

“They think we’re all trolls.” Jane Hamsher responds to Brady’s Q and A with Post readers, and to this post. “Flaming the friends of transparency isn’t helping anyone,” I wrote. “Get it, Jane?”

What I get is that listening to Brady and Rosen discuss the management of a large public board is like listening to two white, middle-aged Exxon executives discuss “what’s really wrong with the negroes.” As if this was some huge, unforseeable problem.
Anyone who sets up a public board like this in a highly partisan world with really active readers and doesn’t make plans for troll management in their system architecture is a full-on, four-flushing idiot.

Atrios on it: “We politely ask for corrections. They don’t happen. We start screaming for corrections. They still don’t happen. Eventually some half-assed weaselly blame-the-uncivil-critics statement is released. We scream louder. And, then, the horeshit pops up again on CNN.” See his follow-up too.

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News writes a letter to Romenesko about the inexplicables of Deborah Howell: “Seriously — to whom does one complain at the Washington Post when the person who is there to receive reader complaints defiantly gets it wrong?”

Mister Snitch isn’t buying:

Rosen points out that Brady’s loudest complainers are the paper’s best customers, and on that basis chides Brady for shutting down comments. But Rosen wants it both ways, going on to criticize Jane Hamsher for her comments about the shutdown. You know Jay, either comments get shut down or they don’t. You never sounded more like a hopeless academic…

But Jane Hamsher might be wrong in her comments about Brady, and the Washington Post might be wrong to dismiss complaints it reflexively labels “partisan.” That’s not having it both ways, Mister. That’s saying two things are true that don’t exclude one another. I expect a logic correction.

Ryan Pitts of the Spokesman-Review at his group blog, DeadParrots.net. “Sometimes a cooling-off period is exactly the right thing.”

“What a bunch of babies.” That’s Stephen Spruiell at National Review’s Media Blog about those who are livid at the Post. Hey, SS: when will we see comments at the National Review’s blogs? (The Corner, for example.)

Stephen now says: “comments on NRO blogs would be above my pay grade, but I wouldn’t be opposed.” He then revised his post: “Maybe this episode can help conservatives keep things in perspective the next time we challenge the media.”

Steve Yelvington has been in the newspaper biz:

Yes, it was out of control. Yes, people were attacking reader rep Deborah Howell personally. But so what? When Deborah Howell was editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, she was nicknamed “Dragon Lady.” She’s a tough woman and she can stand the flames.
We “big media” folks have to take the heat, both personally and institutionally, even if we think it’s craziness. So I don’t think I would have shut this one down.

But that doesn’t mean I think newspapers should never put the clamp on online behavior. I have no tolerance, zero, for members flaming each other. And if an interactive environment turns into a slum, I wouldn’t hesitate to bulldoze it … and build a new, better place.

Glenn Fleishman at Romenesko letters says: “You can’t ask for civility. You can’t expect it.”

When Brady asks for civility, he’s thinking about an audience similar to that which reads his print paper, not several hundred million people worldwide who might happen to trip into his forum. When Kinsley said that a few bad eggs spoiled the Wikitorial, apart from the very terrible idea that the Wikitorial represented, he also thought he was dealing with a subset of all users.
The Internet is global, folks!

Scott Rosenberg on what to expect: “If, in 2006, you’re an iconic media institution that’s seeking to give the public a platform to vent its disagreements and complaints, you should plan for a certain volume of problems. You should expect some disrespect. You should state what standards you intend to enforce, and you should have a plan for how you expect to enforce them.”

In a follow-up post Rosenberg compares conversation-by-blog in the software and political world. It’s too tribal to work in politics, but it is working in tech, he argues.

Posted by Jay Rosen at January 20, 2006 12:48 PM Print

Lack of civility does seem at least to be a partial excuse, because anybody who's been in the business long enough is thick-skinned enough to take insults for what they are (anger-venting), let them roll off and respond to the meaningful criticism. And what can eliminating the conduit for such venting do but increase the level of anger?

Posted by: Nora at January 20, 2006 1:33 PM | Permalink

Thanks, Jay.

I went to the live chat and recommended citizen moderators -- like ombudsmen for blog posters -- who could filter out the objectionable words.

One problem I see with the unwillingness to host virulently anti-Post opinions or anti-journalist rants is that anyone who sticks her or his head up in this climate -- in any climate, really -- is going to have her share of angry detractors.

It just goes with being part of the national conversation in a high-profile way. I don't think it is rationally avoidable.

Cuss words can and maybe should be filtered -- but nasty opinions should not be.

Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 20, 2006 1:34 PM | Permalink

"In my experience, open forums in 'visible' places without moderation simply don’t work"

Jay, if you are still working on your commentary, I would be interested in an elaboration about the nuts-and-bolts of "moderation," in your experience.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at January 20, 2006 1:34 PM | Permalink

Brady can talk around it all he wants, but he has never provided a satisfactory explanation as to why numerous comments, in the hundreds, that do not constitute offensive or hate speech have been taken down from the website.

Unfortunately, they do, however, tend to demonstrate that Deborah Howell is either incompetent or a transmission belt for GOP talking points. Her efforts to connect Democrats to the Abramoff scandal, and Kurtz's assistance, are just not credible.

Brady's response during an Post online chat today as to the need to remove all comments, and his intention to repost them in a few days (will this really happen?), is just the classic political/legal approach: wait a few days, and hope everything dies down, and we can repost the comments when no one cares anymore and claim that we really did allow discussion.

I guess you could call that transparency, by the standards of the Jacksonian era.

Meanwhile, Howell will print a column on Sunday (and, isn't it curious that Brady, in that chat today, refused to comment at all on the quality of Howell's work, despite several attempts to get him to do so, suggesting that there may be a major disagreement between the paper and the web operation on this issue, or maybe, just an indication that Brady is being scripted by the attorneys: "Just talk about the website and how the blogs will be operated."), and that is going to be explosive when she engages in another hacktistic attempt to justify her wrong statements about the Democrats and Abramoff.

This is not going away. Blogs like DailyKos and firedoglake and others are going to cut Howell to ribbons, while the Post acts as if the bloggers don't exist, or alternatively, that no one believes what they say.

As for Brady, I hope he has his resume out. He deserves better than covering for people like Howell, Kurtz and Sue Schmidt.

Posted by: Richard Estes at January 20, 2006 1:43 PM | Permalink

Finding the signal in the noise from people like Jane Hamsher isn't worth the time. It's like trying to find the "signal in the noise" from someone who's mentally ill. Sometimes there is no signal.

I don't blame the Post for ignoring people like Hamsher, who want to put forward their arguments in the most vicious manner possible. There is no "heart and soul of politics" in them. Their "heart and soul" is trying to find the most vicious and rude way to insult you. I wouldn't want those people as my customers.

Would you try to find the "signal in the noise" of someone who called you on the phone and started screaming at you? Or would you listen and try to figure out if this person actually had a point?

These people deserve to be tuned out, not coddled to see if there's any "signal in their noise." The way back to restoring civilized discussions of issues is to marginalize the screamers and the nut jobs. To pay attention to them only encourages more of their venom.

Posted by: Dexter Westbrook at January 20, 2006 1:45 PM | Permalink

The question was raised earlier as to whether post.blog was overwhelmed by an orchestrated assault.

I liken it to the cavalryman who's quietly tending his campfire, hears a noise, looks up and, lo and behold, what does he see -- over the nearest hill here come 3,000 pissed-off Apaches, whooping and hollering and armed to the teeth. (Or, in the interests of equal opportunity, make it the small band of Apaches quietly harvesting their corn who look up and see 3,000 rabid members of the U.S. Cavalry bearing down on them. Either way, the analogy works. )

Brady didn't discuss orchestration here today, but he did over at AskPost.com, at least indirectly, when he referred to "cases where's there's been a concerted effort to flood us with comments in a short period of time."

I think that's the real dilemma for a guy in his position.
And it's one that's a lot more thorny to wrestle with than deleting a few profanities.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 20, 2006 1:52 PM | Permalink

This is a longstanding problem harking back to the UseNet and 300 bpi Compuserv forums. One thing that does ameliorate this is to require users to log on with a real identity. People are much less likely to engage in this kind of abuse if they are not writing behind a pseudonym. I've almost alsways used my name on line, and I've found it makes for a little more deliberateness before a post. It worked well for TheWell, and on technical compuserv forums.

Posted by: JayAckroyd at January 20, 2006 2:21 PM | Permalink

the nearest hill here come 3,000 pissed-off Apaches, whooping and hollering and armed to the teeth

This has been building for more than a month; it's not a big surprise. My question is, If the Post didn't want a siege, why did they raise the drawbridge? The pitchforks came out and the mob gathered because Howell wasn't responding (and no, making a single, haughty dismissal of the issue is not being responsive).

Why not host a debate between Howell and a "civil" (if shrill!) proxy for the blogger critics/readers, such as Brad DeLong?

Posted by: Sven at January 20, 2006 2:23 PM | Permalink

Jay Rosen: Thank you for your thoughts and Q&A. Very helpful (and civil!)

Dexter Westbrook: I find it hard to believe that you have actually read Jane Hamsher. Firedoglake is one of the most substantive blogs out there. Partisan, sure, impassioned, sure, but any objective reading shows that it's got yer substance.

The Post has the right to moderate comments. But by shutting them down, the Post sure looks like it is diverting attention from Howell's ham-handed, bogus "balance," and pointing fingers at the mean, dirty rabble instead of responding to the criticism.

Posted by: Lame Man at January 20, 2006 2:38 PM | Permalink

The Post has been consistently stonewalling on Woodward, on the Froomkin debacle and now, Howell's bizarre form of balanced journalism that involves implying misconduct where none exists.

Shutting down the blog, and engaging in attacks on Jane Hamsher (and, note that the one here fails to engage in any of the many substantive comments that she had made on these issues) and others that aggressively criticism them will not reestablish the Post's lost credibility.

Whining about the "lack of civility" is an old tactic that has been used innumerable times to avoid the substance of the issue, in this instance, the inability of the Post to compel its journalists to act ethically and responsibly.

I've rarely heard anyone or any newspaper emphasize a lack of civility when it makes their critics look bad, and buttresses their position. It's only when the contrary is true that I see it happen, as here.

Brady would have us believe, years of Internet experience to the contrary, that the Post was forced to remove ALL of the comments about the Howell fiasco to stop a surge of insulting negative ones. It's ridiculous, and it's sad to see Brady (someone who Hamsher has consistently praised by the way for his implementation of visionary practices within the stodgy print media world) forced to embarass himself publicly in this way.

My off the wall guess is that Howell played hardball through the Guild or an attorney, and threatened legal action if all the remarks weren't pulled. So, now, we have the Post posting her web clarification, free of any criticism. All previous comments are gone, and no new ones can be posted. Kinda like a directive issued directly from Stalin.

And, this makes Jane Hamsher the problem?

I'm sure that they love it over at the White House. And that should make National Affairs Editor John Harris very happy. After all, during the Froomkin affair, he criticized Froomkin's web column on the ground the paper needed to be concerned about how it was perceived by the White House.

Posted by: Richard Estes at January 20, 2006 2:39 PM | Permalink

Howell really has to go.... the Post simply cannot afford the constant hits to its credibility that having someone like her as its "ombudsman" is going to bring.

(I'm no fan of Byron Calame, but I can't imagine him making a factually false statement, and not correcting it the moment it was shown to be factually false. )

...and unfortunately, the anger and contempt of the audience toward Howell is going to wind up in Brady's lap.

The irony, of course, is that Howell and Brady are both supposedly "keeping the Post accountable" --- the problem of course is that Howell herself needs to be held accountable.

Posted by: ami at January 20, 2006 2:40 PM | Permalink

Brady does a very good Howie Kurtz. And just as with Howie at the end of the day it won't wash.
"The natives are restless," as the great Ann Miller noted in the "I'll be Hard to Handle" number from Lovely to Look At. And they (ie. me, Jane, John Amato, Atrios, Digby, Kos, Skippy, Tbogg and a host of others) are likely to remain so as long as status quo operations like the Post continue to dissemble. Taking our cue from Ann Miller we'll tap dance all over their lying butts.

And I'm absolutely serious about the lying.

What IS Deborah Howell's job anyway? She certainly isn't an ombudsman. That would mean she'd deal with actual reader complainst -- rather than RNC complaints as she made plain in her piece about Abramoff. As she's already announced that she has no intention of responding to queires from "Media Matters in America" I can hardly wait to read what manner of specious piffle she's going to try to pass off as a "response to my critics."

The "Washington Post" is perfectly within its rights to have an RNC shill on staff. They just out to identify her as such -- and hire a REAL ombudsman.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein at January 20, 2006 2:41 PM | Permalink

The problem for Brady is two-fold.

First, he's just re-purposing content from the paper in many cases. An the paper is under independent control. So he has no authority to make someone respond to criticisms, or to control his own content.

Second, it appears that he either doesn't get the web fully, or is pretending not to due to #1. The fact that he thinks it was some special effort to dredge up Howell for a non-retraction non-apology "3 days before her column" says load. This was not a difficult correction. It could (and should) have been done within minutes of a fact check. Instead, the Post let this sit and fester for 5 days before issuing a non-apology.

What did they expect would happen? Frustration gets the best of everyone, sometimes. And as to chat "interactivity', a one sided black box where the Post person can cherry pick questions isn't "interactivity'. It's the illusion of interactivity, where the worth of the chat depends on the integrity of the host. Given the likely parallel between outrage and lower integrity, this is self defeating.

Which goes back to #1. A lot of journalists are used to having the big megaphone unchallenged. Ten years ago Howell could shove whatever she wanted out there, and people could only send mail into the black box, to be ignored if wanted.

Today, someone making a dumb mistake (we'll be charitable and assume that was what it was) will get publically nailed with a smaller, but still powerful megaphone. That's what happened to Howell. And she obviously didn't like it much. The power shifts.

But for Brady, this is a huge issue. He wants interactivity, but the nature of the .com/Post split, and the desire of Post reporters to meaintain the sole megaphone, unchallenged make it impossible for him to actually do what is necessary for it to work.

Posted by: John Nowicki at January 20, 2006 2:42 PM | Permalink

A big ol' Sing Out Louise! to John Nowicki -- who has it dead to rights (above). The speed and disseminating power of the 'net has overwhelmed the guardians of the status quo. They're not used to anyone questioning their authority, so they turn it into a question of "civility."

There's nothing civil about their rank snobbery.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein at January 20, 2006 2:48 PM | Permalink

There's another downside beyond lost civility in the kind of flamestorm that engulfed the Post in this episode -- namely, that the vituperation and name-calling simply come to dominate the conversation and crowd out more useful discussion.

My skin is thick enough to take the insults, but my attention span isn't long enough to wade through a thousand of them. That's especially true when the discussion is about somebody else and I'm just a curious bystander (as in this matter). When I encounter this kind of barrage, my impulse is to move on and do something more worthwhile.

The same problem arises when commenters hijack blog comments with an endless back-and-forth with one another. Once again, this quickly sends me (and, I suspect, most busy readers) elsewhere.

Posted by: Howard Weaver at January 20, 2006 3:08 PM | Permalink

Thanks again for a thoughtful post. The real issue here, however, isn't civility; it's control. This is the principal conflict between old media and the new, so it shouldn't surprise anybody that it shows up when the pressure is on.

While we're at it, we should examine the word "civility" and it's use here. Samuel Clemens was a civilized guy who wrote as Mark Twain, "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."

Posted by: Terry Heaton at January 20, 2006 3:08 PM | Permalink

Lovelady, your vivid simile made me laugh, but I don't think it is apt in this case. I hardly think of Howell et al at the Washington effin Post as "quietly tending their campfire." I think instead that they strung up some very tasty buffalo meat at the top of the highest hill around, hoping to ward off the God of the Thunder, and forgetting about off of the starving peons in the neighborhood.

Posted by: Phredd at January 20, 2006 3:09 PM | Permalink

What does calling a reporter (or anyone, for that matter) 'bitch' or 'whore' or even less pleasant descriptives have to do with criticism of a report or 'challenging the big megaphone' of the media?

It has nothing to do with thin-skin or fear of criticism to reject boorish behavior. And spewing venom has nothing to do with critiquing the report and/or reporter. Or ombudsman.

If the net is capable of self-correcting errors faster and more efficiently then old-school media, then what stops it from correcting boorish and hateful behavior during discussions?

Clearly, Brady is open to keeping communication open as he continues to respond to reader anger over the Howell mess. But the deserved spanking that Howell received from readers was undone by the childishly venomous reaction of some critics, not by Brady.

I don't blame Brady for shutting it down. It righteous anger can drown out the obscene and hateful response, then we've got bigger problems than post.blog.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 20, 2006 3:15 PM | Permalink

Here's a recent example from Jane Hamsher's Web site about what I'm talking about. It's oh so substantive, and classy, too.

It's a comment about a recent book, unread by me, by a National Review editor, called "Women who Make the World Worse." There's a series of vituperative, one-star reviews posted on Amazon by people who don't share the author's conservative politics.

Here's the Hamsher posting:

"I'd also like to thank Amazon for keeping the one star ratings on Kate O'Beirne's book as long as they did (and I like to think it was some self-respecting woman at Amazon who was responsible for holding out against extreme publisher/right wing pressure for so long, and if so, hon, you are my hero). It was long enough, however, to put the book in the shitter where it belongs and as we promised, the bitch is dead meat."

Anyone who wants to pay attention to this kind of stuff is welcome to, I guess. I think it's a a waste of time. It's crude, it's low class, it's not persuasive, it's wearying to read.

Signal in the noise? The person who generates such noise doesn't have a signal worth listening to.

Posted by: Dexter Westbrook at January 20, 2006 3:23 PM | Permalink

Damn.

Er, that should be "It righteous anger can't drown out the obscene and hateful response, then we've got bigger problems than post.blog.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 20, 2006 3:28 PM | Permalink

Wow.

That was maybe the most fatuous exhcange I've ever read, I think Brady is even denser than I assumed.

No sense given him credit for putting back something he shouldn't have removed before he puts it back. Maybe this time they will explain their "rules."

Get it, Jay?

Posted by: Lettuce at January 20, 2006 3:30 PM | Permalink

Howard Weaver above:

...namely, that the vituperation and name-calling simply come to dominate the conversation and crowd out more useful discussion.

Totally agree. As do many others I'd guess. Even happens here on occasion(!) One way to improve this a bit is with more robust discussion software, such as that running Slashdot or other sites where discussions are threaded, and allow comment scoring and such. That's generally a much more involved setup though, both technically and maintenance-wise. DailyKos uses such software, but I don't read it so I don't know how well it does or doesn't work. It seems to help quite a bit at Slashdot in my experience.

But eventually that sort of thing will probably need to be more widely implemented. At least for myself and many others to be able to get through active comment sections without saying "screw it" and going to check the weather.

Posted by: ToddG at January 20, 2006 3:30 PM | Permalink

Another one of those "substantive" posts by Jane Hamsher: referring to O'Beirne as "Sandpaper Snatch."

Yeah, plenty of signal in that noise!

Posted by: Dexter Westbrook at January 20, 2006 3:35 PM | Permalink

Dexter, feel free to substantively address what Hamsher has written about the Post and Howell anytime.

Someone here said that Brady is "open" to having transparent blog dialogue about the Post, and actually praised him for the remark. Yes, he's "open" to it, as he's shut down all dissenting voices on the blog to Howell's peculiar, fact free variant of journalism. Just like Deng Xiaoping was "open" to the Democracy Movement in Tiananmen Square.

The whole thing is a joke, and everyone knows it, and his primary objective, apparently ordered by Post management, is to give Howell a platform this Sunday to write whatever absurd nonsense to she wants to write about the blog, Abramoff and the Democrats, free of any criticism on the Post's site. As I said, I sense Guild or attorney involvement here.

Brady will have those comments back up on the website about 3 or 4 days after Howell's column runs on Sunday. That looks like it could be the deal that got cut.

Amazing that the Post would like a hack journalist destroy the viability of its Internet site, but that's what it is doing. Hopefully, as I said, Brady is looking for another job, because the Post, and people like Howell, will never tire of making him a public laughingstock again and again, as they are doing now.

Can't wait to read DailyKos, firedoglake, Brad Delong, et al, after Howell's column runs on Sunday. It's going to the journalistic equivalent of the Titanic.

Posted by: Richard Estes at January 20, 2006 3:44 PM | Permalink

Mr. Estes,

Hamsher has nothing of substance worth discussing. That's why she calls people "bitch" and "sandpaper snatch."

Have fun wading through the hatred.

Posted by: Dexter Westbrook at January 20, 2006 3:53 PM | Permalink

I think it would have been far better had Howell said something along the lines of I have reread those reports and I see readers are quite correct; no Democrat took money from Abramoff. This incident teaches me how important it is to read carefully and how easy it is to make a mistake. It gives me better insight as to how reporters can get it wrong and will make me a better ombudsman. I greatly regret the error.

Had she said something along those lines the incident would have been closed and further criticism would have looked churlish.

I think the Washington Post would do well to adopt some sort of Slashdot style of registration and self-moderation. It is effective with a minimum support requirement.

Jay, you are exactly correct when you say that partisans are a political reporter’s best customer. That is true in any market; but particularly in a town where politics is the chief activity. I also think leaving nasty comments, including those which call into question a staffer’s possible ancestry or personal virtue, should be left up. They are self-discrediting.

Lastly, it ought to be kept in mind what Washington, DC is like. We have a President, 100 Senators, 435 Congressmen, the IMF, World Bank, numerous associations and embassies. All of these organizations receive voluminous mail, much of it nasty. I can’t think of a community less sympathetic to those too thin skinned to deal with nasty comments.

Posted by: Alice Marshall at January 20, 2006 3:56 PM | Permalink

Richard E., if you can't wait to read DKos, fdl, Delong, why bother with the WaPo?

As far as Hamsher, Limbaugh has a huge following of dittoheads who think that he is substantive. By that standard does that make Rush and Jane substantive?

Posted by: bush's jaw at January 20, 2006 4:00 PM | Permalink

Dexter--

"Crude, low class, wearying to read" is an aesthetic judgment. Jay, in his "signal in the noise" idea was not engaging in aesthetics. I took him to suggest that he expects to find an underlying authentic attitude, even in the face of an unappealing presentation.

If so, I agree with Jay in this instance.

By way of historical example, there were plenty of liberal types who were blindsided by the Gingrich Revolution in the 90s because they dismissed the resonant message of Rush Limbaugh et al on account of talkradio's tone ("low class" and "wearying" perhaps?).

Similarly nowadays those same chattering classes fail to realize that Bill O'Reilly strikes a chord in the body politic, seeing only his pomposity and vituperation.

The messenger is not required to be either aesthetically pleasing or civil first, before being qualified to represent a viable point of view.

However, Dexter, you are right to the extent that debate would be more stimulating if people accompanied their signals with less noise.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at January 20, 2006 4:01 PM | Permalink

Public internet forums hosted by major media organizations were quite fashionable about 5-10 years ago, but most were cancelled by their hosts for uncertain reasons.
(For example, US News & World Report news magazine had very nice, but short-lived forum.)

Even C-SPAN, the pinnacle of public service in the media, quietly axed its polite and worthwhile internet "Community Forum" in late 2004.

It seems the MSM (...and even C-SPAN) do not really like the daily experience of dealing with uncontrolled input from their public -- apparently it's too untidy & unsettling.

Operating a successful public internet forum, of course, requires some daily effort & administrative attention -- but it is certainly a reasonably straightforward and inexpensive task. Several good ones have thrived for many years.

For what specific 'purpose' did the Washington Post management originally start their blog/forums ??

Do they even know ?

Posted by: DavidisonM at January 20, 2006 4:24 PM | Permalink

i have said this elsewhere on other forums: tho i did not read every single comment on the mirrored caches of the post.com's comments, none of them rose above (or sank below, if you will) the standard set by chris matthews, rush limbaugh, sean hannity, michael savage, or indeed, any op-ed page (including the post's) in the country.

some were strident, some were forceful, most were passionate, several angry, and some downright more clever than anything howell ever wrote (i especially liked the one that said the skipper, gilligan and mary ann voted ms. howell off the island).

but what else did the post expect when it vetted a blatant falsehood as fact, and then refused to acknowledge the proofs that were offered that showed as much?

it's a bit like hearing your parents admonish you "kids, we're not going to discuss why we killed your pet dog until you stop screaming."

only this time the dog is the truth. a national newspaper cannot regurgitate partisan talking points presented as the truth and not expect emotions to run high.

and the supposed "proofs" that ms. howell provided online links for neglected to substantiate several important missing steps, ie, were the clients already giving monies to the democrats, were those monies supposedly "directed" by abramoff actually ever received by democrats, and were the democrats aware of abramoff's invovlement, thus ensuring quid pro quo, to allow ms. howell to allege as much?

no, howell made assumptions and published them as fact, and then refused to acknowledge it when the readers called her on it.

there is nothing that escalates emotions more than insisting to engage in dialogue, without actually hearing the other side (and being blatant about your refusal).

as for jane hamsher's points, even jay must admit she is correct that setting up a national online forum must per force involve an expectation of troll-weeding, and if not, then the responsibility for the resulting fiasco lies with those who set up the forum without foresight, and not the trolls themselves.

trolls are a fact of life on the internets. don't open the door to the public and then get upset because they don't dress as nice as you do.

it takes very little effort and time to delete offending comments, as jay, jane, dkos and others can tell you. and therefore, we can only assume that washpost.com deleted the entire batch to eliminate the offending factual points the readers provided.

Posted by: skippy at January 20, 2006 4:30 PM | Permalink

Andrew: I tried to address your earlier question about moderation in what I added to "My commentary."

This post was linked to by Instapundit and Firedoglake around the same time. That's something that hasn't happened before.

More Hamsher:

Nobody at the Post has taken responsibility for Howell's comments. Nobody has printed a retraction, and the wagons have been circled by the likes of Howie Kurtz and Jim VandeHei, who now excuses Howell's comments as "a somewhat inartful way of making the point that Abramoff's clients, at his direction, gave money to members of both parties."
This attempt to "blame the trolls" and shift the dialog over onto a remedial internet issue that people like Kos, Atrios, Americablog, Digby, MyDD, Crooks & Liars and other deal with every day of the week quite seamlessly is...

Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 20, 2006 4:41 PM | Permalink

Brady's whining about lack of civility and name-calling is absurd. I read many posts as they came up live, and the ones that were truly out of line were relatively few.

The use of the term "hate speech" -- by Vandehei, specifically, and perhaps other Post-people -- to describe garden-variety name-calling is truly bizarre and probably quite revealing of their true political leanings.

Anyway, what a bunch of whiny babies!

Posted by: nobody at January 20, 2006 4:42 PM | Permalink

"Crude, low class, wearying to read" is an aesthetic judgment. Jay, in his "signal in the noise" idea was not engaging in aesthetics .... The messenger is not required to be either aesthetically pleasing or civil first, before being qualified to represent a viable point of view.
Andrew Tyndall

I think what Dexter is longing for is an aesthetics of Internet debate.
It ain't gonna happen ... but I sympathize with the desire.
It's the same reason that most of us -- me included -- prefer to debate local politics at, say, a supervised forum, rather than at a rowdy bar.
But that doesn't change the fact that on election day, the noisy denizens of the bar still get to vote -- and, depending on the locale, they often carry the day.
Brady created a bar -- and now he's trying to decide just how rowdy he wants it to get. Or not to get.
If he makes it too tame, he'll lose droves of customers who came in the first place to sound off.
On the other hand, if he let's it descend into a free-for-all, he'll also lose customers who get tired of leaving the place every night all bloody and battered.
It's a tricky business, this bartending.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 20, 2006 4:43 PM | Permalink

Seems to me you can have a "thick skin" against words only to the extent the words are allowed to have impact.
If the nasty word comes from a seven-year-old yelling out the window of a car, you don't need a thick skin. It has no impact. If it comes from a respected peer, it has impact and you either manage it because you have a thick skin, or you are affected by it.

IMO, journalists don't have "thick skins" as much as they have an iron-clad view that no reader complaint could possibly have legitimacy.
If this is the case, there is no need to develop a thick skin. The skin remains thin.

Then, when something like this happens, there is no armor.

Thomas Lifson's communication with the NYT about the faked picture from the strike in Pakistan is a case in point. The reply, possibly from Keller, indicates complete lack of interest in the subject. Keller, or whomever it was, doesn't need a thick skin. They did nothing wrong and so nothing anybody says about it has any heft. There is no need for a thick skin in that situation, for a real-life example.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 20, 2006 4:46 PM | Permalink

Dexter plays the attack the messenger game. Jane praised Brady initially in her post:

I respect Jim Brady, he's made a series of smart decisions for the Washington Post online that have really given the paper an amazing internet presence, far ahead of the New York Times or anyone else. But the reason he gave for shutting off the comments to Deborah Howell's blog is just absurd..

Does that sound hateful to you?
Brady blames the hostility of the blogoshere, but not the reporting. If the debate didn't get "heated" do you think the Post would have responded? It's blame the readers again and Jay misses the point here and being diverted away from the issue at hand which is Howell's reporting. I have to delete hundreds of comments off of my site constantly. I don't like it, but that's the price I pay for having a popular blog. That's the internet. Brady diverts attention from the real problem when he says:

The basic issue here is that she didn’t deliver the exact message her critics wanted her to.

She didn't deliever the truth! If Howell responded quickly and made a change to her initially "faulty" reporting this would have been averted but she and the Post stuck their heads in the sand.

Posted by: John Amato at January 20, 2006 4:46 PM | Permalink

One problem is that the left is outraged by the very idea of an ombudmsman at a major newspaper that doesn't automatically dismiss the right. Criticizing anything that can be characterized as coming from left of center is just salt in the wound.

But Brady is right--the main problem is the filth and personal assaults in the comments section.
It's their bar and they can throw out the bullies if they want to.

I don't read blogs that permit that kind of garbage for very long. People who enjoy that are free to run their own sites, and do.

It's a shame they've had to close it down, but I hope it's temporary and that they figure out how to run a spirited establishment that can't get overrun by the thugs.

And another thing: There can't be a major national newspaper that invites anywhere near the amount of criticism and reader participation than the Washington Post. Which is nice, since politically it still skews to the left and which, last time I checked, still lacked an identifiably conservative voice at washingtonpost.com.

Posted by: Christopher Fotos at January 20, 2006 4:50 PM | Permalink

"The basic issue here is that she didn’t deliver the exact message her critics wanted her to."

Could Brady be any more condescending? And they wonder why people are angry at them.

Posted by: nobody at January 20, 2006 4:51 PM | Permalink

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but what Brady is actually saying is that the presence of incivility on the Post blog created a burden because it meant that someone from Post.com actually had to read the comments, rather than just let them sit there unread, safe in the knowledge that they contained nothing offensive....

it seems to me that if someone at the Post was actually reading the comments, it wouldn't be much of an effort to hit a "delete" key when they found an offensive one.

In other words, ordinarily nobody at the Post much cares what people say in the comments section of the Post.com blog --- and its only because people started getting nasty that Howell (and other Post reporters being called "b*tch" or "wh*re") cared what was being written by the rabble.

Posted by: ami at January 20, 2006 4:54 PM | Permalink

Rosen overlooks Howell's true crime as an ombud i.e., cheerleading, and by doing so, commits another Howell sin, e.g., carelessness, though by several order of magnitude, transgresses far less than would-be "liberals" brimming with unfocused vitriol.

Howell: "Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists. And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties."

Note: Howell is NOT making the assertion herself though in the context of cheerleading coverage by the Post, IS recounting Smith's reportage that Abramoff "made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties." Thus, reasonable, salient responses to Howell's panegyric might include: 1) did SCHMIDT literally or substantively report what Howell repeated (that Abramoff "made substantial contributions to both major parties")?; 2) and if so, was SCHMIDT'S reportage accurate?

Ditto Howell on Birnbaum:

Howell: "The second complaint is from Republicans, who say The Post purposely hasn't nailed any Democrats. Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money."

Here again, Howell is NOT asserting her finding that certain Democrats may have "gotten Abramoff campaign money," but rather and instead, BIRNBAUM'S conclusion to this effect.

Rosen: "Her both-sides-fed-at-the-trough statements have been called inaccurate, outrageous, unfortunate, less-than artful. 'He had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties…' I read these strained descriptions of bipartisan exposure as more of a wish— a wish for balance in the facts of the scandal itself."

No, they were less Howell's statements than those of Schmidt and Birnbaum; but yes, such statements demand more than reflex parroting by an ombud and should compel investigation, clarification, reconciliation or correction.

To this end, Howell's subsequent clarification that Abramoff "directed" campaign contributions to both parties is perfectly consistent with Josh Marshall's acknowledgement that a) "general" discussions of "Abramoff money", however imprecise or problematic, refer less to "personal contributions from Abramoff" than they do campaign "contributions from entities [Abramoff] worked for as a lobbyist" and b) that Abramoff directed tribal contributions to specific members of Congress (Marshall: "We know from some of the publicly released emails, that Abramoff in many cases used his clients' bank accounts very much as if they were his own, often giving them specific amounts and recipients for political contributions").

That Marshall -- a leading, credible sentinel on all things Abramoff -- is an adult, unlike the incontinent hordes of Hamsher/Atrios, is not an insignificant distinction.

Marshall: When you hear about Republicans and Democrats getting 'Abramoff money' what's being talked about aren't personal contributions from Abramoff but contributions from entities he worked for as a lobbyist. So, for instance, Abramoff lobbies for Indian tribe X. Indian tribe X contributes to politician Y. Hence, politician Y got 'Abramoff money'.
Now, is that logic fair? Is that 'Abramoff money'?

As a political matter, it probably makes sense now for every pol to unload that money -- a conclusion most of them, as you can see, are coming to on their own. On the merits, though, it's more difficult to make generalizations.

We know from some of the publicly released emails, that Abramoff in many cases used his clients' bank accounts very much as if they were his own, often giving them specific amounts and recipients for political contributions. In many cases, too, he had them make donations that had little or nothing to do with their own interests (defined in lobbying terms). For instance, what interest did a couple of Abramoff tribe clients have giving money to the New Hampshire Republican party a day or two before they pulled their phone-jamming scam?

There are other cases though where a given politician was associated with Indian rights issues either before Abramoff came on the scene or because of the state or district they represent. There are members of Congress in both parties who fall into that category and are, to some extent, being unfairly tarred.

For these reasons, pure dollar amounts can't tell the whole story without getting more deeply into the context.

Posted by: sinsneer at January 20, 2006 4:55 PM | Permalink

corr. "Howell is NOT making the assertion herself though in the context of cheerleading coverage by the Post, IS recounting [Schmidt's] reportage"

Posted by: sinsneer at January 20, 2006 5:01 PM | Permalink

I just ran through the official corrections posted by WP online since the ombudsman's column ran and, unless I missed it (entirely possible, please let me know if so), the paper has not run an official correction of her plain misstatement of fact. Her days-late clarification noting "A better way to have said it..." only added to the problem. When you state a fact incorrectly, you have a duty to cop to that quite normal turn of events and correct the record.

The Post invited some of this firestorm on itself by ignoring that simple principle. She might have meant to say something different or more nuanced, but what she wrote was factually inaccurate and that requires a correction. No harm, no foul if it's offered up with reasonable speed and in good faith.

The problem seems to be that Howell and the Post are in a defensive crouch because of who they perceive as demanding a correction. And while it's true that there are many interpretations of any given truth under the sun, there are bedrock facts that don't change no matter who's pointing them out.

If I write about an event as taking place on Tuesday and it really took place on Monday, it doesn't matter whether Shirley Temple or Osama bin Laden points out my error; I made a mistake and am required to correct it. Why is that seemingly so difficult for the Post to grasp?

Her statement that "a number of Democrats... have gotten Abramoff campaign money" is factually inaccurate, no matter what she actually intended to say. If the Post had run a simple correction on Monday, my guess is this would not have exploded nearly to this level.

In writing about a nuanced political story, it's no crime to get a detail wrong. But refusing to correct it shows bad faith and a fairly shocking level of intellectual dishonesty.

As the Hon. Judge Elihu Smails might put it, "Well, we're waiting..."

Also, Jay, your comment about Howell's apparent need to see the Abramoff scandal "balanced between the two major parties" regardless of the facts on the ground I think is just a great example of that tired editorial writer's trope of casting "a pox on both their houses" regardless of who's implicated in a scandal because that's the balanced (and lazy and least likely to offend--at least in the days before everyone on the web was empowered to instantly cry foul) way of treating these issues. Clearly, that practice has to stop, which coincidentally is what I argued in my column this week.

Posted by: Frank Sennett at January 20, 2006 5:06 PM | Permalink

There is no "heart and soul of politics" in them. Their "heart and soul" is trying to find the most vicious and rude way to insult you. I wouldn't want those people as my customers.

Really, I don't think there is anything wrong with a blogger (from any side, angle?) calling attention to something and directing their readers to register a complaint (if they agree), however I agree with Dexter that Hamsher has taken things too far (particularly in regards to O'Breine)

If the comparison is, well Rush Limbaugh does it, is that a good thing?

Encouraging and or thanking readers for spamming the review section of a book they haven't obviously read with the sole purpose of discouraging others from buying it is childish and in my opinion the equivalent what she is accusing the Post of...quashing opinion, censoring ideas.

I don't expect Jane's readers to be Kate O'Breine fans with comments like "the bitch is deadmeat", but come on? Uh here is an idea, encourage a few of your blog readers to read the book so to therefore compile sensible and reasonable arguments to counter Kate's claims?

Also, I am unaware of the last time Rush Limbaugh said something like that, and if he did he's a jerk too.

I thought the suggestion of having commenters (at the Post) register to comment was a decent one. I think that would discourage the senseless, just for shock value comments (the ones that contain nothing but attacks and threat types) and would help moderators keep track of the usual suspects.

Also, thanks Jay. You are tough nut and I appreciate that.

Posted by: topsecretk9 at January 20, 2006 5:08 PM | Permalink

I will believe Brady if Washington Post promises that it will never ever publish the rantings of the Republicans when they question the patriotism of democrats.

Posted by: anonymous at January 20, 2006 5:14 PM | Permalink

Sennett: Her statement that "a number of Democrats... have gotten Abramoff campaign money" is factually inaccurate, no matter what she actually intended to say.

Marshall: When you hear about Republicans and Democrats getting 'Abramoff money' what's being talked about aren't personal contributions from Abramoff but contributions from entities he worked for as a lobbyist. So, for instance, Abramoff lobbies for Indian tribe X. Indian tribe X contributes to politician Y. Hence, politician Y got 'Abramoff money'.

Ergo, Josh Marshall, "inaccurate," ibid. "A partisan GOP hack/shill/tool who should be fired."

Posted by: sinsneer at January 20, 2006 5:21 PM | Permalink

Meanwhile CNN hires Glen Beck who says:

"...you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year. And I had such compassion for them, and I really wanted to help them, and I was behind, you know, "Let's give them money, let's get this started." All of this stuff. And I really didn't -- of the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of them. Probably about 10 of them. And when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, "Oh shut up!" I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining."

Yeah Jane Hamsher is so much worse !

Posted by: David Ehrenstein at January 20, 2006 5:26 PM | Permalink

The problem is simply this:

Deborah Howell is in over her head. She cannot see her own bias and essentially refuses to accept criticism. She has a high profile position and she feels that this should insulate her from criticism. It doesn't, and it will not, no matter how much she ignores reader dismay and anger.

The problem runs deeper than this. There are a number of journalists at the Washington Post who, if not biased, could be a lot more sceptical and do more investgation into the background material pertinent to their writing. It has become more difficult in recent years to do accurate reporting which reflects a modicum of objectivity. Readers are demanding more, especially after the unfortunate, hapless failures of Judith Miller and Bob Woodward.

The American people deserve better, and we're becoming more vocal and insistent in our expectations. Deborah Howell, for one, has been found wanting. Repeatedly.

Posted by: Jim Young at January 20, 2006 5:28 PM | Permalink

More Glen Back:

"Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure."

Posted by: David Ehrenstein at January 20, 2006 5:28 PM | Permalink

Then there's Kellyanne Conway on Joe (dead intern) Scarborough's show:

"If you held a piece of tissue paper between some of the comments that Bin Laden today and some of the comments that the president's detractor's say-it would be very difficult to stick more than a piece of tissue paper between--there's not much of a difference."

Posted by: David Ehrenstein at January 20, 2006 5:30 PM | Permalink

Jay, thanks for posting that excerpt from Hamsher's most recent post on the topic. I was about to do it myself. Perhaps Dexter, who likes to comment upon everything that Hamsher writes that is unrelated to this subject, will respond?

And, please note, as Hamsher wrote elsewhere in that post, the hate speech/insult excuse for the shutting down of the blog is gaining traction. It's being used by the Post's friends in the media to get it off the hook for refusing to repudiate the false reporting of Howell and Schmidt on the Abramoff case. The Post is adamant about persisting in its access journalism and recycling GOP talking points.

Accordingly, Brady would have us believe that there is no way to filter and monitor comments to the blog without shutting down the blog entirely and removing all comments. He would have us believe that there is no way to restore the original comments FOR SEVERAL DAYS.

Earth to Brady: it's 2006, not 1936. Why is he putting out such nonsense? Because, it is essential that the public at large be preventing from legitimately criticizing what Howell, Schmidt, and their enabler, Kurtz, are doing, apparently with the support of Post management.
Keep your eye on the ball, because, if you are not careful, you are going to get caught up in the deception.

Jay, next time you talk to Brady, please ask him these two questions:

(1) Have you been required to consult with the Post's legal counsel before making any public statements?

(2) If so, what have they advised you to say?

Why do I think that the New York Observer is going to break an embarassing story about this?

Posted by: Richard Estes at January 20, 2006 5:35 PM | Permalink