As Joe Uchill wrote for CJR a year ago, the “standard blogging practice” for making revisions to content involves “noting how and when a post is updated.” A major newspaper like the Post needs to at least meet, if not exceed, that standard. A newspaper would not—could not—respond to a column that went out with an ill-considered line by recalling every print copy. The fact that it can do so, if imperfectly, when the material is on the Web does not mean that it should.
Better, of course, not to cross that line in the first place. To that end, another word to the Post: Everything on your site bears your name and reflects on you as an institution. If you want to allow two of your big-name political writers to spend a summer day pretending that they host a late-late-night cable comedy show, that’s your choice— but if you’re not already doing so, you might want to make sure an editor takes a look at what they come up with before it goes out to the whole world. If you are already doing so, you might want to suggest that those editors start paying closer attention. And finally, given the details of this specific case, you might want to remind all employees of these principles for the Post laid out by Eugene Meyer. One of them seems apposite now, even if it sounds a bit old-fashioned: “As a disseminator of news, the paper shall observe the decencies that are obligatory upon a private gentleman.”
seems to me milbank and cilizza are reporters trying to compete with jonathan stewart and stephen colbert
the old adage about being able to walk and chew gum at the same time applies here
journalists can't be journalists and comedians at the same time
this mouthpiece theater is a dumb idea
#1 Posted by jamxo, CJR on Tue 4 Aug 2009 at 11:24 AM
Again, they are NOT journalists. Milbank used to be one, but now is content to be a clown. And although he has taken more heat for this than Cillizza, it's the latter whose lack of talent and professionalism are most appalling. His political operative "sources" use him more shamelessly than a 10-dollar hooker, and his embarrassingly thin "analyses" should gall us only because they come with the (quickly dying) authority of The Washington Post. I spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor in D.C. and Florida, and this guy is one of the worst I've seen. How he got his job, I'll never know.
#2 Posted by JPV Editor, CJR on Tue 4 Aug 2009 at 05:30 PM
This is another sign of deep trouble at the Post's website. It's a decent idea to have a regular comedy spot on the site, and to be fair these guys say crass stuff about people across the specturm. It's a terrible idea to have Milbank and Cillizza doing this spot. The most obvious sign is that they're just not funny. Jon Stewart is funny on the Daily Show because he worked as a comedian for years before he started the fake news biz.
These guys are simply out of their element, and it suggests the Post is too cheap to hire even minimal talent. It suggests that there is a lack of management control to tell these guys that they're simply not suited for this stuff. It's also a mess because it blurs the lines between reporter and commentator.
The refusal of washingtonpost.com management to comment fits in with their closing of ranks around the firing of Dan Froomkin. It pretty plainly shows that the website isn't being managed as a business, it's being managed as a political beast without clear lines of control, authority, or accountability. It's like a "new media" company circa 1999 and if the business folks at the parent company don't wake up, they're going to find their website becoming a white elephant like all of the hopeless startups of 1999.
#3 Posted by Washington Ghost, CJR on Wed 5 Aug 2009 at 09:43 AM
Narisetti is a chump and a product of nepotism. For a former reporter, he sure doesn't act like one. Guy can't give anyone a straight answer and has shown himself repeatedly to be clueless. But he fits in at the WaPo. Will someone please take that paper behind the woodshed and brain it?
p.s. this comment system is terrible
#4 Posted by gandalf, CJR on Wed 5 Aug 2009 at 01:59 PM