WaPo Ombudsman Slams NOM Profile

Last week I had Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse on the show to talk about her piece on the National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown (who I then then on the program later in the week.) Hesse was pretty shocked that her piece was seen as a puff piece which came under a lot of criticism by LGBT activists, liberal bloggers and journalism critics. She came on the show to defend herself and explain how it went wrong (editing took out the sly bits, she pretty much said, and with those barbs included she didn't think she needed opposing views, so she had none) and, I guess, to let us know she's not some sort of religious right monster.

Now the Washington Post ombudsman has apologized for the piece, chastised Hesse and the editors for not providing critics of Brown, provides some thoughts on how the piece happened and reveals that Hesse is bisexual herself and wept over the response to the piece:

Hesse has been blistered in the blogosphere, even cast as a bigoted conservative who endorses a homophobic agenda.

I agree that the story fell short, but not because Hesse was naïve or lacked journalistic diligence. In retracing her reporting, it's clear the research was extensive. And some details about her personal life seem to belie claims she has a conservative agenda (more on that later).

Rather, this is a case where three things -- a storytelling concept, a writing technique and a bad headline -- combined to ignite reader reaction as vitriolic as any I've experienced in my seven months as ombudsman.

I would go further and say it's an example of how the Post, ever mindful of sagging circulation, is desperately trying to be hip and cool in competing with blogs and online media, as we've seem time and again, blundering in the process. In this case, perhaps fearful of the repercussions of past juvenile antics in trying to compete, they took the teeth out of writing that was attempting to emulate that competition by being sarcastic and having a clear point of view. What's left is a puff piece, which the reporter then of course went along with too. It's all part of the paper's and print journalism's identity crisis, and it's clearly still not serving the public.

Wash Post: McCain's Reckless Attacks

The Washington Post today slams John McCain for his smears of scholar Rashid Khalidi and then trying to smear Obama by connecting him to Khalidi:

For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear...

...We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.

Washington Post Endorses Obama

The Beltway establisment paper that acted as a cheerleader for George W. Bush in his Iraq wreck has endorsed Barack Obama:

Not even his fiercest critics would blame President Bush for all of these problems, and we are far from being his fiercest critic. But for the past eight years, his administration, while pursuing some worthy policies (accountability in education, homeland security, the promotion of freedom abroad), has also championed some stunningly wrongheaded ones (fiscal recklessness, torture, utter disregard for the planet's ecological health) and has acted too often with incompetence, arrogance or both. A McCain presidency would not equal four more years, but outside of his inner circle, Mr. McCain would draw on many of the same policymakers who have brought us to our current state. We believe they have richly earned, and might even benefit from, some years in the political wilderness...

...But Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.