The WaPo’s Omerta on Froomkin

Before I look closely at what OmbudAndy (Andy Alexander) had to say about Froomkin’s firing today, I want to thank Dan for his kind words in today’s post and for the way he went out with a bang. Also, Dan and Jay Rosen will be talking about accountability and journalism on Tuesday at the Personal Democracy Forum (I’ll be speaking at 3:45); I plan to liveblog their conversation.

But onto what the WaPo’s OmbudAndy had to say about Froomkin’s firing. There are two really important pieces of news in his article:

  • No one within the WaPo wants to tell their own Ombud why they fired Froomkin
  • One of the reasons they fired Froomkin is they wanted him to stop doing media criticism

No one wants to talk 

Alexander describes the WaPo’s refusal to explain why they fired Froomkin "ironic:"

Institutionally, The Post is now responding by circling the wagons — ironic for a news organization that insists on transparency from those it covers. Its initial statement on June 18 from spokeswoman Kris Coratti lacked substance (“Editors and our research teams are constantly reviewing our online content to ensure we bring readers the most value…while balancing the need to make the most of our resources”).

I was off much of this week with a minor medical problem. But when I was able to start querying editors yesterday, a wall of silence was erected. Raju Narisetti, the managing editor who oversees the Web site, declined to go beyond last week’s PR statement. Online Opinions Editor Marisa Katz, after talking Thursday with the Washington CityPaper, said she had been instructed not to respond to additional queries. And Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, who had previously responded to questions from me and other journalists (including the CityPaper on Thursday), today said he was unable to comment.

I’d say it’s worse than ironic. I’d say it’s revealing. The WaPo apparently has no excuse that can withstand scrutiny, so they’re just keeping mum. I’d suggest, in particular, that Hiatt’s inconsistent silence suggests where the stupidity they’re trying to hide lies.

Stop doing media criticism

And here’s the really amusing part. They asked Froomkin to stop doing media criticism.

Froomkin said his editors were urging changes in White House Watch, and he acknowledged disagreement over content. For example, he was urged not to do media criticism. “I had always considered media criticism a big part of the column, as a lot of what I do is read and comment about what others have written about the White House,” he said.

Which I guess gets us back to issue number one: the WaPo doesn’t want anyone–even one of its own–scrutinizing its actions too closely (or those of others). Golly, god forbid that Froomkin actually point out one of the reasons why the WaPo is losing money at such a clip.

And here’s the related issue:

Some reporters and editors at The Post view Froomkin as a superb, hard-working “aggregator” whose blog needed more original reporting. Weingarten, without expressing his own judgment, alluded to this in his chat: “I can tell you that there has been some disagreement about Froomkin’s column over the years between the paper-paper and dotcom; the issue, I think, was whether he was as informed and qualified to opine as people who had been actively covering the White House for years.”

I guess calling Froomkin an "aggregator" is another way of attacking him for actually looking at the tripe that comes out of the beltway. And if you don’t let him talk about how consistently wrong those so-called experts "actively covering the White House for years" have been over the last 8 years, then it’s a lot easier to impugn his credibility or judgment. 

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68 replies
  1. SparklestheIguana says:

    I just happened across this ombudsman’s column – only because I was looking at the WaPo front page and, for the first time in months, Froomkin and Ombudsman had front page links. Gee, now that Dan’s stats don’t matter, give the guy a link. ASSHOLES.

    The media criticism thing (which Bob Somerby theorized today too) is it. I wonder, just out of curiosity, if Howard Kurtz had anything to do with Froomkin leaving, and how much sway HK has at the Post. If Dan’s media criticism was so much more salient and on the money than Kurtz’s (which was often fawning and usually hackish), would HK have raised a stink?

  2. egregious says:

    The other people are ‘covering’ the White House in the sense that they can cut and paste press releases and repeat gossip.

    Bless Froomkin and I hope he finds a more sympatico place to work.

    And shame on the Washington Post – booting out one of their most original voices. They take the blame for removing him from the political page, making it much harder for casual readers to find his column. Oh well the White House probably has nothing to do with politics anyway [me looking crosseyed here].

  3. MadDog says:

    …Also, Dan and Jay Rosen will be talking about accountability and journalism on Tuesday at the Personal Democracy Forum (I’ll be speaking at 3:45); I plan to liveblog their conversation…

    If you’re speaking at 3:45, you’re gonna miss Froomkin’s other performance at:

    Why Blogging Still Matters: The Ongoing Vitality of the Netroots and the Rightroots: Scott Rosenberg, Eric Boehlert, Dan Froomkin, Jon Henke, Ana Marie Cox

    • Mauimom says:

      Why Blogging Still Matters: The Ongoing Vitality of the Netroots and the Rightroots: Scott Rosenberg, Eric Boehlert, Dan Froomkin, Jon Henke, Ana Marie Cox

      Won’t someone PLEASE make Ana Marie Cox go away?

      Aren’t her15 minutes of fame long over?

      • Loo Hoo. says:

        Rachel really likes her. I get the sense that they’ve worked together really well for years.

        • STTPinOhio says:

          Rachel really likes her. I get the sense that they’ve worked drank together really well for years.

          Fixed it for you.

      • MadDog says:

        I’m so with you regarding Anna Marie Cox!

        I think Rachel does some of the best work anywhere on TV, but she is human too.

        In the case of Anna Marie Cox, I get the feeling there’s some “eye-candy” thing going on with Rachel’s constant invites.

        • Leen says:

          With you on Anna Marie Cox…Rachels weak side showing by inviting her back over and over (yawn)

          When the hell will Rachel invite our favorite Marcy on? Does she want in depth research, questions and news or not?

      • Teddy Partridge says:

        Ana[l] Marie Cox has morphed before our eyes into the White House reporter who most consistently holds Robert Gibbs’ feet to the fire on DADT, providing a secure space for The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld to ask about other GLBT issues during the daily briefing. I was never a fan of Cox’s, but Rachel has redeemed her in my eyes.

        It’s still shameful of her to share a WaPoO chat platform with Tucker Carlson every Monday, but who reads that rag anymore anyway?

        • Twain says:

          I stopped going to the WaPo site about 3 months ago. Just couldn’t stand it although I do like Eugene Robinson very much.

  4. Peterr says:

    From OmbudsAndy:

    Second, reduced traffic played a big role. White House Watch had substantial traffic during the Bush administration, but it declined noticeably when President Obama took office. The Post will not disclose precise numbers. Froomkin acknowledges the drop but told me much of it can be blamed on a change in format and poor promotion. He said that shifting White House Watch from a column to a blog when Obama took office was disruptive to his audience and “dramatically reduced the number of page views per reader.” He also said poor promotion, especially through links from the home page, had caused traffic to dip. “I felt that with adequate promotion, page views would have been much higher,” he said.

    I do believe Jane had a few thoughts about the whole “poor promotion” thing:

    The Post has been trying to kill off Froomkin’s audience for a while. Anyone who writes for a web site knows that if you get no main page exposure — or in this case, even a link on the Politics page — your traffic is going to take a huge hit, regardless of the quality of your writing. It’s like taking a baseball bat to someone’s knees and then firing them because they can’t walk.

    That pretty much says it.

  5. SparklestheIguana says:

    from that Washington CityPaper article:

    Yet Froomkin was no stranger to prominent exposure on washingtonpost.com. Says former washingtonpost.com opinions editor Michael Newman: “If [White House Watch] weren’t on the homepage within a few minutes of publication, you would hear from Dan. I don’t want to overstate it—sometimes it was good-natured, but sometimes it wasn’t.”

    And speaking of reinvention, once Post editors decided that White House Watch was no longer viable, they gave Froomkin a chance to come forward with “ideas for potential features that would take him in a new and different direction and that might resonate more with readers. Unfortunately, he wasn’t interested in doing anything else for The Post,” says Katz.

    On that point, Froomkin says, “I felt what I was doing was absolutely the best thing I could do for the Washington Post.”

    The columnist expects to reach a deal with a new employer “within a week or two.”

  6. Peterr says:

    If one big problem the post had with Froomkin was that he was doing “media criticism,” that means Howie Kurtz must be happy today.

    You don’t suppose Howie will mention Froomkin’s departure on his CNN show on Sunday, do you?

    • Teddy Partridge says:

      You mean that Howie Kurtz on CNN is the same Howie Kurtz who writes media criticism for the WaPo?

      Wow, you’d never know it reading his fawning reviews of CNN efforts in the Washington Post.

  7. alabama says:

    These people, who have no tolerance for reality, thought that they’d already disappeared Froomkin by taking him off the front page and messing with his format. They thought that Froomkin was a manageable problem, and then proceeded to solve it in just the way that Bush solved Iraq, by firing it (”Mission Accomplished”).

    Or so they thought.

    And so they threw the switch, and then their circuits exploded. And now they’d like it all to just, you know, go away–like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like torture. But nothing goes away–least of all the hell called the Washington Post.

    Let them burn.

  8. Teddy Partridge says:

    Shame on the Post for excusing their firing of Dan on his reduced traffic; they did their best to disappear him from the website, created a horrible hybrid format for WHWatch, and never suggested any of their reporters (who can’t link worth a damn anyway) link to Dan.

    This is one long step in their inexorable slide from greatness.

    • emptywheel says:

      But Teddy! How can you say they’re sliding from greatness?

      Cillizza and Milbank–who I can’t help but notice are the kind of people who might boast about their so-called credibility for reporting from the WH who seem to have been bitching about Froomkin–have come out with another edition of Mouthpiece Theater!!!

      No wonder Milbank has such a tough time grinding out 3-4 750-word columns a week. All this time horsing around with Cillizza. Or should I say assing around?

        • fatster says:

          So correcto, Loo Hoo. But I think they are moving in the opposite direction, or as Teddy put it @15,

          “This is one long step in their inexorable slide from greatness.”

          And, oooh my goodness, I am enjoying the snark @ 17.

      • Teddy Partridge says:

        I have left a comment at Mouthpiece Theatre congratulated the participants for picking up the Froomkin slack. Their work is a vast improvement over his, don’t you think?

      • Julia says:

        Don’t be ungrateful. After all Dana Milbank did in 2000 to make sure we weren’t stuck with a president who thought he was all that, he deserves to put his feet up. Of Chris Cillizza, suffice it to say he thought the Harold ad was one of the best ads of that cycle and leave it at that.

    • Peterr says:

      At the Post, I don’t think reporters link at all.

      Other than the exclusively online stuff like Dan’s, The Post style sheet appears to be “link only to the Post search engine,” keyed to what ever term is in the article. Those links are probably inserted not by the reporters, but by someone like an editor’s assistant.

  9. earlofhuntingdon says:

    The media-aggregator criticisms are precious. The occasional Dana Priest expose notwithstanding, much of what the Post does seems to be to take dictation from “contacts” in the White House and on Capitol Hill, almost always without attribution, and call it original “reporting”.

    Critiquing that writing with better writing and an insider’s knowledge of journalism and the White House, why that’s the equivalent of googling in the basement in a bathrobe. What a false analogy. Like false equivalence, it’s something the trade med. has made a specialty.

    Dan does something superbly well. He knows journalism and DC, the White House in particular (talents many WH pool reporters don’t seem to have). By reviewing the best and worst stories on the WH, in addition to his own inside reporting, he did an invaluable service. He didn’t just summarize those stories, he critiqued them like a NYRB reviewer. He gave context, history, and hard examples of where politicians and those who report on them were being consistent or hypocritical.

    Most egregious of all from the Post’s perspective is that Dan gave us his opinions. He praised by giving respect to those who got it right. He exposed the inconsistent and false statements of those who made them, even when they were powerful gubmint spokes-idiots like Karl Rove. He was invariably polite, but he didn’t hide it when he thought a top-ranked reporter or spokesperson was selling hooey, and he praised new media reporters like Marcy Wheeler and Glenn Greenwald when they got it right or even, heaven forbid, when they had an exclusive.

    In a town that measures credibility by the absence of first-rate opposing commentary, Dan’s approach to journalism – like Stephen Colbert’s WH correspondence dinner roast – amounted to an attack on everybody. For readers, it was quality journalism. For Beltway mavens, it was an assault on their worldview and way of life. Of course, the Post had to sack him. But it’ll be a nail in their own coffin, not Dan’s.

  10. Rayne says:

    This bit is revealing:

    Yet Froomkin was no stranger to prominent exposure on washingtonpost.com. Says former washingtonpost.com opinions editor Michael Newman: “If [White House Watch] weren’t on the homepage within a few minutes of publication, you would hear from Dan. I don’t want to overstate it—sometimes it was good-natured, but sometimes it wasn’t.”

    When a reporter has to nag to get his content up on the site, it means there’s something going on with the editorial process.

    The same editorial process which couldn’t be bothered with getting him linkage consistently on the front page and elsewhere.

    The same editorial process which whined Froomkin’s traffic fell, but tolerates dreadful traffic from other opinion contributors like David Ignatius, Richard Cohen, E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson who, though sometimes quite good, do not draw readers to either the print or online versions of the WaPo.

    Whatever was attributed in the Washington City Paper to sources in WaPo is still highly questionable, because the numbers just don’t add up and the puzzle pieces don’t match.

    And that’s why there should be more, not less, media criticism. They’ll even prevaricate about why they cut someone loose; about what else will they short-change us?

  11. SparklestheIguana says:

    I’d like to see EVERYONE’S traffic stats. Anne Applebaum, for example. Does anyone read her? Could she possibly draw more traffic than Dan?

  12. alabama says:

    It’s too bad both sides could not have found a way to save White House Watch.

    How I love this line! The symmetry, the balance, the cool, calm and collected referee! The shrug of the shoulders, the long-view verb-form!

    Burn, Alexander, burn in the hell called WaPo.

  13. earlofhuntingdon says:

    The Ombudsidiot really did his best to explain his employer in a way that only Debbie Howell could love: ideology, money, traffic, “it wasn’t working and we needed a new direction”.

    The claim that ideology wasn’t a factor, that the Post “doesn’t work that way” is laughable. That the Post hired Ezra Klein doesn’t support their argument either. Certainly not if it was done in anticipation of firing Froomkin. That’s exactly how big companies fire prominent but troublesome staff whose job requires them to be in the public eye.

    The idea that Froomkin, purportedly earning $90-100K, “cost too much” is equally laughable. That kind of money in Washington is small potatoes and saving it would do nothing to lower the Post’s losses. That Dan was among their prominent, if not most prominent, new media writers suggests this line of defense is hooey.

    The claim that Dan’s post was losing traffic would take considerable supporting data to be credible. If it was, was it losing less than his Post competitors? The scope for gamesmanship here is infinite: there’s an entire industry of HR, PR and legal consultants whose job is to explain firings by naming everything but the real reasons. The aim is “plausibility” and obfuscation, not accuracy.

    The new direction sounds about right, but it explains little. What was that new direction and why was it more relevant to the Post’s readers – or more likely, the neocon and in-government establishment the Post caters to – than the work Dan was already doing?

    In short, the Ombudsidiot explained nothing, while implying that if he hadn’t explained all, he explained whatever was relevant. He was plausible, which suffices inside the Beltway, in the media and in big bidness for accurate.

    • spocko says:

      The scope for gamesmanship here is infinite: there’s an entire industry of HR, PR and legal consultants whose job is to explain firings by naming everything but the real reasons. The aim is “plausibility” and obfuscation, not accuracy.

      I know people have probably moved on, but earlofhuntingdon I just wanted to say how spot on this observation is. It was something that everyone I knew in the HR and PR biz hated, the vague words the euphemisms. At least on the side when someone is fired for cause and they are giving a chance to resign they have a phrase they are allowed to use, So and So is leaving to “pursue new opportunities and spend more time with is family.”

      If Mark Stanford resigns will they say, “He is resigning to spend more time another other man’s family”?

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        The Post’s omerta may be rationalized as protecting Mr. Froomkin’s privacy, like the way the Bush and Obama administration’s protect their prisoners’ privacy. A more likely reason is that it doesn’t want to own up to its progressive readers what it’s main focus is now, and that it feels its neocon and establishment friends already know. It’s makes their journalism a farce, but they obviously don’t care about any journalist’s opinion except their own.

  14. fatster says:

    Back to that EO that the O-team is supposed to be preparing.

    Jun 26 2009, 6:02 pm by Marc Ambinder

    Is Obama Moving Toward An Executive Order On Detention Policy?

    “The Washington Post and Pro-Publica [ed note: collaboration!] report that the White House counsel’s office has drafted an executive order authorizing — or, rather, asserting, that the President has the inherent authority to detain certain classes of people indefinitely.  (Update: Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesperson, flatly denied the report to me. “There is no executive order. There just isn’t one.”) “

    http://politics.theatlantic.co….._order.php

  15. bobschacht says:

    I hope Froomkin winds up in a good place with lots of exposure.
    Thanks, EW!

    Typo alert: “Abd here’s the related issue” =and

    Bob from HI currently in AZ

  16. kgb999 says:

    There seem to be a lot parallels with the reaction to HuffPo’s Nico Pitney being invited to ask a question during that press conference. Looks like folks are getting desperate to keep their position on top of the pecking order.

    WaPo is losing money but concentrates on competing within their own company. A bit like the GOPpers tearing into each other as relevance fades – expelling the members with ideas most likely to pull them out of the spiral for going against the orthodoxy: “At least we can put THIS uppity web journalist in their place!”

    And can I just say, now that I realize it is a serious production and not a crack-induced spoof, the “mouthpiece theater” thing is painfully bad. WTF is THAT?!?

  17. freepatriot says:

    is there a bigger sack of dog shit impersonating an ombudsman anywhere on the planet ???

    what kind a fucking PUTZ would accept silence from a bunch of idiots, and then try to write a column defending the pieces of shit who sold him this fools errand

    this guy andrew alexander is a waste of skin. he says the wapoop can’t afford 100k for froomkin

    anybody wonder how much they pay for a BUTT BOY ombudsman ???

    does anybody at the wapoop have ANY self respect ???

  18. freepatriot says:

    anybody wanna bet my comment makes it thru the filter at the wapoop ???

    I got 10 bucks that says it don’t

    I asked how much a butt boy ombudsman costs

    4 to 1 odds ???

    anybody

    gotta be somebody here who don’t know me that well …

  19. Batocchio says:

    You’re spot-on, Marcy. Since I read Weingarten fairly often, and read his full comment, I wanted to mention that I think he’s being diplomatic – he liked Dan’s work and was not happy to see him go.

  20. emptywheel says:

    On the supporting traffic: Dan went from criticizing Mr. 25% approval rating to criticizing Mr. 65% approval rating. I can assure you, a lot of Obama supporters don’t like to read criticism of the President. So that may well explain the decline in readership.

    But does that mean you axe it? Isn’t it MORE important to have real criticism when no one else is doing it? That was the problem when BUSH was at 65%–no one wanted to criticize him and so we went to war.

    • WilliamOckham says:

      I don’t think the WaPo management view of ‘readers’ has anything to do with traffic. For the WaPo, it’s all about currying favor with the various factions inside the Beltway. They like having Froomkin when he seemed to be a liberal critic of the Bushies because that played to one of their constituencies. When he turned out to have, um, actual convictions, they threw him overboard. There’s no place in D.C. for any deeply-felt belief other than the pursuit of power.

    • Mary says:

      I think that’s it as much as anything.

      I did like the notsosubtle “Blogger Froomkin” = not as informed, not as qualified to opine.

      Of course, when what he is “aggregating” questions that the uninformed masses are left with after the well qualified opiners share their dribblets of propaganda information, it must be kind of disconcerting to have someone show up your well qualified inability to either provide who what when where why & how info; or to provide that in a manner that isn’t laughable for its lack of credibility.

  21. orionATL says:

    my guess –

    fromkin “insults” charles krauthammer in a column. krauthammer goes to hiatt and throws one of his patented fits, screams “fromkin or me” at hiatt. hiatt chooses krauthammer and fires fromkin.

    why the silence? possibly because of legal issues, but most likely because some high-level manager in wapoop (hiatt?) has made a serious error of judgment, and it is the nature and curse of institutions to cover up such errors rather than discipline the perpetrators.

    by the way, in my limited experience,

    it is HIGHLY unusual for a public editor to be so direct. usually they write in management-speak, talking circles around the real issue(s).

    very unusual.

    wonder if young kate will take a stand. the traditional top-management approach is never to intervene with your incompetent subordinates except for a private frown or two.

    • Rayne says:

      Oooh, now that’s a VERY interesting theory…Krauthammer is quite likely one of the biggest draws in Washington Post Writers Group, the branch of The Washington Post Company which syndicates WaPo contributors’ work.

      WaPo’s syndicated distribution may have increased over time as local newspapers cut back; it might be cheaper to pay for syndicated content than pay a local op-ed contributor or several for their work. Management might not want any threat to that income if it offsets losses in income at WaPo’s print outlet.

      What if the other reason was that Froomkin’s media criticism was perceived as “cannibalizing” not traffic to WaPo’s site, but the popularity of the syndicated work?

    • STTPinOhio says:

      my guess –

      fromkin “insults” charles krauthammer in a column. krauthammer goes to hiatt and throws one of his patented fits, screams “fromkin or me” at hiatt. hiatt chooses krauthammer and fires fromkin.

      I’d bet good money you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head.

      And all the other bullshit reasons given are just cover for the above.

  22. MattYellingAtTheMoon says:

    -Please copy this:
    To the U.S. soccer team players:

    Please consider wearing green wristbands in your upcoming match in the Confederations Cup finale. It would be a sign of solidarity and compassion for your fellow soccer brethren who were banned from the game they love and face unthinkable repercussions for simply adorning a green wristband symbolizing peace and freedom. This is not politics, it is human rights. Any slap on the wrist you may face from FIFA pales in comparison to what the Iranian soccer team faced, and what the Iranian people face.

    Make us proud. Make the world proud.
    -And paste it the message box at the official US Soccer page that pops right up here:
    http://www.ussoccer.com/contact/index.jsp_Y.html

  23. NorskeFlamethrower says:

    AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

    Citizen emptywheel and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

    First of all Sister Marcy, thanx for another important post. And as for Frommkin and the WaPo, let ‘em both go ‘cuz Froomkin is gunna land on solid ground where his voice is gunna resonate through thousands of webbased megaphones wherever he lands and the WaPo is gunna go out “not with a bang but a whimper”.

    Isn’t it clear that the institutional rot in our country has left corpses all over the place, many of ‘em twitchin’ from involuntary movements from residuals from dead neuro-systems and the caretakers of these dead bodies don’t even know that their charges are dead.

    KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION AND DON’T WEEP FOR THE BELTWAY BANDITS OR FOR ARGENTINA!!

  24. Hugh says:

    The one fact to keep in mind in all this is that the WaPo and MSM sat through 8 years of the worst President in our history and not only didn’t notice but cheered him on. We are not talking bad news judgment here but no judgment at all. The media failed as systemically and thoroughly as the banks. We talk about zombie banks. Perhaps we should be talking too about zombie media.

    As for Froomkin, his sin was not that he was wrong but that he was right. Nothing in the eyes of our Establishment could be more impardonable. Only they get to be right, even when they are wrong.

  25. tbsa says:

    What can one expect from the WaPo or the MSM in general? Froomkin was dumped for telling the truth. We can’t really have these people in the media going around telling the truth.

  26. Teddy Partridge says:

    Can you imagine how the Versailles courtiers who populate the Post would respond to any other organization treating them the way they are treating their own Ombudsman about the Froomkin issue. Just go back and read Andy’s column from last week about the public schools Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, and her treatment of the WaPo reporter covering her for the kind of outrage their editors reserve for public figures who simply won’t talk to their employees.

    It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. They are ruining a critical component of democracy before our very eyes.

  27. sporkovat says:

    the American corporate media goes through the motions, providing the illusion of a free press, a 4th estate.

    the Democratic Party goes through the motions, providing theillusion of an opposition party, that sometimes acts in the interests of its constituents and supporters.

    did the Progressive Netroots meekly petition the WaPo, the NYT, ABC/NBC/CBS/GE for more and better ombudsmen, pundits, reporters, editors, pretty please?

    no, they built their own infrastructure, ground up, grass roots, and made it thrive, and it gives the MSM a bit of the Fear.

    do the same in politics, already.

  28. AmiBlue says:

    I followed a link today to the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) web site today. IRE is (in its own words): “…a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting.”

    Who should be featured in an article about Accountability Reporting and Digging Deep? None other than Leonard Downie,Jr, Executive Editor of the wapo until September 2008, and Bob Woodward. The irony hit me like a blast of hot desert air and almost took my breath away. Here sat these two do-nothings on an Accountability discussion panel while the best Acountability journalist at the wapo had just been fired. Woodward is still riding on his watergate laurels of course and says his “aggressiveness” failed him on the runup to the invasion of Iraq.

  29. STTPinOhio says:

    And here’s the really amusing part. They asked Froomkin to stop doing media criticism.

    You say amusing, I say f$#*ed up.

    A newspaper, of all things, asking a reporter not to criticize.

    Strip out the ads and cartoons and isn’t that what 60% of any newspaper in this country is full of?

    Criticism of city government, local sports teams, local judges, developers, etc.

    Yet, don’t be turnin’ the spotlight on us, no matter how well deserved.

    As Christy often says, sunlight is always the best disinfectant.

    The WAPO, obviously, was as afraid of sunlight as a vampire.

    • Leen says:

      Asking a reporter not to “criticize” More like asking a reporter not to do any critical thinking or real reporting. Telling and oh so pathetic. WaPo going down

  30. iamwilliam1 says:

    Katie Graham’s GHOST FINALLY GOT her tit caught in a big fat wringer.

    No Froomkin, no revenue, no venue.

    Bye-bye WaPo.

  31. fuzed says:

    I cut my Sunday only delivery of WashPO after that, after hiring Crystal, that was too much.

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