Washington Post Again In The Spotlight

MAKING NEWS

Washington Post Itself Becomes An Issue




If you thought the point of a major daily paper was to report news, not make headlines, then recent events at the Washington Post may seem a bit odd.

First, the strange new fascination with adding reporters to the airwaves continues, where "Washington Post Radio", covered here previously, apparently finds some newsroom staffers with stars in their eyes.


Especially brilliant points from Dave Hughes at DCRTV:

Posties Prepare To Be Radio Stars - 1/21 - DCRTV hears that a number of Washington Posties are running around the newspaper's downtown DC HQ preparing themselves for their new radio careers.

"They think they're going to be great on the radio. I hope they're right, and I'm really rooting for them," a Post reporter tells DCRTV. That's why, some area radio execs insist, it would be smart for Bonneville radio honcho Jim Farley's radio people to host the shows on new talker WTWP, Washington Post Radio, and use the newspaper people as "regular guests" or "co-hosts."

Frank Herzog, David Burd, Ira Melman, and Nathan Roberts could host shows on WTWP - providing on air "guidance" to the Posties. These radio-TV vets have the broadcast media instincts to keep the shows "moving," "keep it fresh," and "flesh them out," we're told.

But, put the shoe on the other foot. One area media expert wonders: Could WTOP put out a really great newspaper if the Washington Post handed them its presses tomorrow? Someone else jested: With all-news WTOP "superstar" Farley as managing editor, the answer would probably be yes.....

Something else, Dave: aren't these the same reporters and editors who've been griping nonstop about the blogosphere, how we're not journalists and shouldn't pretend we can properly do "their" jobs?

For some reason, however, these newsroom hacks instantly know how to do great radio.


Meanwhile, speaking of blogs, the WaPo's site has been a considerable recent source of controversy, after it temporarily shut down in the face of obscene verbal attacks from leftists, upset with the way the Abramoff scandal has been covered.

Stephen Spruiell at the National Review's Media Blog pegs it:

All I can say is: What a bunch of babies. I mean, especially speaking as a conservative media-watcher, I just have to laugh at the thin skin of the left-wing imbeciles who loaded up the comments section of the WashingtonPost.com blog with obscenities and insults after they objected to one sentence in ombudsman Deborah Howell's column.

Are you kidding? Conservatives are subjected to entirely biased areas of coverage (fine, whatever, I just object to its presentation as "objective"), and the same inaccuracies repeated over and over, etc.

Watching these lefties — whose politics have colored the media for decades — get so worked up over one sentence in the Washington Post brings to mind Matthew Broderick's conniption fit when Nathan Lane snatches his blankie in The Producers — so entitled they feel to the pages of the Post.

More at PressThink, here.

When was the last time actual investigative reporting at the WaPo attracted this kind of attention?

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