Talk to WaPo live on line on "Dialogue with readers"

[robbedvoter]

I extracted this from the huge Skinner thread - as it needs special attention:

Post Live Online
Posted by PhilipDC
Washington Post Live Online--Noon Today:
Executive Editor Jim Brady will be online Friday, Jan. 20, at Noon ET to discuss his decision and user interactivity.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/01/20/DI2006012000566.html
Submit Your Question or Comment:
http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/content/submit_postie1.htm

[Skinner]

1. Fix your links please. (nt)

[robbedvoter]

2. Done!

[PhilipDC]

3. Thanks, but already posted it...

I also posted it in the Breaking News forum and that post got moved to General Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x192775

[Sparkly]

6. They're going to restore some of the posts ...

"...over the next few days, we'll go back through them and restore the ones that did not violate our rules..."

Should be interesting to compare this with Skinner's saved page to see where their "politeness meter" stands.

Edit: Oops, meant to post this under the OP!! :dunce:

[Sparkly]

8. COP-OUT!!!

Brady won't discuss the Post's reporting on the Abramoff scandal itself!!!!

Oops, I did it again ... :dunce:

[SpongeBob]

4. Thanks!

[Sparkly]

5. Does anyone know whether Howell's recent columns

used to be linked on this page?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/25/LI2005032500838.html

Were they taken down?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. my question/comment to WaPo

Does the Washington Post have any plans to hire an ombudsman who actually acts like an ombudsman any time soon?

Part of one's duty in that role is to check facts, correct errors, and discover why spin and partisanship makes its way into WaPo news reports. It would be nice to see that happening at your paper in the future. An ombudsman's job is not to provide cover for the GOP or to repeat partisan spin as fact.

In the recent past our country has seen too many disasters in the Main Stream Media:
Judithgate - dropping all pretense of independent reporting and becoming a tool of a corrupt administration
Woodwardgate - ditto.
Bought off journalists and commentators, fake new articles actually drafted by the US military or White House political operatives, - these have been commonplace under this administration. If there was any explanation for the vigor and anger which underlies the public's response to WaPo's ombudsman's clear errors concerning the Abramof bribe scandals, that is the reason. People are searching for a reliable, trustworthy and honest broker of news. We are seeing examples of that much more rarely, especially when your major competitor, the NYT, caves to administration pressure on the issue of illegal domestic spying.

You have a duty to the country and to your readers. In order to fulfull that duty, you need an active, believable, knowledgable and effective ombudsman. So far, we have seen little from Ms. Howell in that regard.

Good luck to you and your organization. Once your company does the right thing with respect to Mr. Woodward, I shall return as a subscriber to you formerly great paper.

[displacedtexan]

9. Isn't this answer like confusing parsecs and minutes?

Jim Brady: Afternoon, thanks for all your questions (well, maybe not this one). But I wanted to start with it to make a point that this was the kind of stuff we spent all week cleaning out of our message boards (except there were no asterisks). And when the amount of time it took to ferret these kind of posts out exceeded the bandwidth we could devote to it, we decided to close commenting on post.blog down. Now, on to some intelligent questions, of which thre were many.

How can deleting replies exceed bandwidth?

Color me confused.

[Sparkly]

10. Plus, if they deleted whatever they found so offensive,

why is he saying he needs to edit those remaining before "restoring" them?

Jim Brady: You were reading the ones that were posted live. There were a few hundred others that were removed the site altogether, and those would not be on the page you're looking at.

Why can't they just restore "the page we're looking at" (Skinner's)?

Makes no sense.

[displacedtexan]

11. This guy obviously has no idea how the web works.

He probably got moved into the web editor position and figured it was just like the print biz,
except he would have web savvy minions to worry about the tech stuff.

What an idiot!

[Sparkly]

15. Apparently not!!

"To be honest, the experience we've had since we launched blogs a year ago has been very positive, but we found out this week we're not equipped technically or personnel-wise to handle a flood of problematic email..."

Email?!? :crazy:

[displacedtexan]

17. We need to expose this guy's Brownie-esqueness!

Heckuva job, asshat!

[Sparkly]

12. This is LAME.

Another case of acting like white-gloved ladies at a tea party, all worried about politeness, and avoiding the important issues at hand.

"If you need to use that language to make your point, I'm sorry, you don't have one."

Actually, you can both have a point and use "that language" in making it.

Nice he put up a post "admiring his guts." :eye:

[Catrina]

13. Well, since he has stated that he will not take questions regarding the

Post's coverage of the Abramoff affairs, there's no point in my submitting mine. It was very polite. I wanted to know if the Post was under pressure from the WH to regurgitate RNC deliberate lies and first regarding Abramoff (Abramoff gave to both parties, eg) then when that one was totally debunked they turned to the other lie (the Abramoff clients obfuscation) also totally debunked at least two weeks ago.

I just wondered since the information was so easily accessed, why the Post repeated verbatim, those two lies, and if they understood that the reaction they received was because the talking points had been debunked and therefore there is a level of frustration that ordinary Americans now have to rely on their own research to get to the truth?


My real question was this: Is the Post under pressure from the WH, or was this merely sloppy reporting? If it is the former, they should tell their readers and we will decide if the WH has any legitimate complaints which could cause them to apply pressure to a major newspaper. If it is the latter, then the Post is obligated to take a step back, do some research and then correct the information they published. Either way, by being totally honest with their readers, the truth will emerge ~

But, they apparently do not want to discuss their coverage of Abramoff and that in a way, answers my question.

[Sparkly]

14. "In a perfect world"

Jim Brady: Pre-screening is something we've discussed, but in a perfect world, that would not be necessary.

In a perfect world, newspapers would report the truth accurately!!

[Sparkly]

16. OMG!! He just reposted Howell's last "response" that caused all the furor

as if that would address the issue!!

What an IDIOT!!