12/12/2005
The Froomkin Strikes Back
Turns out I wasn't the only one irked by Howell's ombudsman column.
Anyway, I found this comment amusing:
I thought Ombudsmen were appointed to resolve vague issues, not contribute to them?
Removing the title of his invaluable digest "White House Briefing" isn't going to do anything except introduce vagueness about the column's subject.
What would you then call it? "Dan Froomkin's 'Cooking with Walnuts'?"
Later: WaPo National Politics Editor, John Harris, weighs in on Froomkin:
Several of the comments here refer to me, and many others confuse the issues raised by Deborah Howell's column. As the Post's political editor, I'd like to respond, in the interest of being as clear as possible about how we view our own work, and the concerns about "White House Briefing" in the Post newsroom.
The first issue is whether many readers believe Dan's column is written by one of the Washington Post's three White House reporters. It seems to me--based on many, many examples--beyond any doubt that a large share of readers do believe that. No doubt there are some who enjoy the column for precisely this reason. If I worked outside the paper, I might presume myself that a feature titled "White House Briefing" was written by one of the newspaper's White House reporters.
Given that there is such confusion, the question is whether this is a problem. For me it is a problem. I perceive a good bit of his commentary on the news as coming through a liberal prism--or at least not trying very hard to avoid such perceptions. Dan, as I understand his position, says that his commentary is not ideologically based, but he acknowledges it is written with a certain irreverence and adversarial purpose. Dan does not address the main question in his comments. He should. If he were a White House reporter for a major news organization, would it be okay for him to write in the fashion he does? If the answer is yes, we have a legitimate disagreement. If the answer is no, there is not really a debate: washingtonpost.com should change the name of his column to more accurately present the fact that this is Dan Froomkin's take on the news, not the observations of someone who is assigned by the paper to cover the news.
People in the newsroom want to end this confusion. We do not want to spike his column--or at least I don't. It might be the case that he would be writing similarly about John Kerry if he were president. But I guarantee that many people who posted here would not be Froomkin enthusiasts--or be so indifferent to the concerns I raise--in that case.
In his comments, Dan pleads with reporters to stop complaining about him and start doing more to hold the White House accountable. The reporters on the Post's White House and political teams every day push through many obstacles and frustrations to do precisely this kind of accountability reporting--as I'm sure Dan would agree. But these are the very same reporters who are raising objections to "White House Briefing." The confusion Dan's column unintentionally creates about the reporter's role has itself become an obstacle to our work.
John Harris
National Politics Editor
|
