The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Washington Post has the worst ombudsman ever

    By acanuck on Sat, 11/08/2008 - 9:07pm |

    Deborah Howell continues to reinforce this widely shared assessment of her work.

    In Sunday's column, she examines her own paper's coverage of the election campaign, and detects a pro-Obama tilt. Her evidence is rigorously scientific: so many front-page Barack Obama photos, so many Obama stories, so many opinion pieces, vs. lesser numbers for John McCain. Howell detected and denounced a similar imbalance back in August.

    Ms. Howell, maybe that simply reflects the fact Obama was the better, more exciting candidate and ran campaign circles around McCain. Given how disorganized, unfocused and all-around terrible his campaign was, consider the possibility that McCain benefited from having less coverage of it.

    This notion that numerical parity equals fairness and balance is bad enough when it is used to justify he-said-he-said news items that fail to note one side is lying. But the Post ombusman appears to think it trumps journalistic judgment.

    Even when Howell is correct, her rationale is flawed. The Post's coverage of Sarah Palin weren't all "hatchet jobs," she concludes. There were "good" stories as well. 

    Look, Palin was the most dangerously unqualified VP candidate in living memory (worse than Quayle). Coverage that glossed over that glaring fact would not have been fair and balanced; it would have been the most irresponsible kind of journalism. 

    Comments

    At least liberals are being forced to say that the media is fair. Before, they used to say the "corporate media" was pro-Republican.


    by truthseeker77 (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 1:23am

    We're still saying that, inasmuch as it is a fact.


    by Tankard2 (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 10:54am

    The author is right. We should all be celebrating the fact that Obama got "better" coverage, because he was so obviously the better candidate. To write that Candidate A made a stirring speech before tens of thousands of people of all colors and that Candidate B couldn't master the teleprompter in a room of 500 old white people, for instance, doesn't demonstrate media bias -- it demonstrates objective straight reporting.


    by Marie Burns (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 11:44am

    I have to agree that Deborah Howell has been abysmal in her post.

    In the summer of 2007 -- back when Hillary was "inevitable," WaPo ran a front page story by Perry Bacon, Jr. about Barack Obama's supposed "Muslim ties." Featuring long debunked fiction (muslim madrassa, for example), the story provoked one of the most massive outpourings of reader input ever. And just about every WaPo reporter and columnist came to Bacon's defense. The lone exception was political cartoonist Tom Tolles.

    Howell concluded that the Post was "accurate" in its reporting and bent over backwards to suggest they were "debunking" the story themselves. But what was telling is that it took her weeks to write on the issue -- not when it was fueling the controversy -- and then her "commentary" was pure whitewash.

    "Objectivity" in reporting has been conflated with "parity." And that has happened across the board in the media.


    by Jade7243 (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 3:25pm

    Corporate media is pro-Republican.


    by plee (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 4:21pm

    False equivalence rules! Are they actually teaching that "parity" crap in journalism programs? Do any of you know?


    by ttarleton (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 4:29pm

    Your last paragraph is spot-on, Jade.
    "Objectivity" is a journalistic concept, and -- most notably on the TV networks -- journalists are no longer calling the shots.
    When entertainment divisions shape news coverage, an historic election becomes a new form of reality show -- "Ballot Bowl," as CNN called it.
    "Objectivity" gets relegated to brief segments with titles like "Keeping Them Honest."
    Even then, the goal appears to be parity: one dubious statement by McCain, another from Obama -- regardless of which is more egregious.
    In answer to ttarleton, I have no idea what they teach in J-schools any more; mostly teleprompter reading, I guess.


    by acanuck (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 4:40pm

    Hey now, don't forget they teach that fancy pageant walkin' too!

    Then, also, in the schools, you have, this, also, this. You betcha!


    by Boyd Reed (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 4:45pm

    You sound like with that type of comment you might be one of those bitter kind of people there! Also, I don't know for sure about that constitutional thing, it may be fungible, by you might be kind of restrictin' my 1st amendment rights by commentin' like that!


    by ttarleton (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 4:53pm

    OMG, you two are hysterical. Have you ever noticed how she never ends a sentence? Also, by the way, Howell is terrible. She never hits the mark. Never. She uses the ombudsman role for her own purposes.


    by KateO (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 5:26pm

    Stop pickin' on Little Debbie Snackcakes!
    ~


    by ifthethunderdon... (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 8:34pm

    Katie Couric for one seemed to sense a total lack of any knowledge or intelligence in Palin. Anyone with a brain could tell the soulmate duo were a crock possibly even worse that Bush/Cheney. Even the media titans may have shuddered to think of McCain/Palin in the White House with the likes of Tucker Bounds as press spokesperson.

    Yet the media were more than fair in their coverage, and they may have had an increase in focus in their campaign reporting due to a collapsing stock market and rapidly sinking US economy.


    by NobleCommentDecider (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 8:46pm

    Katie Couric for one seemed to sense a total lack of any knowledge or intelligence in Palin. Anyone with a brain could tell the soulmate duo were a crock possibly even worse that Bush/Cheney. Even the media titans may have shuddered to think of McCain/Palin in the White House with the likes of Tucker Bounds as press spokesperson.

    The media were more than fair in their coverage, and yet they may have had an increase in focus in their campaign reporting due to the myriad of economic and foreign policy catastrophes being left by Bush.


    by NobleCommentDecider (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 8:49pm

    See, falseseeker, I told you we're still saying it.


    by Tankard2 (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 10:32pm