Comments on: Washington Alt-Weekly Retracts Little-Noticed Story

By: rickNmd

rickNmd — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:09:07 +0000

Yaaaawwwn.

And yet, I foolishly read this diatribe. Someone hit me in the head with a ball bat.

By: thefrontpage

thefrontpage — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:12:23 +0000

The Post, and every other media outlet in the world, need their watchdogs, also, and for 25-plus years, The Washington City Paper has been a great watchdog on the Post and other local media. Yes, the media does need a watchdog and media institutions do need to be reported on--that's part of freedom of the press. At least the great City Paper is doing something like this--not many others in town are doing this. And at least one other local media outlet only publishes sickening puff pieces on the Post and other media that never scratch the surface. Good for the City Paper, and good for the area that there are media commenting on media. Howard Kurtz, of course, should be praised for regularly reporting on the media, but he really needs to focus more on media hard news rather than continually reporting on surface-only television news-readers.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:58:33 +0000

Most of the concrete examples in your story of "bad management" and "bad communication" sound more like editorial disagreements, where reporters are pissed off that they're not in charge. Reporters are smart people, and realize that complaints about not getting their way won't go over well, so they try to cast everything in terms of bad management skills.

By: Markus

Markus — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:44:02 +0000

Story is dead-on. Glasser's deputy, the money quote guy, has the same problems

By: Christine

Christine — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:42:36 +0000

I'm really confused by the headline on this blog post. "Retracts little-noticed story"? Seems that it would only resonate with journalistic navel-gazers (of which I am admittedly one). Takes too many paragraphs to get to the point of your piece. Then I read it and think, "who cares?"

By: Abe

Abe — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:43:54 +0000

Glasser did not "decline comment." She declined to comment.

By: edward

edward — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:06:49 +0000

Unfortunately, Don, Molly Ivans is dead and so is not saying anything these days. And if you don't like stories about Washington journalism, then don't read them. There are other items in the City Paper that might deal with your interests.
As for the subject of this column, I can only agree that national coverage of the Washington Post has done nothing but decline in the last year. But so has Post coverage across the board, especially the business section left stranded and floundering by the collapse of a Carlyle Group fund. It took the Post two full days to find out about it. Carlyle's office is located at 11th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, and includes many prominent Washingtonians on its payroll or board.
In local news, compare rich details that appear in the accounts of stories in the Express and Washington Times, compared to those in the Post. Ditto Sports, except women's basketball, which the Post follows with dogged attention.
What Glasser and everyone else working at the Post today needs to realize is it they who are to blame for this decline in standards. I think this is the reason for the 10 percent drop in revenues and swoon in Post circulation. If they were putting out a compelling newspaper people wanted to read, this would not be happening.

By: Mike DeBonis

Mike DeBonis — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:30:27 +0000

Don,

Yours is an attitude often encountered in the comments around here. I, for one, am mystified by it, probably just as much as you're mystified about our "psychosis." It's especially mystifying considering the criticism regularly flung at other media outlets. When we report on the Post--and we're one of the few places that do so--it's often dismissed as the product of envy or personal vendetta.

I don't get it: The media--and in this town, the Post in particular--are institutions with great power and influence. Just as I, as a political columnist, examine the inner workings of the government, why shouldn't we welcome the same treatment of the Post?

Is it that any profit-making journalistic enterprise should be precluded from writing about any other one? In that case, keep in mind that the Post itself employs a full time media columnist.

I'd also dispute that Post biz doesn't interest anyone but us. (To wit: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/03/31/last-weeks-most-popular-blog-posts-2/) Sure, this stuff appeals to a specialized Romenesko-reading population, but it's a substantial population nonetheless. In other words, just cause you don't care for it doesn't mean that everybody else doesn't.

By: Don

Don — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:49:13 +0000

Is there any reason on God's Green Earth for one journalist to write a story about another journalist? Not that I am aware as a reader, in fact I find this kind of psychosis amongst journalists obsessed with themselves and mightily confused about their reader's interest in their personal business lives to be almost frightening.

If I may suggest that the City Paper writers take a 2-3 hour meeting with an organizational therapist to discuss why they might think they'll get more readers with articles about topics that no one but themselves care about? I think Molly Ivins is right on the money, the city paper has decided to improve itself, post-layoffs by printing articles that are smaller and less interesting to the readers. Is that success?