Comments on: Washington Post‘s Robert Wone Story: Web Experiment?

By: Murder Ink, Redux « Who Murdered Robert Wone?

Murder Ink, Redux « Who Murdered Robert Wone? — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:55:17 +0000

[...] Wemple of the Washington City Paper was the first to step into this journalistic debate with his dissection of the Post’s decision not to publish a word of the Wone saga in print, but reserve it all for [...]

By: Fred

Fred — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:25:41 +0000

I thought it was good, and I'm glad it was written because up till then, I'd mostly just gotten accounts of the murder from the comments page of the very very short WP articles and one or two blogs. The Duggan piece stood back a bit further than the blogs and comments and gave some much needed perspective. I can't help but be haunted by the image of this poor man.

By: sigmund freud

sigmund freud — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:58:20 +0000

I sent a question to Duggan when he took questions online on Tuesday as to why it wasn't in the print edition. I thought it waas a great piece and the masses who read the paper in hand missed out. I've already cancelled my subscription since the delivery could never get there on time -- the Post is such a goner.....

By: 2b3s

2b3s — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:35:07 +0000

I read the series, enjoyed it, learned a little bit along the way. WaPo, my bet, made it web-only as an experiment. At some point, they're going to charge for "online only" in-depth stories like this. It's the only way investigative journalism will survive in the 21st century newspaper industry.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:34:11 +0000

Do you think the Post decision to not publish in print had anything to do with the flak they received after publishing the similar long form story on Chandra Levy several months ago?

As a a Post subsriber I share the sentiment of the poster, it would take a lot to get me to cancel my subsription but the choice to not print this along with the elimination of vast sections of the paper, business, Book world and others are steps in the right direction.

By: OTBerbur

OTBerbur — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:17:24 +0000

I wonder if this piece was more of a "smashing success" with other journalists than it was with actual readers. This seemed to me like yet another self-indulgent Post piece that went on at about thrice the length needed to tell the story. I am surprised Mr. Wemple, who has done a great deal to reduce the number of similarly windy stories in City Paper in favor of sharper, more focused reporting, concludes otherwise. I think actual readers would have been better served by a fairly short story in the print edition summarizing what Mr. Wemple accurately describes as "incremental advances in reporting" (other local media outlets had the basics several months earlier), and those with the time and patience to read Mr. Duggan's potboiler-style prose could have gone to the website.