With all of the changes happening in journalism, it seems to be a good time to opine and report about the media. Plenty of blogs and bloggers do so brilliantly, but so do a few hearty souls in traditional outlets. A quick brainstorm session brought forth a list of high-profile names: Romenesko and Beaujon, yes. But also, The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz, NYU's Jay Rosen, the Maynard Institute's Richard Prince, plus four more City Paper alumni: Reuter's Jack Shafer, the New York Times' David Carr, former New York Observer media beatster Tom Scocca (now at Deadspin) and the Post's Erik Wemple.

Aside from Prince, all of these people are white men. It's generally accepted that diversity (geographical, economic, gender and race) bring differing perspectives to the newsroom and can enhance coverage. That's why journalism has been fighting (and some could say, losing) a battle for greater diversity for decades.

Beaujon has a theory for why white men are so prevalent in the field: "Media criticism, which is a fly-in-the-soup job, is fundamentally an alt-weekly pursuit, and alt-weeklies' DNA is heavily white and male. In turn, I have a couple theories about that, but my working one is that it's because working at such places gives white males such as myself a chance to feel like an underdog for once in our lives."

I think he's onto something. Alt-weeklies—including the one you're reading right now—are super white. And this particular alt-weekly has at various points employed half of the critics listed. (Maybe the real problem is diversity at City Paper? Hmm.)

At any rate, reporting on longtime acquaintances, colleagues, and even friends, can be a pretty rough business no matter what your demographic background. A willingness to be frequently unpopular—something all journalists have to learn to deal with, though usually not within their cohort—is definitely part of the description.

But maybe more importantly, the ability to criticize probably comes a bit easier for folks who don't ever have the question, "Should I even be here?" hanging over their heads as they look around a room and don't see anyone who looks like them. To that end, it seems highly unlikely that media criticism will diversify until newsrooms do.

Which was, as far as the Post brass was concerned, a violation of an ethical rule against expressing an opinion in private e-mails. "Weigel’s e-mails showed strikingly poor judgment and revealed a bias," Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander wrote explaining the whole thing. (A few days ago, Slate's Tom Scocca, a former editor at Washington City Paper, deconstructed the whole mess better than anyone else, concluding: "Still, there was nothing in this episode that an editor with guts and integrity couldn't have weathered in 72 hours. Maybe someday Weigel will be lucky enough to work for one.")

But the Post's editors aren't totally against personal e-mails. In fact, they seem to like when their reporters suck up to sources via e-mail—even if that means telling their sources that they are praying for them.

On January 11, 2006, the Post broke a big local story: Councilmember Marion Barry had tested positive for cocaine use. Two days later, WaPo Metro reporter Hamil Harris e-mailed Barry's chief of staff Linda Greene. Here's what he wrote, according to records City Paper obtained via the Freedom of Information Act not long afterwards:

"Tell Marion

I am praying for him and you

These are trying times but God has not changed"

And Greene's response:

"Amen, it’s good to hear from you.…"

Harris is a veteran journalist, and one of the sweetest guys ever to report out  a Wilson Building press conference or a tragic crime scene. But if what he wrote was OK, why shouldn't Weigel be allowed to privately mock his subjects to his friends? The reason is simple: In journalism, sucking up to sources is considered just part of the job. Thinking critical thoughts about them, though, seems to be verboten.

The buzz around town today is all about Sally Quinn's new low, aka a column in this morning's Style section in which she explains all about a wedding-scheduling snafu in her own family.

For all of you who have substantive things to worry about, this is what the piece was about: In recent days, there've been published reports about how the columnist's son, Quinn Bradlee, is scheduled to get married on the same day as the granddaughter of Quinn's husband, Washington Post legend Ben Bradlee. So Quinn used this week's edition of her Style column, "The Party," to rebut the negativity in those reports, and to assert that even a "so-called expert" (herself, that is) on the art of entertaining can slip up now and again.

The comments section has been downright abusive, as in: "TimPage1 wrote: When the brilliant and legendary Henry Allen had a dust-up at the Post with some reporters, he referred to their article as "the second worst piece ever printed in Style." This led to a heated question on the Washingtonian blog — what was the WORST piece ever printed in Style? There's a new champion today. Unbelievable."

Another glorious takedown comes from Tom Scocca and Choire Sicha, writing on the fabulous The Awl.

Of course, TimPage1, Scocca, Sicha, and myself are punching a pretty easy target here, and perhaps a target that loves nothing more than serving as a target. But the newsworthy thing about this particular abomination is not so much just how bad the column is, how self-unaware Quinn is, or anything like that. She can be as bad as she wants to be.

The real questions are for her editor, Style editor Ned Martel, and here's just a start:

1) Mr. Martel: Is this the sort of material you envisioned when you launched the column?

2) Mr. Martel: In the column, Ms. Quinn references "tensions" within her family, yet she never explains what those tensions were. If your columnist made a passing reference to tensions within any other family, or tensions within a company, or tensions within a book club, wouldn't you demand further explanation of those tensions?

3) Mr. Martel: How is it that there was no overlap on the guest lists for the two weddings under discussion here?

4) Mr. Martel: Your columnist is using the increasingly precious space in the print edition of the Washington Post to rebut criticism aired in other media outlets. Is this something that's encouraged at the paper? If someone attacks another columnist or reporter, is that space going to be available for further rebuttals? Could you carve out some column inches just for this purpose? And why are there no links to said criticism?

5) Mr. Martel: Your columnist slimes her husband in print, saying she instructed him "to put the date [of his granddaughter's wedding] on his calendar, and he did not. A warning to wives everywhere!" Did the husband have a chance to comment for the column?

6) Mr. Martel: Did you read this column before it was published?

Alas, Mr. Martel is not going to answer those questions. After ringing him up this afternoon, here's the conversation that ensued:

I asked Martel if I could interview him about the column. He responded, "I am going to decline to comment."

I told him it's just about the column, nothing terribly sensitive: "That is the way it’s going to be."

I told him that it's generally been the case that editors at the Post speak up in defense of their journalism, and Martel said, "I am going to forward your questions to Kris Coratti." Kris Coratti is the paper's spokesperson, and the last time we checked in with her, she was declining to tell us about the various editions that the paper prints each day.

Winding down the conversation with Martel, I told him that refusing to speak about what the paper had printed "stinks."

"Oh, sorry," he responded.

Another victory for the Brauchli Doctrine!

Yesterday, rumors broke that the team was going to boot Rizzo and hire the Diamondbacks' Jerry DiPoto. Nats fan boards lit up with pleas for management to keep Rizzo, who'd only just completed the Stephen Strasburg signing.

The Lerners are known for never giving a hoot about public opinion, but, coincidentally or not, it appears their decision and the fans' wishes will mesh here.

Then again, it could just be that Rizzo, already on staff as an assistant, comes cheaper than DiPoto would have.

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In case you missed it: I wrote my own special Groundhog Column, about Spingarn football's newest new football coach, a piece I've written again and again over the years. The newest new guy to run the long-troubled program, Charlie McKie, takes over with clear eyes and a full heart. He's been coaching youth football in the city for nearly three decades, the last several years at Brown Middle School, so McKie knows Spingarn hasn't competed for the Turkey Bowl in a generation.

But someday, that's going to happen.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Madden dumps the Great Hoyas Hope? Are the Olympics ready for gender-non-specific track and field? Yandamonium™ returns already? Erin Andrews gets muddy?)

McKie, like all his predecessors at Spingarn and pretty much every D.C. public school coach I've ever interviewed, is a superhero to me. The stuff they put up with, well, don't get me started...

Full disclosure: We're pulling for Coach McKie and Spingarn!

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I'm not the only one thinking Georgetown U's dry spell in the NFL will go on.

In their weekly updates, the game producers of Madden 10, while adding Michael Vick to the Eagles' roster and Brett Favre to the Vikings', have just taken the digital version of defensive lineman Alex Buzbee off the roster of the digital Redskins — even though the real Buzbee hasn't yet been cut by the real Redskins.

"Too low on the depth chart" was the reason given for the move. On the web site of the real Redskins, Buzbee is currently listed as the fourth-team tackle.

No Hoya has played in the NFL since Jim Ricca, who was signed by the Redskins in 1951.

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How would sportstalker Brendan Haywood deal with this story?

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I have been feeling sorry for Steve Yanda, the Washington Post sportswriter who's been taking it in every orifice since last week, when he wrote the most viral lede in the history of the sports section: "In the coda of the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, composer Johann Sebastian Bach repeats the same chord sequence over and over again, leading the listener to anticipate one resolution, only to provide a tone completely different."

That was for a story about the Nationals beating the Diamondbacks for their 8th win in a row. Bet you couldn't tell!

But, anyway, that story created complete Yandamonium™. I usually only get emails about mortgage rates and penile implants, but three people sent me Yanda's Bach piece. He got ripped everywhere, even in his own paper, for his fuguing around in a game story.

Edward L. Jaffee of Springfield was among those whose Yanda-bashing letter-to-the-editor made it to print:

Steve Yanda took The Post's sportswriting to a new low. Not only did the reader have to go to the continuation on Page D6 to find out how the Nationals won, but Yanda's lead was, in effect, a tutorial on baroque music and has nothing at all to do with sports. My wife, a classical pianist, shared my perplexity at the report, saying it sounds as if the writer was simply strutting his knowledge of Bach. I agree. Not only that, but his analogy was tortured and wrong. The Nats had just won their eighth straight, coming from down 5-0 and 6-0 in the two previous games, so to hang the story on a hook of trailing by 1-0 after one inning was a stretch. Why not return to the cleaner writing of great Post sportswriters of the past, such as Shirley Povich, and at least give us the result and key factors in the game before going off on a feature writer's excursion?

The out-of-house treatment was rougher. Even Gary Williams had to cringe as he read former City Paper mastermind Tom Scocca show up on Deadspin to ground and pound on Yanda, who I've never met but I hear is as nice as he is young.

So, again, I've been feeling sorry for Yanda.

Then I read this in yesterday's Post. I was a few hundred words in before the story and the headline ("Long Journey Brings Morse Back to Majors") connected at all.

"Can't be Steve Yanda! Not so soon after FugueinCminorGate™,!" I said to myself, hoping against hope. "Steve Yanda," said the byline.

And, to twist Chrissy Hynde, my pity was gone.

(Hynde references are much more acceptable in sporting circles than Bach. Right, editors? What? No editors? Really? Oh...FugueinCminorGate™'s all starting to make sense! There but for the grace of god and any clue about classical music go I...)

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Deadspin writes up Erin Andrews' new GQ spread. A genius commenter points out a conceptual flaw in the layout: "Q: How did her shoulder pads get so muddy?"

So the Washington Post appeared to want to make you pay big bucks for meet-ups with their reporters and editors. Politico had the scoop on the Post scheme in which Publisher Katharine Weymouth would host "salons" in which lobbyists and association muckety mucks would pay large sums of money to hobnob with Posties, Obama administration officials, and members of Congress.

Let's stop and just say it: This is/was really, really dumb. Unethical and dumb. Yesterday, Weymouth published a "Dear Reader" letter apologizing for the now-abandoned salons. It reads in part:

"A flier distributed last week suggested that we were selling access to power brokers in Washington through dinners that were to take place at my home. The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind. But let me be clear: The flier was not the only problem."

I wonder if the Weymouth has to put a stop order on the hot appetizers she planned on serving to D.C.'s elite. I hope the Post doesn't have to eat the cost of the flower arrangement orders. And I hope they got a deal on those fliers they're not going to use. Next time: Evites.

There had been a lot of dithering on the part of the Post's staff on the subject of these salons. Howard Kurtz, the paper's media reporter, suggested the events were like the New Yorker Festival. [Um, no the salons would not have been like the New Yorker Festival]. It is really doubtful that the salons would have been open to the public and given big-time ad treatment within its pages. The salons appeared to be private affairs between Washington elite.

The best takedown/summation of this scandal? You can find it at The Awl. The Shadow Editors—featuring WCP alum Tom Scocca—dissect the scandal and the Weymouth letter. It's actually funny.

I am still confused about the extent of the Post's editors and reporters involvement in setting up the salons.

*photo courtesy Business Week.