A Bubble Within DC’s Bubble

Interesting letter to the editor from Saturday’s Washington Post (via Extreme-ness):

You would think that with the never-ending panorama of issues facing journalism today, ombudsman Deborah Howell would have dedicated her Aug. 20 column ["Unsportsmanlike Conduct"] to something other than the small-minded tempest in a newsroom going on between Tony Kornheiser and Paul Farhi.

Does Howell really think that anyone beyond your narrow little newsroom world cares whether Farhi feels that Kornheiser was given a taste of his own medicine or that Kornheiser had the temerity to fall back on that old chestnut of an excuse — “I was taken out of context”?

A cynical person might see Howell’s column as an attempt to keep alive a non-story to generate more buzz for The Post and for what she snidely referred to as “Tony Kornheiser Inc.” This only benefits The Post, since Kornheiser plugs your newspaper every chance he gets.

A review of Howell’s recent columns shows an ombudsman who is more interested in defending The Post than in investigating charges of bias or taking complaints from readers seriously. Given the recent buyout of reporters, continued questions of bias in The Post’s coverage and the paper’s policy of promoting books on its front page on behalf of reporters, Howell’s columns give rise to the question of whether she is doing the ombudsman’s job that we expect and deserve from her.

– Martin A. Kramer

Takoma Park

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