Whoa: More Newspaper Woes

The Washington Post clearly didn’t have a very good weekend. First, circulation numbers continue to drop. Then, the Washington Post Company’s third-quarter earnings dropped. And Jack Shafer takes them to task for royally excessive coverage of Charles and Camille (as in “10 pieces totaling 11,500 words” excessive”).

Then there’s this interesting–and fairly underreported–news item. Post reporter Matthew Mosk “may have violated a federal privacy law and the newspaper’s ethical code when he used an unidentified person’s account to view private conversations that linked a former aide to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich’s administration to a whisper campaign about a political rival.”

Will the Post, like the White House, have to urge its staffers to “Let’s Get Ethical! Ethical! I want to get Ethical! (Let me hear your body talk…)”?

To be fair: The NYT is having its problems, too (Says Howard Kurtz: “Morale, and Profits, Down At the Times“)

(Related: No, no, we’re not simply bloggers harping on the Mainstream Media…but if you did need a reason why bloggers do do that, see McSweeney’s funny three reasons:

Reasons Bloggers Hate the Mainstream Media.
BY WILLIAM WOLFE

• The MSM is too liberal.
  
• Professor always calls on the MSM.
  
• Bloggers got stood up at prom. By the MSM.

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