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Archive for the 'Washington Post' Category

When Not to Blog About the White House

Published by William Beutler on August 10, 2008 in Barack Obama, Beltway media, Blogs vs. MSM, George W. Bush, Journalism, Journalist Bloggers, MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Metapost, National Politics, Newspaper Columnists, Newspapers, Startups, The Politico, Tough Crowd, Twitter, Washington Post, Website Design, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

Politico sign in DC Metro from David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Last week I traded a series of Twitter “@ messages” with Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor, blogger and media critic. The first one asked:

Maybe you know. Q: why doesn’t Politico have a Ben Smith for the White House? Bets on whether they’ll get one if Obama wins?
He’s got a point. The Politico lists the organization’s designated blogs on its front-page in this order: Ben Smith on Dems, Jonathan Martin on GOP, Shenanigans on Gossip, The Scorecard on Campaigns, The Crypt on Congress, Michael Calderone on Media, James Kotecki on whatever. The Politico is literally blogging about “whatever” but not about “the White House.” So I guessed, in fewer than 140 characters:
Smith-Martin are a package deal, covering both primaries. Politico: more campaign, less governing? But that’s a great idea.
Prof. Rosen suggested in turn:
How about a PI post? Politico columnists for the Dems, Reps, Congress, Media, Gossip, Campaign trail, but no White House?
To which I replied:
Mike Allen certainly covers the WH. But not in blog form, true. Have friends down there, so I can ask. Possible PI post indeed.

And so I did, getting in touch with a half-dozen or so current and former Politico writers, asking for their thoughts, on background. I also made an effort to get VandeHarris on the record, but they did not return e-mails by my less-than-rigorously self-enforced deadline.

So here’s what I could piece together:

  • When the Politico launched a little under two years ago, the presidential campaign offered the biggest opportunity first. Politico was first conceived as a newspaper to be called Capitol Leader — “Yet Another Newspaper Aimed at Capitol Hill” as the Washington Post had it. The Executive branch wasn’t even in the picture until John Harris and Jim VandeHei were.

  • As noted above, the newspaper that did emerge hired the much-acclaimed, much-accosted former White House reporter for Time and WaPo, Mike Allen. He writes big stories, is in good with Drudge, and produces content on a daily basis like everyone else. The format of his output is a secondary matter.

  • Most everyone I talked to seemed to assume that no matter who won the presidential election, the Politico would increase their White House coverage after the election. After all, it’s the logical continuation of the campaign stories they are covering now. Some said they thought a blog would be involved, and no one volunteered the opposite.

One thing that occurs to me is that other major newspapers have blogs covering the White House as a beat, as do regional newspapers with Washington correspondents, but none of them command major audiences (even when they resort to Olympics T&A).

People care about the big stories that emanate from the White House, and they’ll get that from every newspaper and every political blog inside the Beltway, but few are looking for the day-to-day minutiae. Bush is a lame duck, interest has waned even in some of the bigger stories, and other national newspapers have moved their White House correspondents to the campaign trail.

The answer given reminds me a bit of the response I got in the summer of 2006 when I first wrote about the opening for a “Republican ActBlue”, viz., just wait. It may be worth noting, the person who did finally create one was not yet working on it at that time.

So, yes, the Politico will probably have a White House blog next year. Whether Politico writes the one that Jay Rosen is hoping for remains to be seen.

Photograph by David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Beware the “Net-roots”

Published by William Beutler on July 21, 2008 in Barack Obama, MSM, Netroots, Newspaper Columnists, Rhetoric and Washington Post. 1 Comment

Two previous topics at Blog P.I. have been newspaper journalists’ tendency to hold the word “netroots” at arms length, and the extent to which Robert Novak, so old he built the school, “gets” the Internet.

Novak’s column in this morning’s Post, about Barack Obama’s current overseas travel, affords us the chance to put them together. Here he is on Obama’s recent shift centerward:

Since clinching the nomination, Obama has been cautiously executing a Nixonian post-primary pivot toward the center. He weathered the outrage of his “net-roots” bloggers over his vote for the national security wiretapping bill.

Really, “net-roots”? This is even worse than the Washington Post’s habit of hyphenating the term; when I last mentioned this in March 2007, the term didn’t warrant scare quotes. And I’m pretty sure the punctuation is Novak’s, as I think I’ve been told the Post doesn’t hold opinion writers to the stylebook it applies to the news pages.

On the other hand, if you’re part of the netroots, you have to be at least somewhat pleased that Robert Novak recognizes your political clout — to say nothing of your existence.

N.B. Elsewhere in today’s paper, Jose Antonio Vargas’ report from Netroots Nation refers to them simply as “Netroots,” and that of course is sans quotation marks. As long as “Internet” continues to require capitalization, I’m fine with this formulation.

What If They Held a Federal Election and No One Noticed?

Published by William Beutler on December 12, 2007 in 50 State Strategy, 527s, Congress, Daily Kos, Elections, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Local Politics, Midterms '06, Ohio Politics, Online Fundraising, RNC, RedState, Special Election, Virginia Politics, Washington Post and William Beutler. 0 Comments

Last night Republicans retained two House seats in special elections called to replace members who passed away earlier this year. This morning, Captain Ed led his recap with the observation:

Had the Republicans lost their two special election contests to replace deceased GOP House members, one would see the papers filled with analyses of the coming debacle for Republican hopes in 2008. Now that they have won both handily, expect most to either ignore the races altogether or chalk up the wins to local Republican strength.
Indeed, about the closer-watched Ohio election the Washington Post merely ran an AP story on A02; the Viriginia story ran on B05 in the Metro section. Neither buried, but neither featured. Had Weirauch had won, the anti-Republican mood of ‘06 would seem to be continuing. So it’s kind of funny where the Post chose to cut off the wire report:
But Democrats had high hopes about Weirauch’s chances against the younger Latta. This was her third run for the House, and last year, against Gillmor, she received the biggest share of the vote — 43 percent — of any Democrat in the district’s history.




I noticed the same dearth of barking from the blogs, too. Here’s everything the Memeorandum algorithm deemed significant this morning:

Memeorandum recap of December 2007 special elections

And the whole story was off the page by the beep of twelve.

Daily Kos featured just one recap of the special election, which seemed very bitter even after explaining how the NRCC had spent a big chunk of its cash on hand:

The Republicans are still trying to pretend that 2006 was an aberration. Yet they have to go all-out, it seems, to hold the ground they already have. Yes, I was hoping for a better performance in this district. Yes, I’m disappointed.

Meanwhile, the RNC’s Jason Richardson said nyah in a post for GOP.com and at RedState, focused not on the party committees, but on the extra-party support apparatus:

Weirauch had heavy support from the DCCC, Daily Kos, Act Blue, Nancy Pelosi, Charlie Rangel, Harry Reid, and EMILY’s LIST. We were severely out-manned in Ohio and Virginia and this is what they have to show for it? We came to the game to win. All in all, the liberal blogosphere should take heed: You’re not as powerful as you think and it’s about results not PR.

To be sure, these were retentions and the Virginia election was never much of a contest. But the Ohio race between Republican Bob Latta and Democrat Robin Weirauch was a focal point of both parties in recent weeks, with both parties’ house committees pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the district. Online, Slatecard and Big Red Tent both spotlighted the race and sent out fundraising pleas; Slatecard raised $1,908 from 21 supporters. Meanwhile Weirauch apparently collected more than $93,000 from ActBlue, some $15,600 raised by the Daily Kos/Open Left-backed Blue Majority and $12,300 by Wesley Clark’s WesPAC.

One race was obviously a dud and the other would prove to be one, too. It’s hard to nationalize a special election, and there was no Paul Hackett. In fact, there was barely an Iraq debate — though the Democrat in the Viriginia race, Philip Forgit, was an Iraq veteran. So the leftroots raised more money, but the rightroots (if not Rightroots) ended up with the win. But neither the leftosphere nor rightosphere owns this win or loss. This race just wasn’t won or lost online. And if it was a status quo election, Republicans have to be pleased with that.

Update: I somehow managed to miss Eric Pfeiffer’s understated observation, posted just after the beep-beep of twelve-thirty:

Bloggers Respond With Restraint to Yesterday’s OH/VA Special Elections

At least.

Worst. E-mail Alert. Ever

Published by William Beutler on November 27, 2007 in E-mail, MSM, Obituary, Seriously, Sports, Washington Post and William Beutler. 3 Comments

There is no joy in Washington, D.C. today. As virtually everyone with a television set or Drudge Report bookmark knows by now, Washington Redskins star safety Sean Taylor died early this morning from gunshot wounds incurred while confronting a home invasion in his Miami home.

As a District resident and fan of the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons, it’s a gloomy day. But as a subsciber to the Washington Post, it’s even worse. Here is an e-mail alert I received barely two hours ago (at 8:48 a.m. to be specific):

Washington Post's grievously outdated news alert regarding Sean Taylor

I realize that this e-mail alert generally aims to highlight news and opinion from the print edition, but this is obviously one of those times when they should have updated it with information from the web edition. Obviously. Methinks the Post will be getting some angry e-mails about this one.

P.S. My fantasy football season is over, realistically if not mathematically. So what the hell. Here’s my act of solidarity:

Posthumously adding Sean Taylor to my fantasy football league

If you find this less a sign of respect than either creepy or funny, well, you’re probably right.

In-Cohen-rent

Published by William Beutler on September 4, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Rhetoric and Washington Post. 0 Comments

I’ve sometimes wondered if Beltway/MSM columnists include derogatory references to political bloggers merely to get a rise and, from that, some linkage. After reading this morning’s Richard Cohen column, I no longer wonder:

A survey of political bloggers showed that 94 percent of them had never been out of the country or read anything other than a Harry Potter book.

Unfortunately for Cohen, it doesn’t necessarily work.

P.S. Yes, I realize the headline of this post is, itself, in-cohen-rent.

Fundraising Awareness

Published by William Beutler on August 16, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Fundraising, John McCain, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, MSM, Online Fundraising, RedState, Republicans, Startups and Washington Post. 3 Comments

Earlier in the week Matthew Mosk, a political reporter for the Washington Post, posted to Post.com’s The Trail an arguably unhelpful and inarguably un-insightful post about the disparate fates of the best-known online fundraising apparatuses (apparati?) of Democrats and Republicans:

Democratic candidates for federal office have seen more than $25 million come through the web site ActBlue — some of which will eventually flow to the Democratic National Committee for use during the general election. Republicans, meanwhile, have seen just a tiny ripple of activity on the ABC PAC web site — $385 raised for the presidential candidates to date — which is supposed to be ActBlue’s direct competition.

Sure, at one time it was supposed to be. But as this blog and other blogs have pointed out, it’s never had the kind of support such that it should actually be spoken of in the same sentence. Not to mention that several journalists, including Mosk’s colleague Chris Cillizza, have (apparently ignorantly) misrepresented what ActBlue means to different Democratic candidates.

Mosk’s brief report is of a piece with this, not knowing or bothering to differentiate between the two websites. Is it fair to point out that Democrats are doing better with their independent online fundraising tools? Absolutely. Is it fair to compare ActBlue’s total fundraising figures over three cycles compared to ABC’s (admittedly underwhelming) year in existence? Not without explaining the situation, it’s not.

But it gets worse:

Now there is a new effort to change that. R. Rebecca Donatelli, a pioneer of Internet fundraising who help raise some of the nation’s first online dollars for John McCain in 2000, has revealed she and partner Michael Palmer are working on a new, and she hopes improved, version of ABC PAC to launch this fall. While she continues to work on behalf of McCain, she said she is optimistic the improvements to ABC PAC will help all of the Republican candidates. Given the numbers they are posting on the site right now, it would be tough to make things worse.

This “new effort,” as Mosk doesn’t adequately explain, is a second go at the same operation by the same person responsible for ABC’s ineffectiveness. Worse, though, Mosk is apparently unaware of other new ventures by GOP activists in the same space. Even before Mosk’s posting, there were two new efforts gearing up to do same thing:

Both sites have yet to prove themselves, sure. But considering that Mr. Mosk was moved to write a post about ABC PAC, isn’t this worth an correction? Or better yet — another post?

Mail of the Species

Published by William Beutler on July 30, 2007 in Apple, E-mail, Hillary Clinton, Seriously, Tech Blogosphere, Technology and Washington Post. 0 Comments

A couple of posts caught my eye this weekend, both having to do with e-mail. The first came from Owen Thomas at Valleywag:

There was a time, back in 1998 or so, when AOL was synonymous with email for most ordinary folks. That time, of course, is long past. But AOL’s tireless flacks are trying to bring it back with a press release outlining which cities’ residents are most addicted to email. Surprisingly, Washington, D.C. comes in first.

Surprisingly? As I got into the elevator on my way out of work this afternoon, I almost hesitated to take out my iPhone, for fear of seeming conspicuous and tech-obesessed. Never mind: the man and woman already aboard were tapping away, two-thumbed, at their CrackBerries.

And then this, from Jake Tapper at ABC News:

[T]he Washington Post has … obtained a fundraising letter from Clinton taking issue with Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan’s style-section story about Clinton’s cleavage.

Yeah, I “obtained” that as well. By opening my inbox.

The Washington Post’s A1 Placement Condition for Bloggers

Published by William Beutler on July 22, 2007 in Border Security, MSM vs. Blogs and Washington Post. 2 Comments

The Washingon Post profiles Virginia blogger Greg Letiecq today, and even as an A1 below-the-fold feature of the sort they often runs on weekeends, it’s an odd read. It’s not that writer Nick Miroff can’t disguise his loathing of Letiecq’s website, Black Velvet Bruce Li — it’s that he seems to go out of his way to make it blindingly obvious to even the least perceptive reader that he really, really doesn’t like what Letiecq stands for, and it ultimately hurts the piece.

Here are a few of the unnecessary sneering asides that mar Miroff’s article:

“Fairfax County Harboring Illegal Aliens” was the title of a recent, and typical, Letiecq posting… …to dismiss Black Velvet Bruce Li as the rantings of a fringe extremist underestimates Letiecq’s reach and appeal… …fanning anti-illegal immigrant sentiment — and providing a venue for raw, sometimes bigoted views… …he points to his neighbor’s house, emanating loud salsa music, where he believes two “illegal aliens” are living. He doesn’t have proof of this, of course, but pronounces his assumption as fact anyway.

I could even be persuaded that Miroff’s reference to Letiecq’s “French Canadian” background is an underhanded effort to induce thoughts of hypocrisy in the Post’s “elite” readership.

Would the Post have cast Letiecq in such a negative light if he had been a liberal?

Actually, yes. On Saturday, April 15, 2006, the Post gave the same treatment to Maryscott O’Connor, who runs MyLeftWing.

Loud, crass and instantaneous… …can one person sitting alone in a living room, typing her fingertips numb on a keyboard, make a difference? … …on it goes, every day, around the clock, on Web site after Web site… …it is where O’Connor finished her evolution from lost soul to angry soul…

Even the accompanying photographs and opening paragraphs of each article are strikingly similar. Here’s Miroff today:

Greg Letiecq photo in the Washington PostIllegal immigrant ice cream vendors might be spreading leprosy in Manassas. Prince William County has been infiltrated by “unassimilated marxist radicals.” Manassas Park police covered up the predations of five Hispanic men who gang-raped a woman in the street in June. These claims, among others, have been made in recent months by Greg Letiecq, whose popular blog, Black Velvet Bruce Li, offers “Blog-Fu for Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park politics” — often making up in passion what it lacks in proof.

And Finkel last spring:

Maryscott O'Connor photo in the Washington PostIn the angry life of Maryscott O’Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O’Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer. Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O’Connor’s reputation is as one of the angriest of all. “One long, sustained scream” is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

But did Miroff pull actually his punches? One difference between the profiles is that Finkel quoted liberally (so to speak) from related blog postings, which were more lurid than the quotes O’Connor supplied. O’Connor: “I’m insane with rage and grief. But I also feel more connected than I ever have.” A Kossack: “I feel like I’m being molested everytime I hear [Bush's] voice.” In comparison, Miroff only alluded to unsavory comments on Letiecq’s website. Whether this is because the quotes were insufficiently awful or unquotable in a family newspaper, I can’t say.

So maybe Letiecq actually got off easy. Or maybe, considering how the leftosphere rose up in righteous outrage to defend O’Connor, Letiecq missed his opportunity to becoming a rallying point for immigration-focused bloggers.

Meanwhile, Letiecq is off for the weekend but has a note about the article on his site. As a non-resident of Virginia, I don’t read his site much and can’t evaluate Miroff’s assertions based on my own impressions. But if this comment section is at all representative, it does seem those elitist Posties can give as good as they get:

# Anonymous said on 22 Jul 2007 at 7:08 am: How can you tell you are in a French Canadian town in Maine? By the maple syrup taps on the telephone poles

Sometimes it seems as if the Post can’t cover bloggers as crazy people, they won’t cover them at all.

P.S. I’m not saying that the title of this post should be taken literally, but consider David Von Drehle’s twinned profiles of conservative Betsy Newmark and liberal Barbara O’Brien in July 2005. They were portrayed as pugilistic, yes, but certainly not crazy. Where did that article run? W12.

Just the FAQs

Published by William Beutler on April 15, 2007 in Barack Obama, Washington Post and White House '08. 0 Comments

Q: Why does Barack Obama’s Answer Center look so familiar?

Obama's Answer Center

A: Because it’s using the same interface as the Washington Post’s Customer Care Center, powered by Right Now Technologies.

Washington Post Customer Care Center

In case you were wondering.

Stylebook Over Substance

Published by William Beutler on March 3, 2007 in Academic Blogging, Language, MSM vs. Blogs, Netroots and Washington Post. 1 Comment

The week before last, a front-page Washington Post story detailed the pressure currently being applied by the online left to Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a moderate Democrat from Northern California. In all it was well-researched and informative — though you can’t tell from reading the Ellen Tauscher Weekly that it’s written by erstwhile BlogPAC operative Bob Brigham, this story tells you — but it also made two errors I found a little puzzling. See if you can tell from the opening graf:

The Democratic majority was only three weeks old, but by Jan. 26, the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party’s left wing had already settled on their new enemy: Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), the outspoken chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

Or the tenth:

Democratic leaders want their activists to focus on beating Republicans. But the grass roots and Net roots believe the political tide is shifting their way, and they can provide the money, ground troops and buzz to challenge Democratic incumbents they don’t like. MoveOn.org had two Bay Area chapters before the election; now it has 15, and they could all go to work against Tauscher in a primary. “Absolutely, we could take her out,” said Markos Moulitsas Zúniga — better known as Kos — the Bay Area blogger behind the influential Daily Kos site.

See it? Since when is the “netroots” the “Net-roots” or the “Net roots”? And need it even be “Netroots”? Not to mention “grass-roots” and “grass roots.” Odd. Newspapers are given to preferring capitalization of recent coinages and separating new compound words, but even that was rendered here inconsistently. I decided to contact Michael Grunwald, who co-wrote the story and last July was the agreeable subject of a slightly critical post here, also pertaining to the use of language. Just as he did then, Grunwald got back to me quickly:

I wrote the story and I wrote “netroots.” I was surprised to see that someone changed it to “Net roots”; I think it makes us look like we’ve just discovered them there Internets.

Quite. Grunwald said he would find out what the Post stylebook called for and, in contrast to the week and a half it took me to get this post on the web, he had the answer in twenty minutes:

So: I spoke to the head of our copy desk: Net roots is one of the latest additions to our stylebook. He says “we’re conservative on the onewordlowercase-ization thing.” For example, Post style is Web site, not website. He also points out that Post style is grass roots, not grassroots — which is what I wrote — so at least we’re consistent.

Consistently preposterous, in my opinion — Web site? — but there you have it.

Incidentally, for all our conservatism on the onewordlowercase-ization thing, Post style is stylebook, not style book.

There you have it. “Net roots” is the Post’s peculiar preference, and the rest are typos. Yet this is not applied evenly across the website: at The Fix, Chris Cillizza gets away with plain old “netroots,” and in the news pages, Charles Babington got away with the same, so long as he threw “scare quotes” around it (even in quotation).

The online and dead tree bureaus of the WaPoCo are separate entities and so maintain separate policies, and this is surely one of them. I won’t go so far as to say this is a reason why newspapers are losing out to the web, but by refusing to acknowledge political phrases as they are actually used, the Post’s editors are undercutting the credibility of their own reporters. Consistency is good, but being consistently correct is better.