- I can’t tell if I’m watching MSNBC. Stuff Liberals Say via Ace:

- WaPo ombudsman: Yes we’re biased and we need to start scrutinizing Obama’s record:

Deborah Howell, Post ombudsman from 2005 through 2008, said at the end of her tenure that “some of the conservatives’ complaints about a liberal tilt [at The Post] are valid.”

I won’t quibble with her conclusion. I think she was right.

- News archives proves gun control laws will fail.

(more…)

You have to give mainstream journalists credit. No matter how high the evidence of liberal bias stacks up, they stick to the notion they don’t play favorites.

Rathergate? An aberration. A Washington Post ombudsman admitting journalists favored Sen. Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election? Nothing but reporters chasing down history in the making.

Press blackouts on the Van Jones controversy? Oops, we missed it.

The New Black Panther case? Not enough reporters to cover it.

Ezra Klein, JournoList founder

Poll after poll after poll revealing journalists vote for Democrats over Republicans by a wide margin? Doesn’t matter, since they don’t bring their political impulses to bear on their work.

Meanwhile, the public’s faith in the media continues to plummet. And the one cable news outlet with enough reporters – and curiosity – to cover subjects like Jones and the New Black Panther Party, Fox News, continues to see its ratings soar. (more…)

The Washington Post had two pieces on the (forced) resignation of its “conservative” blogger, Dave Weigel: one by ombudsman, Andrew Alexander; and, another by the staff writer, Howard Kurtz.

Both pieces make a bad situation worse: Alexander’s by unintentionally posing uncomfortable questions about how the Post goes about the business of journalism; Kurtz’s piece gets a key piece of information wrong or misquotes Weigel; Weigel responds.  Unsurprisingly, no one involved comes out looking well.

Alexander’s piece first.  In it he asks, one supposes, a rhetorical question.

But his [Weigel's] departure also raises questions about whether The Post has adequately defined the role of bloggers like Weigel. Are they neutral reporters or ideologues?

One response to Alexander’s question might be:

Well, Andrew, that depends on what the WaPo blogger is covering. If said blogger is covering the Left [Lefty Ezra Klein], then the answer is ‘ideologue.’

If the WashPo blogger is covering the Right [Lefty aka "Libertarian" Dave Weigel], then the answer–oh, never mind. I guess the answer to all questions of how the Post covers politics–and most news–can be answered by hiring another Lefty ideologue. At least with Klein, it’s out in the open for all to read, if one chooses to do so.

Long ago, the Washington Post crossed the line from mere “bias” into the realm of information and content management. That is, it’s not so much in the business of slanting news as it is deciding what news will be seen by the paper’s remaining readers. (more…)

The title of the latest blog post from the Washington Post’s Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, reads; “Blogger loses job; Post loses standing among conservatives.”

Alexander makes an incorrect assumption that the Weigel incident caused the Post to lose standing among conservatives.  He doesn’t realize it has been a long time since the Washington Post had much of a standing among conservatives, and the nasty comments of one liberal blogger didn’t make it worse.

The ombudsman’s post goes on the speak about the “resignation” of Post blogger Dave Weigel, whose job was to write about the conservative movement. Unfortunately for Weigel, he was also an active member of a progressive discussion group, and sent plenty of emails disparaging the same conservatives he was covering. When some of those emails were leaked and published, he resigned.

Mr. Alexander candidly describes the last 24 hours:

Weigel bears responsibility for sarcastic and scornful comments he made in e-mails leaked from a supposedly private listserv called “Journolist,” started in 2007 by fellow Post blogger and friend Ezra Klein. Weigel’s e-mails showed strikingly poor judgment and revealed a bias that only underscored existing complaints from conservatives that he couldn’t impartially cover them. (more…)

Over the course of the last few months, the Center for Consumer Freedom has ramped up its effort to educate Americans about the deceptive fundraising and spending practices of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Most Americans don’t realize that less than one half of one percent of the society’s revenue goes to support hands-on pet shelters, despite their use of tear-jerking ads like this. As our advertising campaign gained traction and donors started dropping like flies, president Wayne Pacelle launched a full-scale personal attack on the Center for Consumer Freedom’s executive director, Rick Berman.

Rather than responding to the substance of our criticisms at HumaneWatch, Pacelle has lashed out, making all manner of bizarre ad hominem attacks against Berman and his staff. He filed an ethics complaint against a Berman-managed trade association, the American Beverage Institute—which, oddly enough, has nothing whatsoever to do with animals—that was so bogus that the environmental lobby should go after Pacelle for all the wasted legal paper.

Going even further off the deep end, Pacelle hired an out-of-work reporter to do a stalker-like, error-riddled “expose” on Berman that featured pictures and video of Berman’s home and cars, respectively.

The New York Times, ever our fans, felt obliged to cover this creepy story. I was quoted in the story asking, “In this new world of fake reporting, how do I go about getting a correction? Is there an ombudsman I can call?” But what about the old world of so-called “real journalism?” Are they any better? It turns out, the answer is “no.” (more…)

In this morning’s Washington Post, ombudsman Andrew Alexander made the argument that “Allegations of spitting and slurs at Capitol protest merit more reporting.” This is zombie-mediaese for “we have to keep discrediting critics of this administration at all costs!”

An ombudsman is described as “a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing the broad scope of constituent interests.” But here we see that the only interest being put forth is one that serves the Democrat establishment.

Alexander made the embarrassing claim that:

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, a black Democrat from Missouri, said a protester spit on him. Rep. Barney Frank, the openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts, was heckled with anti-gay slurs. Two black Democrats, Reps. André Carson of Indiana and John Lewis of Georgia, said protesters subjected them to racial epithets. The episodes were recounted for days in Post stories and columns. Much blame was directed at Tea Party activists.

It’s embarrassing for the Post because there were a plethora of camera crews videotaping the alleged incident and not one tape has come forth validating this claim. In fact, Andrew Breitbart has offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who has a video showing that the “N-word” was used. There have been no takers. Do you really think the media wouldn’t be showing such a tape 24/7 if it actually existed? (more…)

Andrew Alexander’s column today concerning the Washington Post’s reporting on the alleged “spitting and slurs” episode on March 20 offers a partially accurate thesis based on unsubstantiated details.  In short, it doesn’t work.

Here’s Alexander’s thesis:

The Post was remiss in not providing clarity by quickly dissecting what happened.

Although he should have added “and accurately” after “quickly,” we’ll take what we can get.  He also wrote,

The Post and other news organizations left the impression of a despicable, premeditated assault.

“Created” would be a better word than “left.”

And therein is the fracture in the Post ombudsman’s review.  He implies that the Post should have quickly noted that the alleged spitting incident was unintentionally and, therefore, not despicable and premeditated. (An event could be despicable without being premeditated, but I digress.)  Alexander offers no similar comment on the alleged Rep. Barney Frank incident. More on that below. (more…)

Today, in his guise as the Washington Post’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander posted a discussion about the recent misreporting by the Old Media about the various “incidents” that supposedly occurred between the admittedly raucous tea party protestors and members of Congress in Washington, D.C.,  during the healthcare fight. But while Alexander finally makes some admissions on how the Old Media dropped the ball on these exaggerated reports, he still missed the point of the whole mess.

Alexander starts his report off with an interesting rhetorical style. He writes about incidents as if they actually happened even as he admits later down the page that either they didn’t or might not have. He recounts the supposed incidents in affirmative language instead of using qualifiers. “The Post and other news organizations had reported a series of incidents so ugly,” Alexander says, “they were denounced by congressional leaders of both parties.” Notice how he didn’t use qualifiers like “alleged incidents”? No, he said “reported on incidents” as if they were actual incidents that have been proven. If someone were to stop reading after the first few paragraphs they’d go away thinking those “incidents” were confirmed and true.

In any case, Alexander recounts the supposed “spitting” incident where Rep. Emanuel Cleaver complained that he was spat upon as he entered the capitol. He also recounted the name-calling that Rep. Barney Frank encountered as well as the thus far unproven “N” word incident that black members of Congress claim that they suffered through on the day they signed the bill providing for a government take over of America’s health system. (more…)