BLOG RAGE | By Jim Brady: "As it was, things got pretty ugly, and it's worth figuring out why. In her Jan. 15 column, Howell erred in saying that Abramoff gave campaign donations to Democrats as well as Republicans. In fact, Abramoff directed clients to give to members of both parties, but he had donated his own personal funds only to Republicans.Inadvertent my foot. And her mewling attempt at an explanation was worse. Filters are a wonderful thing. Set them to catch profanity and certain catch phrases. If you don't know how, check with the NSA. They know how to screen for that kind of thing.
Howell's inadvertent error prompted a handful of bloggers to urge their readers to go to post.blog to vent their discontent, and in the subsequent four days we received more than a thousand comments in our public forum. Only, the word 'comments' doesn't convey the obscene, vituperative tone of a lot of the postings, which were the sort of things you might find carved on the door of a public toilet stall. About a hundred of them had to be removed for violating the Post site's standards, which don't allow profanity or personal attacks.
To my dismay, matters only got worse on Jan. 19 after Howell posted a clarification on washingtonpost.com. Instead of mollifying angry readers, the clarification prompted more than 400 additional comments over the next five hours, many of them so crude as to be unprintable in a family newspaper. Soon the number of comments that violated our standards of Web civility overwhelmed our ability to get rid of them; only then did we decide to shut down comments on the blog.
So was I suppressing free speech? Protecting the Bush administration? That's what you'd think, judging by the swift and acid reaction to my move. They couldn't get to post.blog, but they sure let me have it elsewhere in the blogosphere. I was honored as 'Wanker of the Day' on one left-wing blog. Another site dissected my biography in order to prove that I was part of The Post's vast right-wing conspiracy.
Out in the Web woodshed, a handful of bloggers called me gutless or a puppet; some of them compared me to assorted body parts and characterized me as the worst person to come along since, well, Deborah Howell. And any nasty posts I didn't see myself, my friends gleefully provided to me via e-mail. A few friends said they came close to jumping online to defend me, but chose not to for fear they'd be next in line for a public flogging."
This all raises a question: Why are people so angry? It was a mistake, it was corrected.No, it wasn't. You guys have whined about the response, but Howell never actually admitted to a mistake which is why everyone was so upset, and then you keep bringing it up so you can point out how a few people misbehaved while avoiding the issue that your ombudsman can't do her job correctly. Blame it on the bloggers, not on poor job performance backed by bad management.
As a blogger I do appreciate the links, the stories, the investigating that you do because I can't since I'm not a reporter. That doesn't make me stupid or one sided, it just means that I have varied interests and another job.
Something you and your ombudsman should consider since you seem to have a little difficulty getting past the personal attacks to understand that you didn't DO YOUR JOB.
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