Post.com Says Some Howell Comments Will Be Restored

By: Vaughn Ververs
Topics: Mega-Media Trends

During a Washingtonpost.com chat today, the site's executive editor, Jim Brady, answered readers questions about the chain of events that led him to close and remove all comments to a posting regarding ombudsman Deborah Howell. See here for the history. A couple highlights from today's chat:

Asked why all comments were removed, even those which were well-argued, Brady said:

"There were lots of good posts, and over the next few days, we'll go back through them and restore the ones that did not violate our rules, though we're still going to leave comments off on that blog for the time being."

Brady addressed charges that the paper was attempting to "silence" its critics:

"How has The Post 'silenced its critics'? We're having a discussion right now in which -- believe me -- I can assure you there are more critics than supporters. We shut down comments on one blog on a site than has 30. You can e-mail or snail mail letters to the editor. Deborah's e-mail is available on the site. There are plenty of avenues to critique what happens at the newspaper or web site. We don't have an obligation to keep every one of those avenues open if we run into problems like we did yesterday."

On what steps the Post.com will take in the future, Brady notes:

"Too early to tell. We need to look at how we're staffed to handle comments, especially in cases where's there's been a concerted effort to flood us with comments in a short period of time. We also need to look at the technology, specifically how much weeding out of offensive content can be automated, etc. To be honest, the experience we've had since we launched blogs a year ago has been very positive, but we found out this week we're not equipped technically or personnel-wise to handle a flood of problematic email."

Overall, the chat was an encouraging step in getting past the ugliness of yesterday's episode. It appears likely that Howell will address the subject once again in this weekend's paper. That should be required reading.

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by peterbaldwin-2009 January 23, 2006 1:03 AM EST: "The public trust is more important than party," said Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman. "Which is why the first solution to the problem is rooting out those who have done wrong, without regard to party or ideology." Doesn't this explain everything!; Reply to this comment


by phoenixandy January 21, 2006 7:27 PM EST: Jim Brady says that Deborah Howell's E-mail is still up, but Ms. Howell already sent an internal E-mail to Washington Post employees in which she stated "from now on, I don't reply." Jim Brady is excellent in ignoring the facts, sweeping things under the rug and putting a rosy picture on things.; Reply to this comment


by sanfelz January 21, 2006 12:21 PM EST: Credit should be given to The Post for being willing to re-join the fray. Others, such as the LA Times have just given up on blogs. Blogs are different than letters-to-the-editor because letters-to-the-editor are chosen and are often edited. Most papers do not have blogs at all, except for "you-suck" "no,you suck" sports sites.; Reply to this comment


by jaguar0 January 20, 2006 7:08 PM EST: The problems, the post is having> Has less to do with any kind of censorship. Then the fact, that they do not seem to realize that a poster in an on line blog, is not of the same mind set as say a letter to the editor writer? Some one who is writing a letter to an editor, is going to be more careful and have more editorial over site, then someone, who shoots, editoral out in a quick second, opinion aids furry?; Reply to this comment


by aramisdc January 20, 2006 6:27 PM EST: The problem for Brady is two-fold. First, he's just re-purposing content from the paper in many cases. An the paper is under independent control. So he has no authority to make someone respond to criticisms, or to control his own content. Second, it appears that he either doesn't get the web fully, or is pretending not to due to #1. The fact that he thinks it was some special effort to dredge up Howell for a non-retraction non-apology "3 days before her column" says load. This was not a difficult correction. It could (and should) have been done within minutes of a fact check. Instead, the Post let this sit and fester for 5 days before issuing a non-apology. Frustration gets the best of everyone, sometimes. A lot of print journalists are used to having the big megaphone unchallenged. Ten years ago Howell could shove whatever she wanted out there, and people could only send mail into the black box, to be ignored if wanted. Today, someone making a dumb mistake (we'll be charitable and assume that was what it was) will get publically nailed with a smaller, but still powerful megaphone. That's what happened to Howell. And she obviously didn't like it much. The power shifts. But for Brady, this is a huge issue. He wants interactivity, but the nature of the .com/Post split, and the desire of Post reporters to meaintain the sole megaphone, unchallenged make it impossible for him to actually do what is necessary for it to work.; Reply to this comment


by mikezwolf January 20, 2006 4:44 PM EST: Brady (and yourself) continue to ignore the following basic contradiction. Brady says in the live discussion that: 1) They had to delete existing comments (and not just disallow new ones) because of 'profanity'. 2) There was no 'profanity' in the existing comments (as pointed out by readers who went through the cached copies stored on other websites) because they had already deleted offending comments. How can Brady say those two things in alternating comments without realizing that he's making a fool of himself? Brady arrogantly refuses to admit that he jumped the gun and screwed up on this one (which would be perfectly understandable and readers would forgive), and he's putting himself in the same position as Ms. Howell -- i.e., no credibility left.; Reply to this comment