I am continually amazed how out of touch with reality that the press is    
   today.  They lost their moral standing with the conservatives over 15    
   years ago.  It just continues to get worse and they are finally starting    
   to notice, just before they go under....   
      
      
   ===============================================   
      
   http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-   
   blog/2010/06/blogger_loses_job_post_loses_s.html   
      
      
      
   Blogger loses job; Post loses standing among conservatives   
   Post blogger Dave Weigel, who wrote about the conservative movement,    
   resigned amid controversy today following disclosure of disparaging e-   
   mails he’d written about some of the very people he was hired to cover.   
      
   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.    
      
   But his departure also raises questions about whether The Post has    
   adequately defined the role of bloggers like Weigel. Are they neutral    
   reporters or ideologues?    
      
   And, given the disdainful comments in his e-mails, there is the separate    
   question of whether he was miscast from the outset when he was hired    
   earlier this year.    
      
      
   Raju Narisetti, the managing editor who oversees The Post’s Web site,    
   said Weigel called him last night and offered to resign after Fishbowl    
   D.C. initially revealed some damaging e-mails. Narisetti said Weigel    
   alerted him that another Web site, the conservative Daily Caller,    
   planned to disclose more e-mails today.   
      
   "This morning, after reading them, I accepted his resignation,"    
   Narisetti said. Contacted by e-mail, Weigel replied: “I no longer work    
   for the Post.”   
      
   The e-mails made negative comments about Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich,    
   Ron Paul, and conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, among    
   others. One suggested it “would be a vastly better world” if Webmeister    
   Matt Drudge “decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly,    
   and set himself on fire.”    
      
   Weigel apologized online yesterday, but the damage was too severe to    
   save his job.   
      
   “I don’t think you need to be a conservative to cover the conservative    
   movement,” Narisetti told me late today. “But you do need to be    
   impartial... in your views.”   
      
   He said that when Weigel was hired, he was vetted in the same way that    
   other prospective Post journalists are screened. He interviewed with a    
   variety of top editors, his writings were reviewed and his references    
   were checked, Narisetti said.    
      
   “But we’re living in an era when maybe we need to add a level” of    
   inquiry, he said. “It may be in our interests to ask potential    
   reporters: ‘In private... have you expressed any opinions that would    
   make it difficult for you to do your job.”   
      
   Weigel’s exit, and the events that prompted it, have further damaged The    
   Post among conservatives who believe it is not properly attuned to their    
   ideology or activities. Ironically, Weigel was hired to address    
   precisely those concerns.   
      
   With bloggers such as Weigel, “I think The Post needs to decide what it    
   wants to be online,” said Dan Gainor, a vice president at the    
   conservative Media Research Center. “Does it want to be opinion? Or,    
   does it want to be news? The problem here was that it was never clear.”   
      
   “If it’s going to be opinion, it ought to have somebody on the    
   conservative side -- something Dave Weigel never was,” he said.    
      
   If The Post wants to assign a “good neutral reporter” to cover    
   conservatives, “we’d be thrilled,” said Gainor. But quickly added,    
   Weigel “wasn’t one. He looked at the conservative movement as if he was    
   visiting a zoo. We’re more than that.”   
      
   Gainor raises valid points. Klein’s blog posts clearly pass through a    
   liberal prism. For that reason, liberals have a comfort level with what    
   he writes, and conservatives know where he’s coming from, even if they    
   disagree. In contrast, Weigel’s blog seemed to confuse many    
   conservatives who contacted me. Was he supposed to be a neutral    
   reporter, some wondered? Others complained that he was a liberal trying    
   to write about conservatives he disdained.   
      
   “We will look for someone to replace Dave,” Narisetti said.   
      
   Instead of just a replacement, The Post might consider two: one    
   conservative with a Klein-like ideological bent, and another who can    
   cover the conservative movement in the role of a truly neutral reporter.    
      
   In the meantime, Post managers would be wise to remind all staffers that    
   personal opinions, expressed privately on listservs or through social    
   media, can prove damaging if made public.   
      
   Klein addressed that danger this afternoon in a thoughtful blog post    
   explaining why he is closing down Journolist, and why he is saddened    
   that leaks from the listserv led to the resignation of Weigel, a “dear    
   friend.” Klein wrote:   
      
      
      
   There's a lot of faux-intimacy on the Web. Readers like that intimacy,    
   or at least some of them do. But it's dangerous. A newspaper column is    
   public, and writers treat it as such. So too is a blog. But Twitter?    
   It's public, but it feels, somehow, looser, safer. Facebook is less    
   public than Twitter, and feels even more intimate. A private e-mail list    
   is not public, but it is electronically archived text, and it is    
   protected only by a password field and the good will of the members.    
   It's easy to talk as if it's private without considering the    
   possibility, unlikely as it is, that it will one day become public.   
      
      
   Alas, it took only one listserv participant to bundle up Weigel’s    
   archived comments and start leaking them outside the group. The result    
   is that Weigel lost his job. But the bigger loss is The Post’s standing    
   among conservatives.   
      
   By Andy Alexander  |  June 25, 2010; 5:24 PM ET   
      
   CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999    
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