Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 361 Editor's Choice: 12
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Fascinating
[Read the article: Observations about John Harris' replies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, I'd amplify Wolf's suggestion to send him the foreword to HSAPA. I'd send him the book.
You know, I think the man sincerely believes what he says.
That's very scary.
Several short points.
1) He sees Drudge as an "aggregator," implying a non-partisan gatherer of content like the Dauo Report (I know they call it something else now, but it's like Sixth avenue.) Bizarre. I'm reassured that he reads Romenesko (so should you).
2) He is absolutely clueless about the blogosphere. He thinks that blogwhoring is how you get page views. He was absolutely certain that Glenn, of course, pumps his posts by sending them higher volume sites in advance, like everyone else does. Wow. This shows he doesn't read atrios or Kos, who have been talking about that recently when they updated their blogroll.
3) He is completely unembarrassed about making corrections without acknowledging error, in a medium where that is incredibly easy to do, given the strikethrough tag. This is even more stunning given Slate's correction policy, which even I think is overkill. Slate is a WaPo property, and has to know Kinsley.
4) It's bizarre that he would accuse the Times of sending preview stories to Drudge. He can't know whether or not that's true. He can know whether the Post does it--or rather, whether he did it when he was at the Post.
5) It's also very telling, as Glenn points out, that criticism directed at Politico is an immediate indication of partisanship. They have just blown two major stories, one involving the withdrawal of a presidential candidate. This should engender at least a little humility and, I dunno, even acknowledgment that they're still working out the rough edges. The arrogance and condescension--he's deigning to answer this email from one of the the DFHs--is remarkable.
6) During the Froomkin flap (explanation at bottom of post), his and Deborah Howell's defense was that they are attacked from both the left and the right, and therefore they are reporting fairly. They professed to not understand the difference of the criticism from the right--that they are biased is different from the criticism from the left--that their stories are inaccurate. The position from the left has shifted lately--the universal dismissal of the USA scandal as unimportant, including the managing editor of Time--has been the tipping point. There is now clear evidence of a very strong republican bias in the Beltway media. Atrios points out that all the scandals coming out now prove that they simply have not been doing their jobs. But even in making that charge, the claim of bias is tied to actual fact--that the reporting is simply wrong, as when the managing editor of Time says that most Americans aren't interested in a scandal that surveys show they most certainly are.
7) He doesn't feel a need to defend himself against inaccuracy, and seems to view what he is producing as product to promote rather than journalism to do. He boasts about the size of his staff, but doesn't ever respond to the charge that Politico is engaged in something other than journalism as has been defined for us in the past.
8) With respect to the Froomkin Flap claim that the Post couldn't be biased because they get criticized by both sides, I suggest he take a look in his comments sections. The wingnuts know who their friends are, and they write for politico. Has he considered how balanced the criticism has been in his new endeavor?
All in all, this is an unintentionally useful series of insights. He really doesn't get it, at all. He really thinks that preserving his sources in order to get "scoops" that are frequently. He doesn't understand the blogosphere. He's done himself immense damage by getting some major stories wrong--you won't see FDL commenters linking to politico anymore on breaking stories--twice burned thrice extremely shy. He certainly won't get linked by atrios or the Kossacks on a breaking story, although there may be links to illustrate Politico's continued bias. Without realizing it (I fully believe) he has turned himself into a site that validates Drudge as a source of news--as a reliable "aggregator." This will put him into a wingnut death spiral, along with the rest of the right blogosphere.
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The Froomkin Flap: Sometime ago the white house became irritated with Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing blog, and asked Harris and vanderhei to get the WaPo to make Froomkin report in a more "balanced" way. Otherwise they would have reduced access. Deborah Howell, the ombudsman, got involved, and a blogswarm ensued. This was the first really blogswarm in wapo.com history, and they handled it badly, deleting comments, shutting down the comment section for a period of time,lying about the reasons for deletion and so forth.