Washington Post's Advice to Blogger
Matt Stoller over at The Blogging of the President tries to make sense of why Washington Post reporter Jon Weisman told Brad DeLong to go fuck himself:
To: Michael Ham
Cc: delong@econ.Berkeley.EDU
From: Jonathan Weisman
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 09:57:46 -0500
Status:
Fuck Brad DeLong.
Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post economics writer
weismanj@washpost.com
(202)334-7745
We've deleted the substance of the email, which was boring.
(Some crap about about the Bush budget and DeLong's blog post about Weisman's superficial treatment of its significant flaws, as well as Weisman's admission that his piece was, indeed, "slapped together.")
Stoller goes into some detail about DeLong's credentials (presidential economic adviser, professor. . . ) and how Weisman should have treated DeLong's criticisms as constructive advice ("Bush's budget numbers have a pattern of not adding up; this is relevant, necessary, and obvious context . . .").
Sorry, must have dropped off for a second there. More interesting, slightly, is the psychobabble about how insecure mainstream journalists are: Such "bitterness" is common "among many journalists who are scared of a world where their readers can talk back to them." (Yeah, what they really want to be is bloggers!)
Whatevs. Stoller is missing the point: Weisman said adirty word. Can we get the FCC to convene an investigation on this?
The Washington Post Says 'Fuck DeLong' [The Blogging of the President]
Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? Part DLX [Brad Delong]
Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?: Agreement From an Unexpected Quarter [Brad DeLong]
UPDATE: Brad writes with further thoughts:
Am I allowed to say that I think it is really interesting that there is at least one Washington Post reporter who thinks that reporters are doing their job when, under deadline, they do nothing more than rewrite White House press releases?
Wall Street Journal news reporters don't think that way.
(It is true, however, that Wall Street Journal editorial writers think their job is to dictate White House press releases.)