Ombudsman Blog

Readers react to taste and 'tasty'

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:43:59 -0500

Sunday’s ombudsman column about Post food writer Tom Sietsema prompted questions from readers about how much a restaurant review really comes down to personal preferences of the food critic. One caller Sunday noted that a Sietsema review several few months ago complained about the noise and “controlled chaos” at Potenza, a restaurant on H Street, NW. “That’s his opinion,” she said, countering that the din and the hectic feel of the place captured the “fun” of an Italian eatery. Another caller this morning complained about Sietsema’s mixed review of Blue Ridge, a Southern-style restaurant in Glover Park. Noting that my column had said Sietsema is from Minnesota, the reader wondered whether Sietsema has the “sensitivity” to judge cuisine with a Southern accent. “To some degree, taste is subjective,” said celebrated chef Eric Ziebold, whose new Sou’Wester restaurant in the District got panned by Sietsema. During an interview for my column,

Was a critical book review "payback time"?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:59:53 -0500

Was it retaliation? In a review for The New York Times four years ago, best-selling author Buzz Bissinger criticized a new book by noted writer Allen Barra as lacking “any sustained vitality.” In a review for The Washington Post several weeks ago, Barra described “Shooting Stars,” Bissinger’s new as-told-to memoir with basketball superstar LeBron James, as “an air ball.” Now Bissinger wonders if Barra’s critical review for The Post amounts to “payback time” for his “clearly negative” earlier Times review of Barra’s book.

Struggling to monitor anti-Muslim comments

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:48:27 -0500

From the moment Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was identified on Thursday as the alleged killer in the Fort Hood shootings, managers at The Post’s Web site knew to expect a flood of anti-Muslim comments. First, they stopped accepting reader comments on stories between midnight and 6 a.m. Friday out of concern that they couldn’t adequately monitor the initial overnight wave of them. When commenting was allowed to resume Friday morning, The Post had assigned four monitors instead of the normal lone staffer to check for comments that might violate the site’s abuse policies. Those policies cover a wide range of “inappropriate content,” including any comment that “degrades” on the basis of “ethnicity, national origin (or) religion.” Even with beefed-up monitoring, abusive comments have slipped through in recent days. Some are ugly.

Readers change the weather

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:54:50 -0500

Apparently, you can do something about the weather. Among the many reader complaints about The Post’s recent newspaper design changes, none have been louder than those reacting to the new weather layout on the back page of the Metro section. In particular, readers have said the national weather map is so small that it’s almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass. Editors listened, and the map is expected to be returned to its original size beginning in Tuesday’s paper. There will be no change to The Post’s online weather page, which permits readers to customize for their precise location and instantly check weather around the nation and the world.

Deadline pressure yields a "mess" of a World Series column

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:33:07 -0500

Fans who went to The Post's Web site Monday to read Tom Boswell’s coverage of Sunday’s World Series game were treated to the same incisive, colorful copy they’ve come to expect from one of the nation’s premier baseball columnists. But those who read Boswell in Monday morning’s newspaper encountered a mess. By my count, the column contained at least 20 typos, grammatical errors or misspellings. Readers complained. “I’d like my 75 cents back, please,” wrote reader Mitch Zeller of Olney, who had purchased a copy of Monday’s Post at the Bethesda Metro station. “There is no excuse for such a shoddy product. It’s completely unprofessional; more errors than one would see in a high school or college newspaper.”

Many Post readers no longer get late game coverage

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:48:01 -0500

Despite a dismal season, The Washington Redskins are still the biggest game in town. But when tens of thousands of Post readers opened their Tuesday papers for coverage of the previous night’s drubbing by the Philadelphia Eagles, they found...nothing. The same thing happened Wednesday morning for many readers expecting results of the Washington Wizards’ exciting season-opening victory over the Mavericks in Dallas the previous night. And this morning, many weren’t able to read anything about last night’s World Series game in which the Phillies beat the Yankees 6-1 in New York. The cause: Earlier deadlines that have been imposed largely because of cost-cutting. The result: Up to 185,000 readers each day didn’t get coverage of the previous night’s game.

Do Post editors care what readers think about the redesign?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:17:29 -0500

Here’s one of the main questions from readers who have offered views on The Post’s print redesign: Do editors care what I think? That was a common theme in reader e-mails following Sunday’s ombudsman column noting my surprise at how few readers had submitted comments to ideas@washpost.com, the address set up for feedback. As I wrote, through Friday “they totaled fewer than the more than 750 who contacted The Post in the spring after editors eliminated the ‘Judge Parker’ comic strip,” which was subsequently restored. After Sunday’s column appeared, more than 100 others wrote to ideas@washpost.com and about 50 more e-mailed me. Many said they hadn’t written because they considered the changes a done deal. “Why waste precious time tilting against a fait accompli?” wrote one. “I generally find the Post’s requests for readers’ comments very disingenuous.” But there’s evidence editors are listening.

Post to correct "bogus claim"

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:33:40 -0500

The Post touted some impressive stats on the back page of Monday’s 8-page special section explaining the paper’s extensive design changes. Among them was a claim that “nearly three times as many Washingtonians age 25-54 read The Post each week than listen to WTOP, the largest audience radio station.” But Jim Farley, WTOP’s vice president of news and programming, said it was a “bogus claim.” “They do not print any source for that wildly inaccurate claim,” he wrote me. According to the latest data from media and marketing firm Arbitron, he said, “659,600 people between 25-54 listen to WTOP each week, more than the entire circulation of the newspaper.”

Omblog on Hiatus

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:51:22 -0500

Friends: I'll be on vacation until the week of Oct. 19. The Omblog will resume shortly after I return. -- Andy Alexander

Why a 'Birther' Leader Is News

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:03:41 -0500

More than any other story this week, Post readers have responded to Tuesday’s profile of Orly Taitz, who has emerged as a leader of the “birther” movement challenging Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president. But what is fascinating about the reaction from the readers I've heard from is that most aren’t objecting to anything in the 2,500-word story. Rather, they’re angry that there was a story at all. Bethesda reader Steven Berson complained in an e-mail that it was a “disgrace” that The Post would print such “trash.” He added: “What makes her claim newsworthy?” More than 40 other readers e-mailed or called with similar objections.

Social Media Guidelines Renew "Transparency" Debate

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:10:13 -0500

The Post’s recently issued guidelines governing participation in social media have renewed a spirited debate in the industry about the level of transparency by journalists. The policies are restrictive in that they caution Post reporters and editors against writing anything on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn that might be seen as showing bias or taking sides in public debates. The rationale is that The Post will achieve maximum credibility on its news pages through maintaining neutrality. But there are a number of respected journalists who believe otherwise and argue that that if journalists shared their views on subjects they cover, readers would trust them more. One of them is Dan Gillmor, a provocative expert on new media at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. We hold different views; I’m a traditionalist on neutrality and endorse the intent of The Post’s guidelines.

Rhee "Normalizes" Dealings With Post Reporter

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:47:02 -0500

There’s been a thaw in the once-icy relationship between D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Post education reporter Bill Turque. For roughly a year, Rhee had refused to talk to Turque because of unhappiness with his coverage. But in an online chat with Post readers on Tuesday, she indicated the freeze is over. Asked why she agreed to cooperate for a cover story in last Sunday’s Post Magazine by Post enterprise editor Marc Fisher “when you appear to have a policy of not speaking to Bill Turque,” she replied: “I’ve emailed with Bill Turque 5 times today alone. If that’s lack of access, then we’re in trouble.” Turque confirmed that “relations have been normalized.”

Post Editor Ends Tweets as New Guidelines Are Issued

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:36:43 -0500

As tweets on Twitter, they’re pretty innocuous. “We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not,” read a recent one. “But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad.” Then, from this week: “Sen Byrd (91) in hospital after he falls from ‘standing up too quickly.” How about term limits. Or retirement age. Or commonsense to prevail.” What makes these tweets significant is that they were written by Raju Narisetti, one of The Post’s top editors. As one of two managing editors, he’s responsible for The Post's features content and oversees its Web site. But he also sits in on news meetings and occasionally gets involved in “hard” news. Narisetti said today he now realizes that his tweets, although intended for a private audience of about 90 friends and associates, were unwise. They were “personal” observations, he said. “But I

OK To Break The Law For Cuba Story?

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:20:53 -0500

Is it okay to break the law for a story? That question was raised by a Fairfax Station reader who wondered about a Sunday Travel section feature co-authored by Post reporter Emma Brown. She and a friend wrote about touring Cuba on bicycles. They freely acknowledged to readers that they had skirted the law. Despite some exceptions for journalists, researchers and those with family in Cuba, they wrote in a sidebar, “U.S. citizens and residents are generally prohibited from traveling to the island.” “Americans can, however, travel there, as we did, by flying through a third country, such as Costa Rica, Mexico or Canada,” they wrote, “although you could face civil penalties or prosecution for doing so.” That prompted the Fairfax Station reader to e-mail: “The merits of the travel ban are certainly debatable, but I find it irresponsible for the Post to have supported and printed an article describing

Newsroom Diversity Should Include Ideology

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:39:34 -0500

UPDATED with Sunday column correction at bottom. It’s hardly news that Republicans view traditional media as partial. That came through again in the recently released Pew Research Center national survey, which showed that 60 percent of respondents said news organizations are biased. But a revealing element in the survey is that Democrats increasingly hold the same view. Several years ago, 54 percent of those Democrats surveyed by Pew said that the press tended to be biased. In the most recent survey, that percentage among Democrats jumped to 67. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism says there are several reasons for the shift. “One is Democrats rooting for Obama and not wanting him to be criticized in the press,” he said. “The other is this anxiety among Democrats and liberals that conservative media is having more of an impact.” I thought of that while going through