robinjp / Robin J Phillips

The New York Times this morning accused The Washington Post's executive editor Marcus Brauchli of being a liar.

At issue is the Washington Post Salons planned during the summer at which lobbyists and others were to have access to Post reporters and editors.  The Salon idea was shut down quickly after Politico broke the story.

Brauchli at the time said he didn't realize the gatherings were to be off the record.  And fingers were pointed at Charles Pelton, the marketing guy who was getting the Salons up and running, as the bad guy. Pelton resigned in September.

The NYTPicker points to a brief in the NYTimes corrections column today in which the Times makes it clear that that it now has evidence that Brauchli lied last July when he told the NYT that he didn't know the paper's controversial corporate-sponsored dinner parties would be off-the-record.

Why would you ever lie, misspeak, exaggerate to someone paid to have a long memory?

How quickly those in the news biz can forget that they are surrounded by people in the news biz.  How many of us have worked for editors who are shocked that it is impossible to keep secrets in a newsroom?

It's common that newspaper marketing folks have a different set of scruples than those of us in the newsroom.   We keep an eye on them, making sure that ads are clearly identified as ads, that there is a  separation between sales and editorial.  It is not common that editors lie publicly or that they are called out publicly by other journalists.

For more inside baseball about today's story, check out Gawker.

Or if you want to check out the WashPost's social media guidelines, which presumably Brauchli signed off on, check out PaidContent.

Interesting, but somewhat shocking, piece on how the New York Times' editors pick the 60-plus stories that make up the links on the Home page.

Here's the shocking part. Both the A1 editor and Home Page editor talk about how the newspaper and newspaper stories drive their decisions more than the readers.

"You know, I would say if I had more time I would probably try to investigate more in what our readers are doing," Jim Roberts said. "I guess I would rather know some broad trends, than some specific minute to minute thing," like whether readers are more interested in science news or fashion reports.

That's not the print Page One editor.  That is the Home Page editor who says he doesn't have time to check out the Web analytics.

As the Observer piece says, Jim Roberts, The Times’ associate managing editor and NYTimes.com’s digital news editor, is the man making most of those Home Page judgments, along with his team of editors and a home-page producer.

Surely, one of them is checking to see what the reader actually wants to read.

The Washington Post says reduced Web traffic was a reason for columnist Dan Froomkin's dismissal.  That is a big, scary deal for journalists.

The paper's ombudsman and editorial page editor both said traffic had gone way down for Froomkin's political columns.  And NYT's Brian Stelter reported that executives told Froomkin that they were reviewing all contracts for Web writers.

Editors and newsroom managers used to count bylines and would judge the success of individual reporters and columnists by a perception of popularity. 

The lesson in all this may be for journalists to keep a closer eye on their Web traffic. And be very nice to the Home Page and other online editors to get traffic driven to their work.

Mashable's Stan Shroeder asks Should a Social Media Editor Use Social Media.  I've been wondering the same thing. 

When The New York Times reassaigned one of its editors, Jennifer Preston, to be its in-house expert on Twitter and Facebook, that was big news, a first in the nation. The move made it acceptable for all other newspapers to assign a full or part-time social media expert.

A leaked internal memo said "we ought to learn how to reach those people effectively and serve them well."

Jennifer is our first social media editor. What’s that? It’s someone who concentrates full-time on expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers.

I was thrilled.  I have helped guide my news organization into Social Media in part because I love it. I thought that I'd be able to learn more by following the work of someone given the resources of the NYTimes and a full-time position to think big thoughts about how news organizations can best use social media tools.

At the time, I did a quick online search to see what Jennifer Preston's Social Media footprint was like.  I found very little. But she had a strong first 10 days.

@NYT_JenPreston's  first tweet was May 26.   She began by asking others how NYT's should use Twitter.  Like any newbie, she stumbled with @replies and other Twitter protocol.  In response to a sort of #followfriday note I sent her full of Twitter users from azcentral/The Arizona Republic that she might follow, she struggled with how to @reply to me, Robin.

But then on June 9, silence.

I think Shroeder has a good point when he says: "Twitter has been at the very core of various social media-related movements and occurences, and a social media editor for a large media publication, with over 9000 Twitter followers, is expected to actually use the social media tools at her disposal."

But the nytpicker, a web site that devotes itself to the goings on inside the NYTimes, sums it best. Being a Social Media Editor isn't just a job, it's a way of life.

So, @NYT_JenPreston.  I thought I'd learn from you, but perhaps you should follow me.