robinjp / Robin J Phillips

A snowball of criticism of Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post's media writer and a paid CNN show host, is growing and becoming very interesting.  

In an  article by Eric Alterman, a CUNY professor of journalism, he outlines what he calls
'Howard Kurtz’s myriad conflicts of interest' including:

• Kurtz is married to former Republican political consultant, Sheri Annis. He often writes about her former and potential clients.
• Kurtz’s job as the paid host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” “presents an inescapable conflict that is at odds with Post rules.

Slate’s Mickey Kaus has written extensively about conflicts corrupting Kurtz's reporting.

And earlier this week,  Edward Wasserman of The Miami Herald asked "would The Post allow a reporter who covers energy to be paid on the side by a big oil company?" He adds:

'Now, I take conflict of interest seriously, and I've suggested it's the signature ethical issue of the new media age, with more and more people who offer news and commentary depending on multiple income streams from sources that may be implicated in what they say as journalists.'

That last point is a big one.

It is essential that we train the journalists of the future -- professionals who survive the new age, bloggers drawn to reporting because of a passion for a topic, and those people who will end up being 'citizen' journalists (whoever they may be).
 
Mainstream media institutions continue to lose dollars and the trust of their audience and the biggest reasons for that are denial and arrogance.

Denial of the need to redefine the way they do business and recognize that technology has opened up doors to lots of competition.

And arrogance, well, as Alterman points out:

' TV news is firmly within Kurtz's beat, and (the paper's ombudsman) wrote that "being paid by CNN presents an inescapable conflict that is at odds with Post rules." '

...  And yet, it continues.

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.

The WaPo Social Media guidelines are out now.  Most of it makes perfect sense.  Journalists are journalists everywhere. And Social Media is not private.

Full text of guidelines from PaidContent.org

But I'd like to see a definition of the term "involved in any social networks."  As in "Post journalists should not be involved in any social networks related to advocacy or a special interest regarding topics they cover, unless specifically permitted by a supervising editor for reporting and so long as other standards of transparency are maintained while doing any such reporting."
Does this mean they cannot "friend" a group to keep in touch with it?  Or to get press releases?

I can see how some staffers would just back away from the keyboard.  No word in the guidelines on how all this will be monitored.

Here are my thoughts about objectivity and Social Media having nothing to do with each other.

Omblog turned into OMGblog

The Washington Post editor in charge of features and the online site has stopped tweeting after he realized that more than his 90 followers were likely to see what he wrote. 

Raju Narisetti closed his Twitter account saying.. his tweets had been “personal” observations, “but I also realize that... seeing that the managing editor of The Post is weighing in on this, it’s a clear perception problem.”

Narisetti is backing away from Social Media because, as Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander says, "In today’s hyper-sensitive political environment, Narisetti’s tweets could be seen as one of The Post’s top editors taking sides."

His resignation from Twitter also coincides with the release of new Social Media guidelines at The Washington Post, which include:

“When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.”

Chris Geidner, @chrisgeidner, a lawyer who writes at Law, points out that The Washington Post has started slipping ads into its Twitter stream.

This is how the ad looked on its @postpolitics site.

The good news is that it is clearly marked as a "Featured ad".  There's no bait-and-switch here.  They aren't teazing us with a headline that links to an ad. 

That makes me wonder how useful they will be to the advertiser.  Not sure if I'll ever click on a link that says "Featured advertiser" and I know I'd never click on one that says "Pheedo: Pioneering rss advertising solutions" which is the page to which last night's ad tweet was linking.

There is nothing new in the game of slipping advertising in to look like editorial content.  Some of the ugliest ads in newspapers are designed to look like little stories.  But there are rules to keep the ad and marketing staffs honest.  Ads need to be clearly marked as ads. 

Otherwise you water down the content.  And that's the biggest issue here.  Twitter feeds are already full of self-promotion.   I plan to Tweet this blog as soon as I finish it.  We all Tweet things we are interested in, work we have done, stories we've written or photos taken.

But that's what our followers sign up for... and why they stick around. They like what we have to say.

But I don't follow news Twitter sites for the ads.  If the ads water down the content, followers will flee.  It'll be interesting to get an honest look at how many people actually click on those Twitter ads.

Hate to stand up here frightened on top of this slippery slope, but I think the best thing I can say about The Post's ads is thank goodness they are clearly marked.

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.

This is an interesting piece from The Washington Post ombudsman on the "salon" scandal.

Ombudsman Andrew Alexander spells out the conflicts inherent in offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" including reporters and editors for a fee, as much as $25,000. Alexander concludes that the "episode has left a scar that will be visible for years, and it has badly shaken the newsroom."

Still shocking to me is that no on spoke up as the events were being planned.

Neither Publisher Katharine Weymouth nor Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli can recall anyone raising concerns, although both say they wish someone had. Several lower down in the newsroom say they didn't speak up because "they assumed top managers would eventually ensure that traditional ethics boundaries would not be breached."

Plans went ahead until a lobbyist handed a leaflet for the event to (non-Post) reporters. And on June 2, Politico.com reported on the salons.

Somewhat arrogantly, Alexander explains to the reader that "Historically at quality newspapers such as The Post, a firewall exists between the business and news departments to ensure editorial integrity and independence."

Well, those firewalls exist at far less grand newspapers than the post. What is still shocking to me is that no one from the newsroom questioned the idea of the salons during the weeks they were being organized.

But the good news is that The Post does have an ombudsman who gave us an insiders' look at the scandal.  Andrew Alexander is just one in a long line of  veteran journalists hired from outside The Post to keep an eye on how the paper is doing and respond to disgruntled readers. 

He began his job in February. I'm sure he got more than he bargained for.

Katharine Weymouth's letter to her readers on Sunday did little to clarify why she planned to host sponsored salons in her home. 
See NYTimes' David Carr's piece this weekend on the publisher's public stumble.

It's easy to understand how this happened.  Ms. Weymouth is Katharine Graham's granddaughter. Born on 3rd base,  she really should have taken a run through the newsroom at some time.

During most of the 90s, I worked for Mac Borg whose family owns The Record, aka The Bergen Record and The Record of Hackensack A couple of Mac Borg's kids ended up in executive positions at the paper.  All of his kids held internships .. or longer stints.. in the newsroom. 

Of course, their last names meant they were treated very kindly as newsroom subordinates.  But because they reported, edited, sat in news meetings and became colleagues with journalists, they have a greater understanding of journalistic ethics and conventions than your average newspaper executive. 

Nice work, Mac.