Washington Post Ombudsman: We’re Too Disorganized To Uphold A Political Bias

The Washington Post seems to be under the impression that they are being attacked for some sort of editorial conspiracy involving Rahm Emanuel and his competence as White House Chief of Staff. After a week where Emanuel became the subject of three of the paper’s major stories—two opinion pieces with opposing views and a front-page news item suggesting anonymous Washington insiders were upset Emanuel’s advice was not being taken—the Post has been taking fire from both sides for alternately undermining the President and attacking one of his top advisers. The confusion has brought about one of the more bizarre columns by ombudsman Andrew Alexander defending his paper: the Post is too disorganized and littered with unreliable quotes to have an agenda, so please drop the conspiracy theories.

The controversy surrounding Emanuel’s reputation in the paper began with a piece by Dana Milbank suggesting most of President Obama’s troubles could have been avoided through his Chief of Staff’s advice. A news story by Jason Horowitz several days later reinforced the notion, with a series of

anonymous comments from insiders that seemed to form a consensus around the idea. David Broder disagreed vocally with both Milbank and Horowitz, and questioned the position of Horowitz’s piece in the news section. And now it’s the ombudsman’s job to settle the dispute between the colleagues and set the record straight publicly. Except, to do that, he’s thrown the entire paper’s infrastructure under the bus.

Alexander’s description of the Washington Post office does exonerate the paper of having any uniform bias, but it also reads like a logistical nightmare. He notes that the Post is not alone in lacking direction–“in reality, any large newsroom is so chaotic that there are days when you wonder if editors and reporters could organize a one-car caravan”– but later addresses the issue specifically, pointing out that Horowitz and Milbank were not aware of the content of each other’s pieces.

Horowitz told me that his story ‘had already started taking shape’ before Milbank’s column appeared and dismissed the notion of coordination.

Apparently neither one of the two writers nor any editors considered finding out the content of both pieces in case they were heading in the same direction. The explanation makes it seems as if all the Post writers work on whatever they want and often cover the same topics without realizing it, with some pieces ending up in the opinion section and

some in news, depending on who happens upon the copy laying around on someone’s desk. Working together would have avoided the entire problem. Incorporating Horowitz’s work into Milbank’s opinion piece would have strengthened it considerably, but as it stands alone Horowitz’s piece– which Alexander admits– is questionable for its overwhelming support of one side of the issue, especially from anonymous sources.

The strange thing is that Alexander’s repudiation of anonymous comment journalism comes in a piece where he is attempting to defend the paper’s credibility. He explains the pitfalls of anonymous sources and proceeds to point out how rampant the practice of quoting them is at the Washington Post, including in the work of the story’s apparent hero, the “legendary” Broder. It’s an interesting approach to take if Alexander is attempting to restore a legitimacy he sees under threat. Sure, a newspaper needs some sort of organization to propagate a uniform agenda, but it also needs organization to collect accurate information and write worthwhile news pieces, and this does not make objectivity and credibility mutually exclusive.