Remember that absurd puff piece the Washington Post’s Monica Hesse wrote about “Gathering Storm” whack job Brian Brown? The reader reaction to it made the poor reporter cry:
The Post recently featured a story by reporter Monica Hesse that ran on the front of the Style section while she was on vacation. The day before returning, she logged on to check e-mails — and wept.
She was buried by an avalanche of messages angrily attacking her lengthy Aug. 28 profile of Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the group leading the fight against legalization of same-sex marriage.
I hope you all feel very bad now.
It also turns out, the ombudsman reveals, that Hesse is bisexual, so we’re supposed to believe that there’s no way she could have tilted the article to favor anti-gay marriage whack jobs. Of course, a commenter commenter Bill E Pilgrim on the article (via Atrios) explains:
The Washington Post writer was worried about offending right wing conservatives, and hoped to avoid getting hate mail from them.
Anyway, reporters who cry when they get angry email really ought to find another line of work.
Update. I realize this might sound callous. But there are millions of gay Americans being demonized by Brian Brown. How on earth could Hesse not expect to get an angry reaction for writing an article that openly promoted Brown? I stand by what I said: if angry email about a biased piece on a politically and emotionally charged topic makes you cry, you really shouldn’t be a journalist.
Update update. I guess the point isn’t that she cried or didn’t cry but that her reaction was to run to the ombudsman and say “they made me cry” rather than “I think I wrote too much of a puff piece.” Obviously, people can cry at work as much as they want to if it doesn’t interfere with their ability to do the job. But they shouldn’t use “they made me cry” as a way of deflecting legitimate criticism.
Rich
I admire your restraint, Doug. My reaction was, “Cry me a $#@%ing river.”
JK
In honor of Monica Hesse
Cry Baby Cry – The Beatles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLgCeCfWgXo
General Winfield Stuck
The Fourth Estate is a shaky duplex, landlorded by teh angry wingnut.
WE live in Newt and Sarah’s world, ruled by the angry mob and Rasmussen polling.
Tom
Yes, you’re right, people are not allowed to get emotional when a torrent of bile and anger is directed at their life’s work.
the more and more I hang out on the Internet, the more I realize it desensitizes people. It allows their inner anger and callousness to flow without any of the normal society checks — like people knowing who you are or looking a person in the eye when you criticize them.
General Winfield Stuck
@JK:
Lesley Gore — It’s My Party (I’ll Cry If I Want To)
DougJ
Yes, you’re right, people are not allowed to get emotional when a torrent of bile and anger is directed at their life’s work.
Life’s work? It was one piece.
And it really was a terrible piece, one of the worst I’ve ever read.
The Grand Panjandrum
With the revelation about the author’s sexuality the ombudsman has now tilted the table back to an equilibrium because the post has now pissed off both sides. Isn’t that how they measure success these days? As long as they piss off both sides, even if the story DOES NOT have two equivalent sides, they have done the job intended by the Press Gods? Jesus, does every Villager have to sound like Joe Klein? Oh wait, that isn’t the problem. It’s that the Villagers all beat the same drum. Yawn …
General Winfield Stuck
Politics ain’t bean bags. Way too much at stake.
Bill E Pilgrim
Of course, a commenter on the article (via Atrios) explains:
The Washington Post writer was worried about offending right wing conservatives, and hoped to avoid getting hate mail from them.
Hey that was me. That commenter.
Wait, that’s on Atrios?
I better go look.
Weird, this Intertubey thing.
Aaron
A simpler solution than trying to tilt every article to appease the crazies is just to write accurate, well supported stories.
if the right gets offended at truthful reporting and accurate statistics, it is double-good news. Free publicity for the paper and they can use the defense of “prove me wrong” to shut up the fringe.
Or, of course, pretend that every issue has two sides and give them each equal weight, even if one is bat-shit insane.
Hmmmm, I wonder which one today’s media will choose?
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Tom: You’re missing the point somehow, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Hesse pissed people off by sucking up to a troglo-homobigot. She got a bunch of hate mail for that, which I don’t condone, but it happens in that line of work.
The Post tried to shame the anti-homobigots by reporting that Hesse’s fee-fees were hurt – sort of like what you’re doing, except in their case they’re supposed to be performing professional journalistic activity.
DougJ
Hey that was me. That commenter.
Sorry I forgot to give credit. I scanned right over the comment without looking at the name!
JK
@General Winfield Stuck:
Good Choice
Wah Wah – George Harrison
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwVAvnYKLJE
Also
The Grand Panjandrum
Doug you forgot this obligatory link to any boo hooing from people who have no right to whine.
DougJ
She got a bunch of hate mail for that, which I don’t condone, but it happens in that line of work.
I’m not sure it was really hate mail. The ombudsman ran one of the letters that he got from readers and it wasn’t hateful. It was brutal and accurate but not hateful per se.
JK
@The Grand Panjandrum:
When will somebody post the obligatory “Leave Monica Alone, She’s Doing the Best She Can” clip?
Bill E Pilgrim
@DougJ:
No worries, I was just having the surreal experience of logging in here and seeing that line I’d written during a jet-lagged insomniac middle of the night post at the WAPO many hours earlier. Weird. And yes, he gave full attribution so I’ll consider that my 15 min of tubes fame.
parksideq
No one could have predicted that Hesse’s readers would send emails disapproving of her defense of a bigot who runs and organization called NOM (NOM NOM). Also.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@DougJ: Exactly. The article was a terrible hack job. It was a fawning piece on a person whose work is to deny rights to other people. I’m sorry, but a journalist is supposed to ask the tough questions, not fawn over her subject.
And frankly, dealing with angry criticism over an article is par for the course in journalism.
Leelee for Obama
Where’s Tom Hanks? There’s no crying in Journalism!
Can you imagine if she was Judith Miller, pom-pom girl of Iraq? She probably would have disappeared in a puff of smoke!
SGEW
@Tom:
I quite agree with this statement. However, it is important to note that modern day journalism must at least deal with the medium and all of its attendant frictions: one should anticipate that an article on a controversial topic (especially one that immediately struck many people as biased) could lead to your inbox being filled with vitriolic criticism. It is, as of now, how the internet works. We can bemoan the phenomenon, but journalists have to work within its framework.
Much as a journalist ten years ago should have been able to handle hate faxes or angry answering machine messages, journalists today should be able to handle unrepentant trolls in comment threads and emails written in haste and fury.
Heck, if I was in this journalist’s position and had an inbox filled with “angry attacks,” I’d probably cry too (but I’m a big softy – I cry at card tricks). However, I’d also force myself to question if the criticisms are valid or not, and accept that this sort of feedback from the readers is how the internet operates.
And by the way, DougJ: I don’t think that crying when you’re upset should be a disqualifier for any job.
DougJ
Heck, if I was in this journalist’s position and had an inbox filled with “angry attacks,” I’d probably cry too (but I’m a big softy – I cry at card tricks). However, I’d also force myself to question if the criticisms are valid or not, and accept that this sort of feedback from the readers is how the internet operates. And by the way, DougJ: I don’t think that crying when you’re upset should be a disqualifier for any job.
Put that way, I see your point. But if you focused on whether or not it was valid criticism, you wouldn’t tell the ombudsman “they made me cry”, you’d say “I fucked up.”
I guess the point isn’t that she cried or didn’t cry but that her reaction was to run to the ombudsman and say “they made me cry.”
WereBear
It’s good to have feedback! Like it or not.
If the MSM had feedback when they were ignoring hundreds of thousands turning out to protest the Iraq War, might things have changed, even a little bit?
It’s the height of hypocrisy for wingnuts to whine about criticism, when their skins are as thin as a soap bubble’s.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Leelee for Obama: See my link in #13.
They only thing I can think of in the author’s defense is that the ombudsman may have revealed the crying without her consent. It’s one thing to cry, it’s an entirely different matter for the ombudsman to publicly write something to the effect of, “See what you made her do? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?” I wonder what Howie Kurtz will have to say about this horrific treatment of a Very Serious Person?
Tom
@DougJ and <a href=”Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Yeah, I’m probably being a bit of a hard-on. Arguing for civility on the Internet is a little like pleading for decorum at a bachelor party.
I think in terms of this profile goes, your beef should be more with the editor than the writer. A profile, by definition, is kind of a “puff piece.” The writer didn’t inject her own personal opinion into the piece. She also didn’t advocate for gay marriage. She just didn’t make a person against gay marriage seem the Satin himself.
But, I realize this is a loaded issue which is incredibly personal to a lot of people, so emotion is going to fly.
Bill E Pilgrim
Just to flesh out that comment a little: I actually prefaced it with “Your opening sentences say it all”, and what I was referring to was this:
Hesse was stunned. She had expected to hear from anti-gay-marriage conservatives who might view the story as “snide.”
So in other words they admit right at the top that her concern was about not offending “anti-gay-marriage conservatives”, even if only to the point of having them think that she was “snide”.
The Washington Post has the most astonishing collection of extreme right wing columnists imaginable these days, writing the most blatant attacks on anyone to the left of David Broder as if those people are beneath contempt.
I’d love to hear that George Will ever worried for one second that something he wrote bashing liberals, progressives, or the left might come across as “snide”.
Leelee for Obama
DougJ
They only thing I can think of in the author’s defense is that the ombudsman may have revealed the crying without her consent. It’s one thing to cry, it’s an entirely different matter for the ombudsman to publicly write something to the effect of, “See what you made her do? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?”
Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t mean to aim this all at the reporter and not at the ombudsman.
I just don’t think “look, you made her cry” is a good way of dealing with criticism.
SGEW
@DougJ:
If this is how you interpret the ombudsman’s piece (I see no real evidence that this occurred, but maybe that’s just me) then I certainly understand your point. Absolutely. But I would still rather you put the lion’s share of the criticism on the ombudsman’s piece itself (as a failure of journalism) and on the original profile of Brown (ditto), rather than on the reporter’s own inferred behavior. I suppose.
Tom
@DougJ and Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Yeah, I’m probably being a bit of a hard-on. Asking for civility on the Internet is kind of like pleading for decorum at a bachelor party.
But, in terms of the piece, I think your beef is probably more with the editor than the writer. A profile by definition is kind of a “puff piece.” The reporter didn’t inject personal opinion in to the piece. She also didn’t advocate for or against gay marriage. she just didn’t make a opponent of gay marriage seem like Satin himself.
But, I realize this is a charged issue that is very personal to a lot of people, so shouldn’t be surprised when emotions begin to flow.
SGEW
@SGEW: Also, IOW, what Leelee said.
aimai
Yeah, I think that if I were the reporter I’d be more pissed at the Ombudsman’s faux chivalry (“you made her cry! and she’s a bisexual too!”) which amounted to an immense violation of privacy *and also* a bit of sexist special pleading.
This has nothing to do with the intertubes, however, and the meanness of people on blogs. People have always written angry letters to reporters and to editors. People have also always written well reasoned think pieces to reporters and editors. Both were routinely consigned to the circular file. What is different now is that there is a form of *publication* that makes certain kinds of criticism need to be addressed publicly.
The post chooses to take *right wing* hate mail and treat it as a serious critique and left wing hate mail and treat it as a fungal disease that needs to be handled with a topical fungicide. We are very seldom shown the lunatic fringe of right wing hate mail, or if we see it the post refuses to treat it as threatening and crazy–hell, they don’t even treat the birthers, deathers, and gun toting lunatics as crazy. But post up a well reasoned critique of an article, with links and facts, and ask for an editorial intervention and you get held up for public scolding because you “made the children/reporters cry.”
I suppose the only interesting thing about it is that they assume we have feelings that can be appealed to, and that we know shame. Guess they are im plicitly admitting we are human. I never get that impression when they are responding to right wing criticism. I think even the post knows there’s nobody home to feel shame.
aimai
DougJ
If this is how you interpret the ombudsman’s piece (I see no real evidence that this occurred, but maybe that’s just me) then I certainly understand your point. Absolutely. But I would still rather you put the lion’s share of the criticism on the ombudsman’s piece itself (as a failure of journalism) and on the original profile of Brown (ditto), rather than on the reporter’s own inferred behavior. I suppose.
I’d agree with this if there was any evidence that Hesse understood the criticism of her piece. If she’d said “I can see why people thought this was a puff piece” and not “no one could have predicted, plus I’m bisexual”, I’d be more sympathetic to her.
SGEW
Updates are what make up for the internet’s negative social aspects.
[Also: you know what else would help on our end? Edit function! plz plz plz]
Brick Oven Bill
Gays really are more violent and outspoken than heterosexuals. For example:
1. Barney Frank banging his gavel;
2. The San Francisco gays who published the names and addresses of Proposition 8 donors;
3. The gays who stood up to Ahmedinejad at Columbia;
4. Hitler’s gay SA (brown shirts);
5. The gay Castro gang that beat up the Christian group.
The reaction of the gay community to this article is not surprising to me, given their past behavior. I do not know the reason why they behave this way.
This is quite the opposite of typical Tea Party behavior which, despite lots of cranky people wanting to take damning pictures to falsely portray the movement, is very civil and polite on balance. Interesting and engaging people discuss books, and enjoy food, drink, and good company. I recommend going to a Tea Party get together.
The witnesses that saw the man’s finger get bitten off said that the Obama guy picked on the weakest man there. But I saw this guy on TV and he didn’t look very weak, just a 65 yr old in pretty good shape. I put the odds at 5:2 that the person who bit off the man’s finger was gay.
LosGatosCAa
She’s bisexual? Easily manipulated? Do you have a photo? Is her email at WaPo?
Could be my dream date.
Leelee for Obama
@The Grand Panjandrum: I rarely click on links cause my ancient computer tends to cough up endless hair-balls and give me fits. But, I did this cause you asked. And that’s one of my favorite scenes in that film.
This was my main argument with Hillary during the Primaries. The endless “they’re beating up on the girl!” I always thought my fighting for equality was about not being noticed to be female, just better for the job.
DougJ
Yeah, I think that if I were the reporter I’d be more pissed at the Ombudsman’s faux chivalry (“you made her cry! and she’s a bisexual too!”) which amounted to an immense violation of privacy and also a bit of sexist special pleading.
She wrote the stuff about being bisexual to readers and shared it with the ombudsman.
You’re right that it may be wrong to blame Hesse too much and the ombudsman too little. But I am troubled by the fact that she never concedes why some might see it as a puff piece, which the ombudsman does concede.
dmsilev
Can I be the first in today’s thread to tell BOB to go fuck himself?
-dms
SGEW
@DougJ: I guess I’m in the position of simply not knowing what she had actually said about the incident; only what the (institutionally situated) ombudsman chose to publish about it all – and I simply do not trust that ombudsman. So, you know, benefit of the doubt for the individual, blah blah. Again, that’s just me.
Also, exactly what aimai said, re: the media’s response to right wing versus left wing criticisms. But, again, this is a critique of the Washington Post’s editorial decisions and the ombudsman’s position, not of this particular journalist’s personal behavior.
RSA
Identity politics bad, identity journalism good.
aimai
dmsilev
Can I be the first in today’s thread to tell BOB to go fuck himself?
-dms
Yes, because you’ve been very, very, good.
aimai
JK
OT LOSER ALERT
Meet the Press Roundtable Panel
Tom Friedman, Tom Brokaw, Harold Ford, and Rudy Giuliani
MR Bill
Ok here is the deal. You are a young journalist writing a ‘features interview’ of someone involved in a controversial issue: one involving civil rights of a minority. It has become really quite politicized. You’re a writer for a Great National Paper (or at least that is the pretension..)
Do you
A)Write a piece that at least mentions the controversy, that attempts some real balance and gives critics at least some input on why this figure is controversial:
or B)Write a puff piece that is all about the individual’s sweet side?
I have been a reporter, and I know what the answer should be. Where were the editors, and why do they just not get that a good portion of your readership will find this glowing portrait of such a controversial figure offensive, without dealing with why you found this guy newsworthy and a fit subject for such a profile?
I remember a soft piece on former Senator Frist, and how much it was like something out of TEENBEAT or something, just an extended session of “oh how wonderful”, and the Post’s puzzlement at the reader’s derision.
I will say that Mr. Alexander is lightyears ahead of his predecessor, who seemed to think ‘ombudsman’ meant ‘company apologist’.
I weep for journalism and pray Ms. Hesse can see this is not personal. A lot of us are fed up with smiling bigots, who want to take OUR rights away.
SGEW
[insert standard formal request for permanently banning Brick Oven Bill for outright and self-admitted homophobia, sexism, and racism here]
Bill E Pilgrim
@aimai:
This is the problem.
If you read that ombudsman’s column, the amount of hand wringing about the letters they get from the extreme right wing fringe is extremely revealing, especially given that it’s a city paper in a largely liberal city. I realize that their scope is more than this local readership, and this is especially true once you consider the reach of the online version, but still this almost complete ignoring of the political makeup of the city they supposedly serve is shameful.
The list of columnists at the WAPO reads like a comic roster of the worst and most discredited Neoconservatives and extreme right wing pundits around, Kristol, Kagan, Kruathammer, George Will, just to name a few of them. And yet they get mail screaming that they’re “liberal media” and bend over backwards trying to placate those doing the screaming, from what I can tell by the ombudsman’s columns.
Something’s just completely out of whack there.
dmsilev
@aimai: Thank you. Much appreciated.
BOB: Go fuck yourself.
-dms
debit
@SGEW: Seconded. Most heartily seconded.
geg6
Whatta WATB that reporter and ombudsman both are. So a reporter writes a fawning puff piece about a man who is an evil bigot and fucking cries when she gets criticized for it because she’s bisexual and can’t believe that the criticism is coming from people who aren’t bigots? And her ombudsman then defends her sloppy reportage by pointing out her sexuality, her lack of professional restraint on her emotions, and the fact that she deliberately sucked up to the trogolodites? Fuck that bullshit. As a journalist, my mother got hate mail, death threats on our home answering machine, her children harassed at school, and being called out by her priest from the pulpit during the homily at mass. Never once did I see her cry about it. As she always said, if a journalist can’t take the heat, they should get the hell out of the kitchen. Fucking wankers.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@aimai: I suppose the only interesting thing about it is that they assume we have feelings that can be appealed to, and that we know shame.
Partly that, maybe, but I’m sure some fraction of it is that the wingnuts are loonies with guns muttering angrily about watering the tree of liberty.
MR Bill
What!? BOB isn’t satire?
Dang. He fooled me. I thought he was Jon Swift in cowboy boots or something…
Dude, if yer serious, get help.
General Winfield Stuck
@JK:
I’m going to break my streak of not watching the bobbleheads this Sunday. Only because Axelrod and Gibbs are on and can hopefully give an idea of what Obama is thinking right now.
The rest of those double talking pea brains can suck eggs and their muggs and drivel won’t offend my eyes and ears.
The Grand Panjandrum
@SGEW:
Word.
ominira
Van Jones is gone baby gone.
Now if I’m a Republican I’d set my sights on Rahm (who knows what he might have said in the third grade & they’ve already made his doctor brother into a bogeyman), and then pick off other members of Obama’s team one by one. If their response is to cave every time, should be easy. I’m increasingly sure that this is going to be a one-term presidency.
geg6
SGEW: As someone who has actually said sometimes nice things about BOB in the past, I must concur with the notion of banning him at this point. Haven’t been around much the past few days, but in the last 24 hours, I have popped in twice and each time read an outrageous screed of the worst stereotypical hate against a huge group of individuals, women and LBGTs. I’ve had enough, I must say. Sorry, BOB, I’ve tried to see the good, but yoy make the good impossible to see.
Sloth
Nah, BOB’s just feeling threatened.
HyperIon
@Aaron: Or, of course, pretend that every issue has two sides and give them each equal weight, even if one is bat-shit insane.
So did you get to this part:
In retrospect, Style editor Lynn Medford agrees. “The lesson is to always, in some way, represent the other side,” she said.
“in some way” hmmm.
I don’t think writing a “fair and balanced” piece is THAT difficult if you don’t have an agenda but you do have a brain. Yet current CW seems to imply that this is some really tricky proposition. I don’t get it.
Sloth
They’ll have to wait their turn. The Dems are first in line.
DougJ
As someone who has actually said sometimes nice things about BOB in the past, I must concur with the notion of banning him at this point.
Bring this up with John. I don’t know how to do it (though I once pretended to in order to quiet someone down) and I would defer to John about this in any case.
ppcli
From the Ombudsman’s piece:
“Compounding the story’s problems were passages like: “He takes nothing personally. He means nothing personal. He is never accusatory or belittling.”
These types of unattributed characterizations are not uncommon in feature writing. But many readers thought Hesse was offering her opinion of who Brown is, as opposed to portraying how he comes across.”
Hesse and the ombudsman are professional writers. Evidently not very good ones if they think that any reader would scan these lines and come to the conclusion that Brown himself wasn’t being evaluated.
.
If I write an article that states “OJ didn’t kill his wife” it would be a weak defence to say “Oh, didn’t you get it? I was saying that OJ doesn’t come across like someone who killed his wife.”
.
But anyway, the basic problem with the article wasn’t that it said nice things about someone with a despicable agenda, though that was no doubt what prompted a lot of the angry email. The problem was that the piece was so wildly uncritical in presenting obvious self-serving tripe straight from the subject’s mouth. The fact that Brown “completed coursework for a PhD at UCLA” is taken as evidence of his intellectual bona fides rather than as prima facae evidence that he was admitted to a program and then asked to leave without even the consolation of a terminal MA. Brown’s self-description as someone who converted to Catholicism because of its tradition of “social justice and the poor” is tossed out there, even though Brown’s first job after his unsuccessful PhD stint was at an organization devoted to preventing the distribution of condoms in schools. (All the social justice jobs were presumably taken.) And so on…
.
If this represents the critical thinking/writing skills of the current generation of “rising stars” of journalism (the Ombudsman’s words) then print journalism has an even worse future than I thought.
HyperIon
@WereBear: If the MSM had feedback when they were ignoring hundreds of thousands turning out to protest the Iraq War, might things have changed, even a little bit?
I’m not sure. What feedback mechanismare you talking about? If you read the comments at WaPo, the NYT site, Swampland, etc on some subjects, they are way ahead of the columnists but what difference does it make?
Now I’m not suggesting that WaPo commenters should “rule”. Obviously they self-select but still I don’t see how to: 1. sample opinion in an unbiased fashion and 2. get the powers-that-be to pay attention to that sample.
PeakVT
I’d cry every morning if I worked at the WaPo.
HyperIon
@ppcli: If this represents the critical thinking/writing skills of the current generation of “rising stars” of journalism (the Ombudsman’s words) then print journalism has an even worse future than I thought.
Yes. Exactly.
Your whole comment was spot on.
Brick Oven Bill
My opinion was not anti-gay at all. Actually, I respect a community that has the will to actively advocate for their interests.
Warren Terra
I didn’t realize that the BOB post was BOB, because it honestly didn’t occur to me that it could be meant as anything but satire of its purported points.
I’ve read here before that BOB is a spoof. If he is then I suppose he’s a very good one, but would he please either get a lot more consistently funny or drop it. And if he isn’t then Dude, Get Help.
Steeplejack
@Tom:
Yes, you’re right, people are not allowed to get emotional when a torrent of bile and anger is directed at their life’s work.
What about the torrent of bile and anger directed at gay people by the subject of her article–and, to a certain extent, by the slant she gave the article? They’re not allowed to get emotional?
Travis
@DougJ:
I’m past caring with BOB. I put in Cleek’s comment filter two months ago, and it made an immediate difference while reading the site. I highly recommend it.
I have no idea what BOB said today that annoyed people, because the filter replaced every hateful, stupid thing he said with a short, pleasant comment about pie. It’s always fun.
HyperIon
This is from the ombudsman:
Rather, this is a case where three things — a storytelling concept, a writing technique and a bad headline — combined to ignite reader reaction as vitriolic as any I’ve experienced in my seven months as ombudsman.
This person must not read the comments left at the WaPo column. However, at least bad headlines gets mentioned.
I don’t see why journos do not get to write their own headline. When many people write to attack the implication of a headline, the writer often responds “I didn’t write the headline.”
Sort of like Tom Ridge these days with his “I don’t control what’s on the dust cover of my book.” (It’s not exactly the same though because the publisher wants to make money on the book sales.)
Steeplejack
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
And we’re somehow supposed to cut her some slack because she’s bisexual. WTF?!
When does a reporter’s sexual identity–on any story, except possibly a first-person account of gender reassignment surgery–give them a mulligan or grant them un-trumpable credibility?
Steeplejack
@dmsilev:
Seconded.
The quirky, amiable garden gnome BOB has been scarce lately. Black troll BOB is in the ascendant.
Steeplejack
@ppcli:
Excellent recap of the problems in the article. Even in a “profile” piece, which is definitely not an adversarial setting, a reporter should at least address some of the more glaring cognitive dissonance.
ppcli
@Steeplejack:
Especially in this case: my lesbian friends tend to look with a jaundiced eye on the narratives beginning with “My current partner happens to be a man, but before that I lived with a woman” (or: “I live with a very special man, but if it were not for him I’d live with a woman.” or “I’m a lesbian who happens to live with a man.” or…) Such self-descriptions have become common enough to reach the status of cliche’, as efforts to claim a certain cachet, a certain alternative chic, without actually living the life.
Karmakin
Where I think the great divide and misunderstanding is, not understanding that content is just as important (and in fact much more so) than tone when determining the real offensiveness of a piece in most cases.
Writing a puff piece on someone who is looking to hurt so many people, is offensive, and you will be called out for it. It’s in fact the same thing as writing and supporting those hurtful stances.
The difference with the “internet generation” (It’s not just the internet.), is that we like to have our content and our tone somewhat match up. If this is too difficult for the gatekeepers to understand, then they need to stop being gatekeepers.
ironranger
BOB hasn’t been funny since he included a Freud Projection link.
Steeplejack
@ppcli:
Yeah, I can see that. Our pop culture values “edginess,” but if everyone is edgy then by definition they’re not at the edge.
I think I just depressed myself. Will spend the rest of the day pondering my terminal lack of edge.
Oh, I know: If I weren’t allergic to stainless steel, I would have a huge cock ring piercing.
I feel edgier already.
whetstone
This is what I don’t get: how the hell were both the ombudsman AND the reporter surprised? How could you not know that was coming? The piece was written to push buttons! I don’t have a damn bit of sympathy for either of them, sorry – less, now that they’re begging for it.
If the reporter can’t understand her own work that well, she shouldn’t be writing those stories. Period. Plus, she’s a style writer – what the hell did they have her writing about NOM in the first place?
Similarly, the ombudsman should know that the story wasn’t written in the subject’s voice. The writer was the one laying on the adjectives about how sane and nice and polite he is.
Are these people illiterate? Are they reading a different draft?
The headline thing is an old, old excuse, because it shifts the blame on anonymous copy editors. It’s a cowardly dodge. It’s also cowardly to be writing about the story like it was something completely different from what it was – people didn’t object to the story’s subject having a voice, they objected to the writer fawning over his bigoted ass.
This is infuriating. They really think we’re children.
scarshapedstar
WHO GIVES A FUCK HOW HE COMES ACROSS!?!??!?! 99.99% of Americans will never meet this guy. The only thing that matters to us IS who he is, not how he gay-bashes with a smile and a firm handshake.
My god. I hate her, too. I hate all these journalists who act like appearances can never be deceiving; like political activists would never try to act more reasonable than they actually are. It never enters their minds that some people really are assholes, know they’re assholes, and know how to act like non-assholes. Do these fuckers even have social lives? Where do they come from to end up this naive?
HyperIon
@whetstone: This is infuriating. They really think we’re children.
It IS infuriating. And they might think we’re children. But I am relatively certain that they are morons. They are just reflecting the stupidity of our discourse AND discoursers.
And no good can come of stupid discourse AND stupid discoursers.
Leelee for Obama
@scarshapedstar: Hannah Arendt-the Banality of Evil. Maybe he’s not Mengele, that could be hyperbolic, but showing Brown up as an asshole would’ve made the article true.
Uloborus
Yeah, I don’t like being mean and hateful to anybody, but she wrote an article praising a man whose positions are highly controversial, and going ‘No, he’s not an awful bigot who hates you, he’s a really nice guy!’ Totally sidestepping what kind of journalism that is, or what it says about her as a person, you’re just going to get hate mail for that. People will be angry. It’s extremely inflammatory.
I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with writing inflammatory articles, but why be surprised if you get angry letters about them? Wasn’t it obvious from the first moment some people wouldn’t take it well? She practically addressed that in the piece herself. And if she’s not surprised, but is still torn up by it, I’m not sure she’s on the right career path. That’s glib to say, but seriously, it’s true.
Tim in SF
I can’t use the pie filter on BOB because I use Safari and there’s no greasemonkey for Safari. Sadly.
But in answer to your question, I think people are taking issue with comment #35 in this thread. I think it would be ban-worthy behavior if it was said about blacks or jews. Not so sure, though, when it’s being said about gays. I think it’s still acceptable to shit on the gays in the public square (at least, that’s how it seems to me).
Ash Can
This whole saga of Hesse and the ombudsman brings this question to my mind: What would Mike Royko do?
I believe he’d be compassionate and professional enough to calmly suggest to them that they both find work more suited to their temperaments, such as grade-school teaching or interior design. And I believe he’d be old-school hard-boiled journalist enough to laugh himself silly over the whole ridiculous thing at the corner saloon after quitting time.
SGEW
@Tim in SF: I have the same problem that you’ve encountered, as far as Safari and greasemonkey goes. However, I more or less now have a pie filter in my mind for B.O.B.’s missives, and only give them an occasional cursory glance in order to justify my repeated [insert standard formal request here] bit.
bellatrys
Nelly Bly is rolling in her grave, Hesse.
Also, we *know* what the WaPo considers outrageous flameage. They delete things that wouldn’t even boil water, let alone start crisping newsprint, and complain that they’re being savagely brutalized.
Joe Klein is not the only WATB in DC by a long shot.
Brian Griffin
I wonder if if pat buchanan cried about the reaction to his little hitler apologia.
I bet he did. maybe msnbc’s ombudsman can tell us about it.
Desert Rat
This whole thing is why I don’t cry over the demise of newspapers. Frankly, they can’t die fast enough for my taste.
Journamalism, as practiced by newspapers is a corrupt, ossified, diseased culture. This whole story is a puff piece about a guy who makes his living destroying or bringing misery to other people’s lives. Any way you put, that’s what Brian Brown does.
And frankly, the only reason anybody in this world gives a sh*t about Brian Brown is because of what he does. He’s not an artist, a performer, an elected official, or anything else of note. He’s the head of an organization designed to destroy other people’s lives.
Profile or not, that needs to be part of this article. If all you’re doing is portraying Brian Brown as a Great American Hero, you’re writing crap.
As for the boo-hoo, you heart my feelings, and look, I’m bi, I’m one of you aspect of this, bullsh*t. The antics of Brian Brown ruin peoples lives. The fact that she fellated him across the pages of the WaPo, and she is bisexual, actually makes what she did worse.
As for email criticizing her, frankly, unless they threatened her with bodily harm, she needs to suck it up. It comes with the territory. The fact that these so-called journalists still reach for the fainting couch anytime somebody criticizes their work, more than a decade in to the phenomenon of online journalism is an indication of the sense of entitlement these mofo’s still feel, even though its clearly not deserved.
F*ck Monica Hesse, and the f*cking rag she rights for.
Desert Rat
er, rights=writes. Really, I can spell…but I was on a roll.
drillfork
I don’t think she wrote it that way to appease conservatives. I think she wrote it that way because she’s shitty at her job…
LosGatosCA
If she has a freaky bi-friend this whole thing could workout.
it’s better having two friends comfort you after a good cry
Yutsano
@dmsilev: See I always love it when people think gays are weak wristed wusses. It ALWAYS put a big Cheshire cat grin on my face. Mostly because it makes me think of a good friend of mine. He’s 6’7″ 275 pounds, pure muscle, a Marine, and gay as a plaid rabbit. So yeah, keep up the stereotypes there BOB. I know LOTS of gay guys who can kick your tail from here to Timbuktu.
NobodySpecial
This is not the story.
This comment IN the piece is the story.
In retrospect, Style editor Lynn Medford agrees. “The lesson is to always, in some way, represent the other side,” she said.
Now, I may not like what she wrote, but I’ll be damned if that’s what the takeaway should be, because then we get articles about fucking death panels.
Jeff R.
I couldn’t help recalling back when Deborah Howell, then the Post’s omsbudman, received tons of nasty email when she suggested that Democrats received money from Jack Abramoff. I think the Poorman’s take on the was spot on:
(for full context: http://web.archive.org/web/20060217100809/http://www.thepoorman.net/2006/01/26/lets-stage-an-all-star-panel-on-blogger-ethics-in-my-pants/)
arguingwithsignposts
@HyperIon:
As someone who’s written stories AND headlines, I can tell you that a lot of writers couldn’t write a headline to save their life. Similarly, there are editors who could f**k up a headline on a story by looking at it.
Headline writing is a fine art if done right. If done wrong, it can damage the writing.
jl
I am sorry that the reporter got her feelings hurt and she cried.
But, it is another piece of evidence of the demoralizing effect of the corporatization of the media. There are thousands of intrepid and consciencious people, men and women, who could do reporting, do a good job, get thousands of angry e-mails, and they would not cry. They would step back, evaluate the criticism, evaluate their work in light of the criticism and make a response as they saw best. Which might include defening the story, revising the story, and perhaps telling some of the critics that they are full of it, and they could defend their response using facts and reasoning.
However, if the main qualification for success in the current dominant business (and government) establishments is to be an abject, servile, company-person butt-kisser, and your entire world veiw is formed in this artificial environment, then a little reality therapy might make some one cry, or act out in an incoherent adolescent way (as per Klein, Todd, Milbank, Ambinder, etc.)
And, I am sorry if my implicity characterization of this reporter makes her cry again. Probably won’t though.
Lyle
@ppcli:
Her bisexuality isn’t a defense to me unless she’s been in a long-term same-sex relationship and had the chance to think of what marriage means. If she ever had a girlfriend fall ill and have to worry if they hospital would let her visit her girlfriend each time, she might not find Brown so “sane”.
Mayken
So has anyone seen the follow up <a href”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083101839.html”article?
Either everyone at WAPO has lost their sense of irony, is completely insensitive or is trying to get Monica more than her 15 minutes of fame.
Mayken
@Mayken: Grph! link didn’t work! you’ll have to cut and paste, sorry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083101839.html