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An Open Letter to the Washington Post In her op-ed, "Remedying the Bias Perception" (November 16, 2008), Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell admitted the Washington Post's reporters (not to mention most other mainstream journalists) tilted their coverage of the presidential election in favor of Barack Obama. I am shocked, shocked (!) that the news media effectively disenfranchised American voters. Do they not call themselves "watchdogs of government"? The National Review reported not long ago that journalists investigated Joe the Plumber for having the temerity to ask Obama a difficult question about his tax policies. American voters learned about Joe the...

A week after Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell agreed with readers who saw “a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama” in the paper's campaign coverage, Howell this Sunday admitted she voted for Obama and “bet” that so did “most” in the Post's newsroom: I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo.

Thousands of conservatives and even some moderates have complained during my more than three-year term that The Post is too liberal; many have stopped subscribing, including more than 900 in the past four weeks. It pains me to see lost subscribers and revenue, especially when newspapers are shrinking. Conservative complaints can be wrong: The mainstream media were not to blame for John McCain's loss; Barack Obama's more effective campaign and the financial crisis were.

Guilty! One of the nation's premier newspapers fesses up about allegations of pro-Obama bias. The Washington Post's ombudsperson, Deborah Howell, tracked its presidential campaign stories, front-page coverage and use of photos covering the period from Obama's nomination on June 4 to Election Day. The result? Howell writes: "The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. … "Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In a weekend article, the ombudsman for the Washington Post admitted that the liberal newspaper had a bias for pro-abortion candidate Barack Obama during the elections. The paper followed the article with a report on how the President-elect would overturn "ideologically offensive" pro-life policies. On Sunday, Deborah Howell admitted that readers of her paper "have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama." "My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts," she admitted. Howell's internal examination...

The mainstream press have been accused of being biased in favor of President-elect Barack Obama for months - a phenomenon now acknowledged by one of the nation's media heavyweights. On Sunday, The Washington Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell, offered evidence of an "Obama tilt" in her own newspaper. "Readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts," Ms. Howell wrote in her column. "Now Howell gives the mea culpa in her first...

THE Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on election day, show that they are right on both counts. The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain....

Democrat Barack Obama has had about a 3 to 1 advantage over Republican John McCain in Post Page 1 stories since Obama became his party's presumptive nominee June 4. In overall political stories from June 4 to Friday, Obama dominated by 142 to 96. Obama has been featured in 35 stories on Page 1; McCain has been featured in 13... When Obama traveled to the Middle East and Europe, the coverage dwarfed that of McCain -- six Page 1 stories from July 19 to July 27, plus an earlier front-page story announcing the trip. McCain managed one Page 1 story...

Barack Obama may be only eight points ahead of John McCain in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, but he's creaming McCain in the number of pictures and stories published in The Post in the past two months. ....

In her Sunday column this week, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell responds to charges of improper money-making from special-interest groups against two of the newspaper's stars, David Broder and Bob Woodward. The allegations were carried in the current issue of Harper's by Ken Silverstein, the magazine's Washington editor. Both Broder and Woodward recently took buyouts from the paper but remain as contract workers. The Post Stylebook's ethics and standards section says only: "We freelance for no one and accept no speaking engagements without permission from department heads." Howell observes: "Broder and Woodward did not check with editors on the appearances...

Recent events in the newspaper business make it clear that newsrooms cannot escape market forces. Stockholders forced the sale of Knight Ridder Inc., the nation's second-largest newspaper chain, with 32 papers. McClatchy Co. announced Monday it would buy Knight Ridder, but said it would sell 12 of the 32 newspapers -- the ones not making enough money and not in growth markets. And Post editors announced March 10 that the newsroom will cut 80 of 870 newsroom positions. The New York Times, located in the world's financial center, announced on Tuesday that it will stop publishing daily stock listings. Advertising...

Washington journalism has about it a peculiar insularity. Who gets credit for groundbreaking reporting is not important to most readers, but Washington editors often try to knock down each other's stories and want to be credited when they think they've broken a story first. I know; I've done it. So a memo from Knight-Ridder's Washington bureau that criticized The Post, leaked to a popular media news Web site Friday, was not viewed with equanimity in The Post's newsroom. snip The most serious issue was Hoyt's questioning of figures cited in a front-page story in The Post on Tuesday -- that...

Dana Milbank can be controversial with readers. The Post reporter has his fans -- and I can be one of them -- but I think his appearance on MSNBC last week was a mistake in judgment. Milbank wore hunting gear -- an orange stocking cap and striped vest and gloves -- on Keith Olbermann's show Monday night and made several meant-to-be-humorous remarks about Vice President Cheney's hunting accident. Here's an example from the transcript: Olbermann: And will there be more hunting trips? I mean, would you actually go hunting with the vice president at this point, even dressed the way...

Liberal commentator Deborah Howell found out what happens when you don't follow liberal orthodoxy as a columnist: you get eaten alive.

'Wash Post' Ombud Vows to Stay on Job Despite Uproar Deborah Howell By E&P Staff Published: January 22, 2006 12:45 AM ET NEW YORK Responding to the furor that started exactly one week ago, Deborah Howell, ombudsman at The Washington Post since just last autumn, writes today, "Nothing in my 50-year career prepared me for the thousands of flaming e-mails I got last week over my last column, e-mails so abusive and many so obscene that part of The Post's Web site was shut down." As Howell notes, that column claimed that indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave campaign money to...

Wonders of wonders, the Washington Post finally but somewhat unobtrusively turned back on their blog. No doubt after getting "tons of emails" about it. But from what Jim Brady said and the recent turning on the blog back on doesn't make any sense.

Nothing in my 50-year career prepared me for the thousands of flaming e-mails I got last week over my last column, e-mails so abusive and many so obscene that part of The Post's Web site was shut down. That column praised The Post for breaking the story on lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings, for which he has pleaded guilty to several felony counts. The column clearly pointed out that Abramoff is a Republican and dealt mainly with Republicans, most prominently former House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas. I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members...

Associated Press The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper's ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans. At the center of a congressional bribery investigation, Abramoff gave money to Republicans while he had his clients donate to both parties, though mostly to Republicans. In her Sunday column, ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties," prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog. There were so many personal attacks that the newspaper's...

Paper Shutters Blog After Ombudsman Post Jan 19 7:28 PM US/Eastern WASHINGTON The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper's ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans. At the center of a congressional bribery investigation, Abramoff gave money to Republicans while he had his clients donate to both parties, though mostly to Republicans. In her Sunday column, ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties," prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on...

NEW YORK Jim Brady, the executive editor at washingtonpost.com, notified users of the post.blog that the public comment feature had been suspended “indefinitely” after “a significant number of folks” posted personal attacks, profanity, and hate speech. Attempts by E&P to reach Brady have been unsuccessful so far. It seems likely the move is related to controversy in recent days over Sunday’s Post column by ombudsman Deobrah Howell. She has been heavily criticized by some political Web sites and bloggers for writing that indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both political parties, when most research shows he only gave directly...

The Editors Discuss Site Policies, Design and Goals Posted at 04:22 PM ET, 01/19/2006 Comments Turned Off As of 4:15 p.m. ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely. At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues. Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would...

The Washington Post shut one of its blogs yesterday, saying it had drawn too many personal attacks, profanity and hate mail directed at the paper's ombudsman. The closing was the second by a major newspaper in recent months. An experiment in allowing the public to edit editorials in The Los Angeles Times lasted just two days in June before it was shut because pornographic material was being posted on the site. The Post's blog, open to the public since Nov. 21, was shut indefinitely yesterday afternoon with a notice from Jim Brady, executive editor of www.washingtonpost.com. Mr. Brady wrote that...

But wait! All is not lost. The remaining comments are not gone where Deborah Howell tried to blink them out of existence. Surprise, surprise, surprise! (Gomer style). They just went somewhere else where you have to dig to find them. You can now find those mass-deleted comments that are now cached in Yahoo search (January 17 th- 18th WaPo blog comments) while Democratic Underground has the January 19th comments archived here, and WaPo Lies have the January 15th - 16th comments archived. Those bots really do work fast. Deborah Howell simply didn't move fast enough. And funnier still, I don't...