Patching up the Post

Posted at 3:03 PM on January 25, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

The Washington Post has been embroiled in a controversy over the ethics of blogging. The Post recently turned off the comments section of its blog after readers inundated it with, in the view of the Post, unacceptable comments. This followed the Post's ombudsman's column on the Abramoff story.

Today the Post hosted a "chat" (I had no idea people still hosted chats, actually) featuring several bloggers.

This exchange caught my eye:

Seattle, Wash.: The Post's dramatic over-reaction to some critics has, in effect, broadly painted all Democrats on the left as vulgar. Last night, one of the sillier TV pundits characterized blog reaction to Howell's column as "organized terrorism." What can The Post do to tamp down this sort of dangerous mischaracterization, and how can readers who care enough to participate in the dialogue trust that they won't again all be treated as barbarians when they disagree?

Jeff Jarvis: (ed note: Jeff Jarvis is Buzzmachine)That's a great point. To extend the argument, this chat itself is looking at the wrong end of the pipe. It would be better to have a chat about all the great things that do, indeed, come from finally opening up the pipe to two-way collaboration. NashvilleIsTalking.com is my favorite example of a media organization forging a new relationship with citizens by sharing (1) conversation, (2) promotion, (3) content, (4) knowledge, and -- this is a big one -- (5) revenue.

Comments (1)

In a post on his blog Jarvis notes that "too many people judge interactivity by the worst of it" and I'd agree with that. I would love to see more recognition of the good that comes from feedback and dialogue, or more ideas on how to improve that process.

Posted by Julia Schrenkler | January 26, 2006 9:23 AM

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