Deborah Howell Resurfaces...

She writes:

Policy vs. Reality in Correcting Errors: Corrections also need to be published sooner. Usually, there's a backlog of corrections, as many as 20, waiting to get in. My own experience taught me that waiting to correct mistakes is, well, a mistake. I made an error in January. Because my column runs on the editorial page, I could not correct the error on Page A2. A correction ran the following Thursday on The Post's Web site and my next column acknowledged the mistake. I should have pushed for an A2 or editorial page correction the day after the original column...

An ordinary person, reading this, would believe that Deborah Howell waited a week to correct her "mistake" in January because of the Post's bureaucratic procedures--the bureaucracy wouldn't let her put the correction in on page 2 the following day, and the next opportunity she had to get something in the print paper was the following Sunday. But, an ordinary person would think, she worked hard, and even got a correction onto the http://www.washingtonpost.com/ website on Thursday. That's what the paragaph implies to an ordinary reader, no?

That's definitely not what happened. Howell did not wish or seek to get any form of correction onto page A2 on Monday.

Let's back up. Deborah Howell's mistake? It's about corrupt Republican fixer Jack Abramoff. Here's the relevant portion of her ombudsman column:

Getting the Story on Jack Abramoff: In the fall of 2003, a lobbyist called to tip [Susan] Schmidt that Abramoff was raking in millions of dollars from Indian tribes to lobby on gambling casinos. Schmidt started checking Federal Election Commission records for Abramoff's campaign contributions. Lobbyists also file forms with Congress that give information on clients and fees. Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists. And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties.

"It was enough to get me interested," Schmidt said. She also came across Michael Scanlon, a former aide to DeLay who operated a public relations firm doing business with tribes. Schmidt called tribal leaders around the country, looking for Indians who had access to information and were suspicious of Abramoff. Her first big story, on Feb. 22, 2004, revealed that Abramoff and Scanlon had taken an eye-popping $45 million-plus in fees from the tribes.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) began a congressional investigation, and the Justice Department started its own probe. Schmidt kept tabs on those, as she had done for six years as the lead reporter on investigations into the Clinton administration, including the Monica Lewinsky case...

Here we see two mistakes in her original column. The first--the one she focuses on--is the false statement that Jack Abramoff, Republican fixer, "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties." Jack Abramoff's campaign contributions were all to Republicans. But this mistake is a minor one that stands in for a much bigger mistake, a much broader lie: a tapestry of mendacity to downplay Abramoff's Republican identity and corrupt Republican connections, which we can see above in the passage quoted and also see below in the close of her column:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: January 2006: Republicans... say The Post purposely hasn't nailed any Democrats [in the Abramoff scandal]. Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money. So far, Schmidt and Grimaldi say their reporting on the investigations hasn't put Democrats in the first tier of people being investigated. But stay tuned. This story is nowhere near over.

Here's the "correction" Howell offered four days later, the following Thursday:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: January 2006: I've heard from lots of angry readers about the remark in my column Sunday that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. A better way to have said it would be that Abramoff "directed" contributions to both parties.... The Post has copies of lists sent to tribes by Abramoff with specific directions on what members of Congress were to receive specific amounts. One of those lists can be viewed in this online graphic...

As a correspondent pointed out then:

In the readable parts of the document to which she links, Abramoff appears to "direct" $220,000 of contributions to Republicans, and $4,000 of contributions to Democrats.

"'Directed' contributions to both parties" simply will not cut it.

Here's her "next column acknowledg[ing] the mistake":

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: January 2006: 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.... I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.... I do know... I have a tough hide, and a few curse words (which I use frequently) are not going to hurt my feelings. But it is profoundly distressing if political discourse has sunk to a level where abusive name-calling and the crudest of sexual language are the norm, where facts have no place in an argument. This unbounded, unreasoning rage is not going to help this newspaper, this country or democracy.... To all of those who wanted me fired, I'm afraid you're out of luck. I have a contract. For the next two years, I will continue to speak my mind.

I do know one thing: no newspaper has any business employing an ombudsman who cannot accurately report her own actions of four months ago.

Comments

[watertiger]

What is so galling is that Ms. Howell cannot identify the key differences between "ombudsman" and "reporter" in the first place.

[Kate G]

Keep fighting the good fight, brad.

kate g

[nick s]

"My own experience taught me that waiting to correct mistakes is, well, a mistake."

And our experience has taught us that expecting Li'l Debbie to fulfil her job description is, well, a mistake.

[Davis X. Machina]

Don't be too quick to judge.

Sometimes what appears to be an 'error' is just a loyal American serving a Higher Truth.

Individuals, and individual details, may occasionally go awry, but The Story Arc is never wrong.

Ask Preisdend Gore.

[n69n]

you filthy cad!!!

dont you know a gentleman NEVER corrects a lady?

[Doctor Biobrain]

My only wish was that fools hadn't given her and Brady an easy out by insulting them repeatedly; and thus allowing them to turn the issue from being about their mistake into it being about rude liberals. Nobody likes to admit to mistakes, and if people can attack the messenger that told them about the mistake, they will. And so all those rude emailers/commenters not only allowed the WaPo to act superior in their ignorance, it also undercut the message that the majority of non-rude emailers wrote.

Rudeness has almost no place in society and usually just makes things worse. It might feel better to be rude, but it usually serves no purpose than to allow your target to attack you for being so rude. And that's exactly what happened. And even now, Brady and Howell feel superior to the people who were correcting them and continue in their deceit. Maybe nothing could have fixed that, but the rudeness didn't help.

For anyone interested, I wrote more about this here: http://biobrain.blogspot.com/2006/05/in-defense-of-civility.html

[Ginger Yellow]

Dr Biobrain, the problem with your approach is that the right is just as rude, but the press still takes them seriously and not only ad. What's got the press so uppity right now about left wing "incivility" is that after 20 years it's finally coming from both sides. And on top of the occasional swearwords, the right has an entire, loudly voiced narrative in which the media (apart from Fox) are in league with "the terrorists" and actively want the US to lose its military engagements. Isn't that a little bit rude?

[sglover]

"My only wish was that fools hadn't given her and Brady an easy out by insulting them repeatedly; and thus allowing them to turn the issue from being about their mistake into it being about rude liberals."

Look, they could've got one hostile message in crayon, postmarked from a mental institution, and they'd be whining about the overwhelming volume of hate they got from "rude liberals". Their logic seems to be that ANY criticism of the Post is prima facie evidence of disturbed thinking. No matter how well argued a critique is, Brady and Howell are going to keep on feeling superior to anyone who dares take them to task. After all, they work for the Washington Post, the main vein of American discourse, right?

[Richard Hausman]

I agree with sglover's comment of May 29, 2006 at 10:01 AM. Politicians and reporters simply cannot discount speech directed at them because they feel it is rude. After they get over their hurt feelings, they are obligated by their duties of office or profession to consider the content of the message.

When I am driving down the highway and someone honks their horn and directs a rude gesture at me, my first reaction is to angrily discount their message. But almost always when I try to figure out why they did that I realize that I did something discourteous or illegal which set them off.

There is no requirement in our country that free speech be polite.

[Doctor Biobrain]

"No matter how well argued a critique is, Brady and Howell are going to keep on feeling superior to anyone who dares take them to task."

Perhaps. But I believe that we were far more effective than they want us to believe. Not because of the rudeness, but from the sheer number of complaints. If nothing else, they'll be more cautious about openly pimping to the wingnuts; as they had done originally.

And specifically, I see this current post showing us that Howell wants to believe that she really did post a proper correction. And the fact that she's rewriting history is a sign that she was ashamed of what really happened. Howell is now pretending that she did what we wanted her to do in the first place: Post a proper correction. And while an open admission would be better, this is a clear sign that she's acknowledging our point.

Your opponents will rarely ever let you know that you've won; but that doesn't mean that you haven't.

[ice weasel]

Thought experiment:

If every newspaper office burned to the ground tomorrow, how would we be worse off?

If every television studio went dark tonight, how much less informed and entertained would the American people be?

Isn't time we stopped even pretending there is anything much worth "saving"? And no, I am NOT suggested trashing various media offices. I am suggesting in a semi-Socratic way that if the existing mainstream media went off the proverbial tomorrow, we have lots of other avenues to express ourselves publicly and perhaps the vacuum created by the lack of a braying, pandering, whoring, lying media, would be a good thing.

Perhaps?

[Doctor Biobrain]

"There is no requirement in our country that free speech be polite."

Then perhaps I should just tell you to fuck-off and then attack you for not agreeing with me. That'd be stupid. Politeness isn't required, but it sure works a lot better than rudeness.

Sure, people should have thicker skins. But if we know that someone uses rudeness as a pretext for ending discussion, we're fools if we give them that pretext. They're behaving badly, but if we know that this is the case; we have no one but to blame but ourselves.

Rudeness feels better, but it is almost always counterproductive. Asshole.

[Russell L. Carter]

"Politeness isn't required, but it sure works a lot better than rudeness."

And the best evidence we have for the inherent superiority of this approach is the Polite Party controls all branches of government.

[Doctor Biobrain]

"If every newspaper office burned to the ground tomorrow, how would we be worse off?"

We don't do straight news. I think newspapers should lose their editorial stuff, and probably even the columnists. But we still need them for straight news. They gave us the Duke Cunningham scandal and told us about Abu Ghraib. Without them, the only news coming from Iraq and other warfronts would come directly from the military (more so than already). They report stuff all the time that none of us would have known otherwise.

What are the other news outlets that we have that don't originate from straight news sources? Even Josh Marshall has to rely on the MSM, and he IS a journalist. I do think we should get rid of the non-objective parts of the news; including the entire pundit class. And that might well help them with their objectiveness too. But we'll always need paid reporters.

[J Thomas]

"But if we know that someone uses rudeness as a pretext for ending discussion, we're fools if we give them that pretext."

If they want a pretext to end discussion, they can post a bunch of rudeness that looks like it came from citizens who don't like them.

And you can't expect a great big bunch of random people who complain to the newspaper to all agree about the details. Probably some of them will be rude.

So you might as well argue that they have a responsibility at least to listen to the polite complaints. You can't stop them from getting rude responses, so you can't let those trump your own response.

[Doctor Biobrain]

"And the best evidence we have for the inherent superiority of this approach is the Polite Party controls all branches of government."

Are you truly unable to see the difference between President Bush calling us traitors for opposing his policies and someone calling Deborah Howell a whore for something she wrote? Sure, the Howell line is an empty insult while the Bush one is significant; and thus, more improper. But in many ways, it's the emptiness of the insult that makes it all the more wrong. Moreover, Bush's insult was an attempt to win; while the Howell insult was just to make the insulter feel better. So if we play this game, we're sure to lose.

I insist on a Democratic party that plays tough and wants to win, but empty rudeness will only make that harder. They don't insult us out of anger; it's part of their strategy. And I don't think that's the strategy for us. To be cliche, they're dividers and we're uniters. Not because we're "nice guys" but because Democrats are inclusive by design, and they're exclusive. They're about starting fights and fueling anger, and we're about running the country and getting society to work together. And we need to show America that we're not going to play in their sandbox. We're above them. That doesn't mean we have to play nice or be stupidly bi-partisan. In fact, it's the opposite. We shouldn't play their games at all. That's not our thing. We need to lead the country, not satisify our petty need to be stupidly rude.

And if you don't agree, then I say fuck-off you cocksucking asshole. Did that convince you? Did it help? Or is it just stupid?

[Doctor Biobrain]

"So you might as well argue that they have a responsibility at least to listen to the polite complaints."

Sure, what they did was wrong. So what? We're not responsible for what they do. We're responsible for what we do. And indirectly for what people on our side do. So we can attack the Howell's for having thin-skin; while implictly defending the insulters. Or we can politely explain our case while denouncing the rude people.

I don't approve of Howell's or Brady's actions at all. What they did was entirely stupid, and only made things worse for themselves. But what the insulters did was also stupid. What's so wrong with saying that? Why should we spend all our time denouncing the actions of Howell; when we can do what I'm doing: Trying to discourage people on my side from doing something stupid.

Sure, Howell was wrong. But so were the rude people. What's so hard about saying that? Especially if you're not a rude person? The rude people hurt your cause. Shouldn't you be upset about that? Thanks to them, you were labeled a rude idiot. Sure, that was Howell's fault, but it was also the fault of the rude people. I think there was enough blame to go around.

[dilbert dogbert]

Dr. Bio,
The prof's page does not, in my opinion, attract the people you are trying to reach. The prof does a prety good job of keeping the discussion semi polite. Most commenters are presenting well argued points of view. I am not sure where you need to direct your comments but I don't think it does a lot of good here.
I do agree that strong well argured posts, with the insults and swear words eliminated, have more impact. Some things though are just so far beyond the pale, the acceptance of torture as a standard practice, for example that my passionate reponse can't be presented in a strong well argured post free from insults and swear words.

[anne]

There is always reason to be polite, but politeness does not mean do not protest or do not argue or do not even ask searching questions as such, as Bruce Bartlett learned when turned from simply for asking questions.

[Ginger Yellow]

"The newspapers" didn't tell us about Abu Ghraib. Sy Hersh did in the New Yorker.

I'm not one of those who goes around saying blogs will replace newspapers or anything like that, but newspapers didn't tell us shit about Abu Ghraib until a real journalist told them there was something to look for.

[Anderson]

Sorry to see Dr. Biobrain's point being rejected.

Blacks and women of a certain generation can recall their parents and other mentors' telling them, "You can't just do as well as the (whites/men), you have to do better."

Liberals are up against a conservative power structure that includes the media. We have to do better.

[RW]

Rudeness vs. politeness is not a binary quality - one person's politeness is another person's rudeness - so this is really a false dilemma, there are far more than two choices even if we consider rudeness and profanity as roughly equivalent. I can think of ways to be deeply, even cruelly rude w/o uttering a single expletive or death threat and I'm sure someone like William F. Buckley could think of a lot more.

Whether by bludgeon, axe or stiletto, wounds are still drawn and blood still flows (albeit perhaps with less visible mess) so perhaps it would be closer to say that civil discourse requires a certain forbearance, a deferral of violence (including violence to logic and empirically verifiable facts), while giving due attention to the logic and history of an opponents position; in brief, maintaining ones end in a conversation.

Maintaining such a stance becomes extremely difficult when faced with an opponent who not only appears uninterested in having a conversation with you but almost casually engages in violence of all sorts, apparently in growing confidence that you lack the capacity to resist. Contesting such brutality may elicit a wide range of responses but I agree with what I take to be Dr. Bio's larger thesis to this degree: Mere textual explosions are unlikely to serve either particularly well or for long - something more will be required if the illiberal beast is to be forced back into its den - and if a liberal (small ‘l’) society is to be fostered on the ground the beast is attempting to claim, then the manner in which it is driven back will matter even if it is pointed out there is far more range to that manner than merely maintaining civility.

[tom f]

Political b/t two sides should occur w/ an imagined audience of open-minded, decent folk.

Wingers, lefties, and the establishment all have entrenched ideologies and/or social priveledge to maintain, so they're unlikely to be effected by debate. Nevertheless, keeping rhetorically pure will sharpen the skills and effectiveness of committed ideologues as well as improve the ideology.

For the undecideds, trying to keep more light than heat in a discussion is probably not more likely to influence this imagined third party. Emotionalism and the appeals of irrational hatreds and prejudice are usually stronger than the demands of reason. Nevertheless, by assuming the best in others, you often get the best.

Civility that does not shy away from calling lies, deceit, ignorance, and sloppiness what they are is best.

Now everyone can go screw themselves :)

[Mac]

I'm having difficulty following the logic of this thread. Perhaps someone can help me by answering this question:

Rudeness is not appropriate when dealing with; (1)Attila, (2)Stalin, (3)Hitler, 4)Lying hacks, masquerading as journalists while supporting a vicious and corrupt regime.

[Charles]

Anderson and Dr. Biobrain miss an important point: critics of Howell *did* do better. The Post's complaints about rudeness were fabricated out of whole cloth, just like much of the rest of what The Post publishes.

Look: The Post itself claimed that out of over a thousand posts, *a dozen* were in any way questionable. As far as I can tell, even those were pretty mild.

So, I would suggest that Anderson and Dr. Biobrain go join the Penitentes, where self-infliction of pain is a virtue.

Everyone else, please carry on and don't let anyone tell you that Howell and The Post were treated with any less respect than anyone besides royalty expects.

[Charles Bird]

Brad,
Isn't Howell's crime a matter of poor referencing? According to Susan Schmidt: "The fees and $2.9 million in federal political contributions Abramoff advised the tribes to make, two-thirds of it to Republicans, have led to battles in some tribes. Some tribe members question why their leaders approved such payments."

[Although I believe you know very well that Howell's problem is not one of poor referencing, I'll proceed as if you are as uninformed as you imply.

There are three money flows here: First, Abramoff's direct campaign contributions. Second, money given as campaign contributions by Abramoff's clients--some of which were expenditures directed by Abramoff, and some of which were expenditures clients would have made in any case had they never got in bed with Abramoff. Third, there is the $80 million or so that was paid to Abramoff and company for access to Republicans leaders--$25,000 for setting up a meeting with George W. Bush, et cetera. Some portion of that money flow (the guesses I am hearing is about a quarter) flowed through to politicians (and overwhelmingly Republican politicians) as "lifestyle enhancements"--luxury vacation trips paid for by Abramoff's credit card, and so forth.

To summarize all three of these money flows as "Abramoff gave to both political parties" is deeply, deeply mendacious.]

[nick s]

'"The newspapers" didn't tell us about Abu Ghraib. Sy Hersh did in the New Yorker.'

And the Cunningham story broke when a home-town reporter from San Diego looked into a weird property deal. Just as the Ohio story broke when the Toledo Blade did some reporting. The DC journalists who lived and worked in and around the Watergate Hotel didn't have a sniff of the poker/hooker parties and the selling of defense contracts. Too many cocktail weenies to worry about.

Perhaps there should be an unofficial rule mimicking the constitution: that you're only qualified to report on Washington if you neither live nor work there.

[John Emerson]

Dr. Biobrain: "I insist on a Democratic party that plays tough and wants to win, but empty rudeness will only make that harder."

The Democratic Party didn't insult anyone, not did any Democratic spokesman. Probably it was a Democratic voter, though even that's not for sure. There are nearly 100 million Democratic voters, and you can't expect all of them to remain civil.

I also believe that the Post people exaggerated both the rudeness of the messages and the proportion of rude messages. All told, I think that this is a fake issue.

[Charles Bird]

Interesting way to respond.

It's pretty clear that Abramoff himself gave money directly to Republicans and no Democrats.

As far as fees earned by Abramoff and passed through for "lifestyle enhancements", where do you get the 25%?

[cous]

The problem is, Dr. Bio, that in the most paradoxical way possible, Ms. Howell and her editors saw the very volume of response as abusive. Instead of saying, "We got a thousand emails of complaint, wow, maybe we really ought to consider that we have a problem," they said, "We got a thousand nasty emails! Those meanies!"

In fact, very few of those emails and blog comments turned out to be particularly nasty, unless "nasty" means "negative". Most were substantive, taking issue with the errors and the attitude that this can only be a scandal if Dems are involved too.

But Howell and the editors kept making reference to the overwhelming volume as if that itself was threatening. Now given that I, for example, wrote a perfectly reasonable and non-obscene comment to Ms. Howell, what are you suggesting that I do to keep her from feeling abused? Not comment at all?

If she isn't capable of weeding out bad comments the way you and I weed spam out before we read our email, she's got the wrong job.

In fact, she just focused on the "abuse" so that she could play the victim. And this allows her now to write puerile and irrelevant columns now instead of actually examining the actions of her newspaper. Instead of, say, really looking into what Woodward's been up to the last few years, she writes about obituaries, because, ooh, no one writes comments about the obit column.

In other words, the more concerned we are, the more she wants to avoid knowing it, and that is a response replicated throughout the major press these days. While I would never be obscene or abusive in a comment, trust me-- she ignored my comment just as surely as if it were Viagra spam, because what I was saying she really didn't want to hear.

Seems to me that what we need to do is to replicate our comments in some sphere outside the Post-controlled or Times-controlled comment sections. Say, "I posted this at the Post.com blog."

But no matter what, they're not going to like this. They've kowtowed to the administration for years, and that's required their ignoring us and the real requirements of reporting, and so being called to account is going to hurt. Let's just not focus on what they insist is the problem, the supposedly abusive stuff, because that's not what's really bothering them. That is, after all, what they invented filters for.

[Robbed in Florida]

This abusive letter stuff is simply a ploy to make you look over here and not at the truth. GUESS WHAT IF ITS THE TRUTH YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE PACKAGE IT FOR CONSUMPTION.

People posting comments spent so much time talking about how to get your message across without offending. You are just playing her game, like she said, she could give a shit what names you call her. Hmm, then why does she bring it up, because it is bait.

Leading fools to talk about rude letters rather than the fact that she is twisting truth for her own benefit/so she can be in the in crowd.

When you are telling the truth you dont have to pull punches. And the truth is most of those letter probably were not offensive, they were just a massive quantity of people speaking a truth they did not want to her.

[J Thomas]

Dr. Biobrain, I already answered your complaint. Apparently you missed it.

If getting abusive comments is useful to Howell etc -- as she apparently believes it is, since she's been trying hard to use it -- then there's absolutely nothing to keep her from sending herself a bunch of fake abusive comments. Or hire somebody to do it for her.

Trying to get a big anarchistic community to all agree not to do it so that Howell won't have that excuse, is completely worthless. There's no possible way to keep Howell from getting abusive comments if she wants abusive comments to complain about. You can't do it. Your efforts to keep it from happening are utterly wasted.

If individual people ask your advice about how to make their comments and emails and criticisms more effective, then by all means tell them to avoid profanity and obvious rudeness. It's good advice. But the approach you're taking now is guaranteed ineffective. Do something else.

[liberal]

Charles wrote, "Look: The Post itself claimed that out of over a thousand posts, *a dozen* were in any way questionable. As far as I can tell, even those were pretty mild."

I read a lot of the comments on one of the threads at the _WP_ at the time. I was amazed by the quality of thought and writing. Especially given the sheer number of comments.

Maybe the average quality was inflated because the _WP_ had already deleted (or filtered out) the rude meaningless stuff, but it really was impressive.

Thus, I agree with cous: "The problem is, Dr. Bio, that in the most paradoxical way possible, Ms. Howell and her editors saw the very volume of response as abusive."