Washington Post Blog's Jim Brady on the profane meltdown of the left this week.
Hugh Hewitt Talk Show
HH: Moving from an interview with the Vice President to an interview with Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, the phenomenally successful online edition of the Washington Post. Mr. Brady, welcome. Before we get to the meltdown yesterday, and your response today, you were a very fine sports for many years, and you were covering sports at the Post from '87-'95, correct?
JB: Correct.
HH: And you were the sports editor there from '95-'99, correct?
JB: On the website.
HH: Yup. So I think you'd have to agree that the Cleveland Indians of '97 and '99 were perhaps the best team ever not to have won the World Series?
JB: Well, as a Long Island native, I'd have to go with the '86 Mets, but that's just me.
HH: Well then, well, we hope you're a better web editor than you are a sports judge.
JB: (laughing)
HH: Jim Brady, you had a meltdown...A) congrats on going online today and answering your critics, and congrats for coming here. Explain to the audience what happened yesterday.
JB: This actually all started on Sunday when the ombudsman of the newsman, Deborah Howell wrote a column about the Abramoff scandal, and in that column, made a reference to both Republicans and Democrats being the beneficiary of Abramoff donations. And what she should have said, and what she put up on the blog on Thursday was that he directed...he did direct contributions to Democrats, which is undeniable. There's lot of documents that show that. But when she wrote it in the column, it was phrased in a way that made it seem like he was personally giving money to the Democrats, of which there isn't proof of that at this point. So on Thursday, she put a clarification up, and we had already been getting hundreds and hundreds of comments about her column, and they were very, very nasty, using words that I didn't even know existed. And after she put the clarification up yesterday, it just got worse and worse, to the point where we just felt like we were not able to keep...we were unable to get rid of the offensive comments faster than they were coming. And so we decided, you know, to take the comments in that blog down for a little while, just to let things cool off, and for us, to look at how do we make sure this doesn't happen in the future. Do we get technology that makes it easier to weed these out? Or do we just pour more human beings on the case? So...
HH: And this has become quite a controversy on the blogosphere for some...not for me. I think you did the right thing. But some are accusing you of censorship, for example, correct?
JB: Yeah, they are. I mean, and censorship is a pretty strong word to use. I mean, we have ways to send letters to the editor via snail mail, via e-mail. We still have 25 blogs on the site that allow comments. There's plenty of way for users to register their unhappiness with Deborah's, or anybody else's column, and those things all remain open. So I think we have 12 avenues to reach the newspaper, and we took one of them down, and I don't think that really goes toward censorship.
HH: The central fact which seemed to upset the critics of the column, is that the Post has reported that between 1999 and 2004, Jack Abramoff's Indian clients contributed to 195 Republicans and 88 Democrats, tens of millions of dollars to both, correct?
JB: Correct.
HH: And so, why do people object to your publishing that fact?
JB: Well, they...they objected originally to the fact that she...that when she stated it, she made it seem as if he personally was donating to Democrats. But what she meant to say was that he was directing money to Democrats, which as I said, is beyond any kind of argument. So I'm not sure why her clarification yesterday didn't solve the problem, but it didn't. It just inflamed things even more. There's a real...this group that has been going after Deborah all week, I don't think, would have been happy no matter what she said. But she was clear about that, we put links up that have documents that show that, and it just wasn't enough. And like I said, the fact that they weren't happy about the column, if that's all they were saying, would have been fine. But it went way beyond that, and they were calling her...
HH: Jim Brady, who do you think these people are? Because I run into them in this business, but we have a six second delay, goodness knows why. Who do you think they are? Why are they so fundamentally unhappy?
JB: Well, I mean in this case, there was very much a concerted effort to...when Deborah wrote her column on Sunday, a lot of the bloggers on the left side of the spectrum really...they got together and they said let's go to the Post blog and tell them how unhappy we are with this column.
HH: Was there an epicenter of that effort?
JB: It looked like it was in a bunch of different blogs. I mean, it certainly was getting a lot of attention on Atrios and Daily Kos, and some other places. So I mean there did seem to be...you know, it wasn't a campaign in the sense of a really organized campaign, but it was kind of a grass roots campaign to...
HH: Well, you've just named the two central islands in the fever swamps. So I'm not surprised. When you write on...in your online edition today, I think it goes to basic human decency. Are you saying protecting Deborah Howell? Or are you saying...I hope you're saying both, you're protecting your readers from it as well?
JB: Yeah, and we've been clear about that, that we're not going to tolerate anybody being called these names, whether they're employees of the Washington Post or other commentors. And this was more directed at Deborah than it was at other commentors. But that was certainly part of the equation, and it's just...you know, as I said in the discussion, if you can't make your point without calling people some of the names they were being called, then you don't have a point in my opinion.
HH: Now, I have never allowed comments simply because of the threat of libel, of the threat of trademark copyright. But I also want to protect my audience against abusers' vulgar...the sadistic and nutty people. How is the Post going to cope with the fact that on both ends of the political spectrum, there's one percent which are nutters?
JB: Yeah. I don't know how you protect from that, other than to build the best system you can to try to make it difficult for them to creat trouble. And I think one of the things we've learned in the last couple of days is we haven't made it difficult enough. We had profanity filters that weren't working, and some other issues.
HH: Jim Brady, how committed is the Post, and Washingtonpost.com to blogging?
JB: Very committed. We've launched...we had none last year, we have thirty now. And...
HH: Which is the most successful?
JB: You know, in terms of...I mean, Achenblog has been a huge success. Joel Achenbach's humor column. We just...Chris Cillizza's The Fix, which is a political column he writes every day is very popular.
HH: Right.
JB: We just launched one of Marc Fisher. He's a metro columnist...
HH: But does Howard Kurtz get the most traffic?
JB: You know, it's funny. We don't consider...yes, Howie gets a ton of traffic, Dan Froomkin gets a ton of traffic. But you know, in our parlance, we don't consider them blogs, because they're not in Typepad.
HH: Okay. Of the pure blogger, whose the most successful in terms of traffic at the Washingtonpost.com?
JB: If you're including Dan, it's Dan Froomkin, and Howie's right behind.
HH: And are you going to be replicating Froomkin's as a result? Are you going to put more and more on that website?
JB: More and more blogs?
HH: Yeah.
JB: Yeah. We're always looking for opportunities to do blogs. You know, there's certain subjects they work terrific for, and there's certain blogs on certain subjects that are not that great.
---
HH: Jim, putting aside the controversy of the moment, and looking ahead to the committment that Washingtonpost.com has to blogs, how does it work? Who do you answer to in the company?
JB: We...the company reports up...my boss is the CEO, reports up to Don Graham.
HH: And so, it does not actually cross over to Len Downey?
JB: No.
HH: And so, everything...how do you guys work out the sharing of content then? How do you decide...is it totally up to you? They put out the newspaper, and then you decide what to put there?
JB: Yeah, but obviously, it's a partnership, and when we do things like Howie, we'll work with Howie to do a column like that. We make sure that he's got the time to do it. And if he does, then we compensate him separately, and things like that. So we negotiate those things with them. We're not...we're working very closely, if not organizationally tied.
HH: Well now, I know everyone's eyebrows and ears just perked up with you said you compensate him separately. So you are actually paying your Washington Post employees an additional stipend if they blog over at Washingtonpost.com?
JB: Yeah, for consistent things like a daily piece of something like that, we do...not in all cases, but in most cases, we pay them independently.
HH: Are you paying them on a per piece basis? Or on a salary?
JB: No, on a contract basis.
HH: And not talking about Howard, because Howard would be at top end. What are you paying a blogger?
JB: Oh, I wouldn't even want to get into that.
HH: Aw, just give us a range, so that people can know whether or not to redirect their careers.
JB: Well, they should not redirect their careers. Let's put it that way.
HH: (laughing) What is the growth curve, you think, for Washingtonpost.com, in terms of visits? How many are you getting today?
JB: We're getting somewhere between 8 and 9 million uniques a month. We get about a million visitors a day, and you know, a lot of repeats, obviously. We're in the 200 million page view range, more on good months. So I mean, we're pretty happy with where we are. We had a good growth year, and a lot of that growth was actually in launching things similar to the thing that got us in trouble this week, which was trying to engage the readers more, and adding blog comments, and doing the deal with Technorati, where we actually link to blogs on our site that are often very critical of us.
HH: Yup.
JB: So I mean, we've done a lot of things to try to engage the readers, and we'll keep doing those things. I mean, the comments will go back up at some point. It's not a permanent solution. It's just...more of a cooling off period than anything else. And the irony is we had lots of things planned for the next couple of months that would make the user interaction even greater. But we're going to have to...
HH: Let me ask this. I could probably find this in the Washington Post annual report, so just an idea. How's the advertising revenue on the site?
JB: Very good. We had a nice year again last year, and I think the...
HH: What's the annual report say in terms of gross?
JB: I'll leave that to the annual report. I'm the editor, and I try to stay away from ever talking about business stuff, but we had a good year, we had a very good year last year, which should be in the report.
HH: Is the future of newspapers, Jim Brady? They've got to get heavy into the internet presence?
JB: I think they absolutely have to get heavy into the internet. I'm not one of those who believes that newspapers are going to be dead in ten years. I think they're going to have a long...they're going to have a healthy life, and there's going to be people who will always be interested in reading a newspaper, but I think more of the share will go to the web, and these kind of interactive features, and willingness to engage the audience and hear them out is really important to it, which is why we've pushed it.
HH: Jim Brady, I look forward to having you back many times. In the meantime, you might want to read up on the Indians. But I look forward the next time. Thanks for spending time with us
Instapundit and Kausfiles react to the Washington Post blog's profanity attack this week.
Hugh Hewitt talk show
HH: I am now joined by two of the founders of the blogosphere, really. Mickey Kaus of Slate. He's runs Kausfiles.com, and Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit. Gentlemen, welcome. Earlier today, I talked to Jim Brady, executive editor at Washingtonpost.com about the attack on one of his bloggers, the ombudsman. Mickey Kaus, I asked you to listen to it. What did you make of Brady's appearance, and his explanation for what he did?
MK: He's obviously a smart and sincere guy. I just think he was a little thin-skinned in this case. I mean, the example used in his online chat is some of these...you know, they should fire this, and then they used an expletive that began with a B. That's like standard fare if you're in the blogosphere and you get comments. I mean, you get abusive e-mail all the time, much more abusive than that.
HH: By way of background for the audience who's listening, the Washingtonpost.com suspended comments, took down a blog comment section upon being deluged with abusive e-mail in the eyes of the editor. Glenn Reynolds, I think he made the point, though, that it wasn't the stuff we saw, it was the stuff we never saw that forced him to do what he did.
GR: Well, you know, it's not the first time. Didn't the L.A. Times have a similar problem with comments on their site?
MK: Well, those weren't comments. Those were people who were posting actual child pornography.
GR: Oh, yeah. That's a bit farther. But you know, I don't have comments on my blog, and of course at Slate, you don't have unmoderated comments. And there's a reason. I hate to say it. I think that small blogs with a lot of regular readers can have just delightful comment sections. But once you get past a certain size, they tend to degenerate into Usenet flame wars and worse. And you know, I don't know. Based on what I know, and I don't know much about what was in the comments, I don't think I would have pulled that stuff down. But on the other hand, as I said on my blog today, the Post has been really good about hooking up Technorati links on all their stories, so that in a way, the blogosphere's already their comments section.
HH: Mickey Kaus, they do seem to be very aggressive in exploiting the new frontier on the internet, as opposed to most major newspapers, which are slow and old.
MK: Well, that's right. And I should say, I'm indirectly paid by the Washington Post, so...
HH: Oh, that's right. They bought Slate, didn't they?
MK: They bought Slate.
GR: They don't give me a dime.
HH: Yeah, they don't get me a dime, either. So I'm not...we can beat up on you, Mickey, if you say...
MK: No, I think they have been quite aggressive, and the Technorati thing is good. And Glenn is right that the smartest way to comment about somebody is to start your own blog and comment there. People pick it up right away through these search engines like Technorati, and you're an idiot, largely, if you go on the comments section, and especially if you flame somebody. But I can't believe there's not some automated way of weeding out bad comments. People require commentors to register. I know that cuts it down, but it doesn't eliminate it. At Huffingtonpost, they go through every comment and it's incredibly time consuming. And when they have...some good comments, strings as I think they're called, are held up because they have to have like actual human beings go over every comment. And there has to be something of Google-like rating systems, that will sort of order the comments with, and keeps the idiots down at the bottom where you don't see them.
HH: Now the interesting thing is this volcano of abuse erupted because of a factual statement by the Post that Abramoff, the corrupt one, had pumped millions of dollars into more than 80 Democrats' hands, Glenn Reynolds. Why does the left get so angry at the statement of fact?
MK: You know, I don't know. It struck me as a rather technical and lawyerly objection, which may have been true. You know, I've put up stuff saying, relying on Opensecrets.org, saying these people get so much money from the motion picture industry, and of course, it's really people who work in the motion picture industry. Corporations aren't allowed to make donations. And I disclaimed that, but everybody knows, and certainly everybody whose worked as a lawyer in Washington as I have knows that that's a distinction without a difference. And I think it is here, too. I think, though, you've seen over and over again a certain sector of the left invest all their hopes in some scandal bringing down Bush, and I've sort of lost track of all of them. But the Fitzmas didn't turn out like they hoped, and now they thought the Abramoff thing was going to be the death of Republicans. And they just can't stand anybody suggesting that it's not going to be as good as their fantasies suffest.
HH: Mickey Kaus, is the left angrier than the right on the blogosphere?
MK: Well, I think they are not, because they're out of power. I mean, the right used to be angrier. I think one of the key factors in the 2000 election was the right was so much angrier than the left before worrying about what would happen if they gave the election to Gore. Now it has been reversed, and I think another thing that annoyed the left here is they sense that there are Republican talking...there's a secret memo that goes out to all Republicans, who then all begin singing the same tune. And the tune they thought was being sung was oh, Democrats got these contributions, too, so really it's a bipartisan scandal, and it won't hurt Republicans. And they sense that the Washington Post ombudsperson was somehow echoing and giving validity to this party line. And I think that's why they went so berserk. I agree with Glenn. It's a technical point, and also an incredibly naive point. I mean, the standard left-wing line has been that the lobbyists direct all these contributions from seemingly private clients, and that we should really count all contributions from anybody in the industry as from that industry, the way Glenn said. And to now say oh, well, it technically didn't come directly from Abramoff, so it doesn't count, is sort of hypocritical.
GR: And not merely to point out and to say well, this isn't technically accurate, but to scream that it's evidence of some sort of journalistic malpractice...I mean, I've seen a lot of real journalistic malpractice, and this just doesn't strike me as an example.
HH: Okay. A couple of quick exit questions. Mickey Kaus, have you seen Andrewsullivan.com's new design over at Time Magazine?
MK: I have.
HH: How terrible is it?
MK: I don't think it's that bad, but his biography is incredibly over-detailed.
HH: How about you, Glenn? Have you seen the new site?
GR: The new design's better than the old one, because you can read it...
HH: (laughter)
GR: ...much more easily.
HH: But what about the cartoon?
GR: Oh, let's not go there. But the content, I have to say, it's strange to me, but he seems, actually, to have gotten more anti-Bush since he switched over to Time than he was on his own blog, which sort of surprised me.
HH: I agree. Last question. Mickey, Jim Brady wouldn't tell us how much a pure blogger at the Washington Post is paid. Do you have a guess?
MK: No. My guess is in the high two figures.
HH: In the high two...
GR: (laughter)
MK: High five figures.
HH: In the high five figures, but not six. How about you, Glenn Reynolds?
GR: That sounds about right to me.
HH: I know. I think it's the way I'd go if I was a young journalism school graduate.
GR: Oh, yeah.
HH: I sure wouldn't go to an old paper. I'd look for a blogging assignment. Mickey Kaus of Kausfiles, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, thank you, gentlemen for commenting on the Washingtonpost.com meltdown.
End of interview.
Posted at 11:58PM PST
radioblogger.com |
