The Washington Post held a "Interactivity Ethics Panel" today which was a response to the recent flap over their ombudsman sticking her foot in her mouth. This looks like the papers attempt to appear reasonable while not ever actually admitting any responsibility for what happened. WaPo continues to insist that the commenters got vulgar while avoiding the bigger issue.

Evidence to date is (by their admission) that perhaps fifty commenters out of literally hundreds of comments in a public internet forum actually used profanity. Forgetting that Lil' Debbie is known to have thrown out a vulgarity or two, or even that the right wing has has been pissing and moaning for years all over the blogosphere, print media and air waves with language that would make a sailor blush (right Ms. Coulter?), and even if you pass on the fact that the panel contained a right-winger who is an offender
while running a blog that doesn't even allow public comments, the whole panel appears to have been an exercise in futility. WaPo executive editor Jim Brady continually ignored and side-stepped Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, who was trying to get him to see the error of the WaPo's ombudsman's ways. It clearly appears that Brady is defending his ego much more than looking at a serious issue of the WaPo relationship with it's readers and the political realities of today.

For the record, Jane has asked for another go a Brady in a neutral forum without the background noise and distractions of the other panelists, who really didn't serve any useful purpose to discussing the issues at hand.

Many on the left are expressing frustration and hopelessness at this exercise. And I must admit a great deal of anger and frustration over the WaPo's tin ear to the complaints of the left. Indeed, it seems that for whatever reasons (see Brady ego above) the WaPo is going to stick by it guns with the red herrings of comment vulgarity on it's blog comments section without really talking about how Howell simply propogated a GOP talking point with her column.

But on further reflection, I'm hopeful. As I said in my post on the flap, Rome wasn't built in a day. The right wing yelled at the media for years before they got the desired result of having many outlets begin to drink the GOP kool aid. This particular issue is just a battle in a long war that is now fully engaged whereby the left demands to be treated fairly in media coverage.

Now if we could just get Democrats to consistently behave as something other than politicians with the backbone equivalent to a worm, maybe we'll be able to progress again in this country.