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Washington Post Crashed-and-Burned Watch (Yet Another Deborah Howell Edition)
J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — ... Deborah Howell on Remedying Perceptions of Media Bias: 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.... [S]ome of the conservatives' complaints about a liberal tilt are valid.... ...

Carol Platt Liebau: Touching Journalism's "Third Rail"
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — Ombudsmen at two of America's most prestigious papers today approach the issue of liberal bias in reporting. New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt essentially denounces reporter Jodi Kantor's attempt to contact Bridget McCain's school mates for a hit piece on Cindy McCain. Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell admits that Post coverage could well give conservatives cause to feel "disrespected." She goes on to note that papers should hire more conservatives, but blames the economy for the fact that "hiring is at a standstill." But perhaps the most provocative part of her ...

Carol Platt Liebau: Crossing the "Cultural Line"
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — ... be "good" for the country to have him win. And once journalists are willing to go there, then it's a pretty short step to concluding that, likewise, it's "good" for the country that he succeed, or "bad" if he fails -- and then adjusting their coverage accordingly. Such determinations, of course, shouldn't be the press' domain. But it's far from clear that the press realizes that. Yesterday, WaPo ombudsman Deborah Howell rationalized liberal press bias with the explanation that "Journalism naturally draws liberals; we like to change the world. " Strange. I didn't think ...

Deborah Howell’s Foolish Consistency
Firedoglake — ... Those lost subscriptions? 900, she says, in late October and early November, "more than 240" of them after the Post endorsed Obama, and she attributes them to a "valid" perception of liberal bias.* Interesting. Was there something specific that happened over at the Post that particularly pissed conservatives off? Why yes, there was ...