To the Editor: Dear Sir, Who Cares?

In Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell's latest column, Online Venom or Vibrant Speech?, Howell writes, “Two important journalism values -- free, unfettered comment and civil, intelligent discourse -- are colliding.”

Oh dear. One might ask, only rhetorically mind you, just whose free, unfettered comments journalism has ever really valued?

I grew up with the Post, and I’ve read a number of Howell’s columns and she strikes me as no better and no worse than her WaPo predecessors. Putatively appointed to serve as mediators between the newspaper and its often critical and frustrated readership, ombudsmen such as Howell tend to rise from the ranks of working journalists and thus bring with them both the common prejudices of the trade and the typical obliviousness to those prejudices that especially infuriate their customers.

I don’t mean ideological bias. Yes, the Mainstream Media is biased toward the left, but journalism’s more fundamental problems would remain were the press right-leaning or dead center, whatever that would mean. Too heavy reliance on certain sorts of sources and too much skepticism regarding other sources, sloppy fact-checking and the tendency to ignore for as long as possible and then downplay as much as possible whenever reportage is shown to be erroneous or worse are all endemic problems with the profession. Thus, ombudsmen like Howell tend to see their role, wittingly or not, as one of explaining to critical readers why the newspaper is right and the readers are wrong. Actual criticism of their newspaper’s behavior tends to be both rare and timid, sometimes to the point of being almost apologetic to their colleagues.

On the topic of reader feedback, especially comments posted on the Post’s website, Howell writes:

Complaints first came from the newsroom. Reporters don't appreciate the often rude feedback, which I get, too. (A sample reader comment on my column last week: "I think we can all agree after reading Howell's lame comments week after week that the Post should save money by eliminating her position entirely. She is worse than a dupe.")

But the reader is wrong; Howell is no worse than a dupe. Okay, I admit that’s pretty snarky, but the real issue isn’t Howell. The real issue is that the very concept of a news ombudsman is a rear-guard tactic and a failed attempt at providing the appearance of objectivity and accountability. It doesn't matter. Thanks to the internet, the public no longer needs a media-provided conduit to its editorial desks. Whether the Post continues to publish reader comments at the end of its articles on its website is as irrelevant as whether it continues to publish Letters to the Editor in its print edition. (Which, by the way, newspapers do not print out of any sense of professional responsibility but because they increase circulation.)

Working journalists are absolutely essential to the real business of journalism, which is basic news reportage. But the media no longer needs to pretend to be self-correcting, nor can it withstand or control the forces that monitor and continually criticize and correct its work product any longer. Free, unfettered comment will continue apace, whether or not Howell or her superiors at the Post find it sufficiently civil or intelligent. I might even agree with them more often than not that much of such comment is neither. Fortunately, my opinion on the subject doesn’t matter any more than theirs does.