Politico's dirt on Cain: the Good and the Bad

Politico's monday story alleging a sexual harassment scandal involving Herman Cain has received a ton of media attention. I say kudos to Politico for some aspects of the story, but Politico clearly made mistakes on others. First, the good:

Politico, a news organization known for a culture valuing speed over accuracy, did not immediately publish the story. Politico waited ten days to give Cain a chance to respond to the allegation; the Cain campaign had no comment. Clearly thorough research and good timing paid off: the story turns out to be true, and Politico can take the credit.

Now, the bad:

Politico bases the entire scoop off of unnamed sources. Most reporters now know at least one of the sources' names, but regardless, the sources' relevance to the story is not generally known. It sounds suspicious and gives Cain ample room to deny it as an attack on conservatives.

This all being said, the Washington Post should also be criticized for the story it published on Monday covering Politico's story. Sure, proper attribution was given throughout the article, but actually the entire article simply restated information Politico had already published. Essentially, the journalist read the politico article, summarized it, and tried to pass it off as news. If a paper decides to write about a breaking news story, it should at the very least include some original reporting. This story has none.

WaPo editorial ridden with mistakes

I have a lot of respect for the Washington Post and the work it produces. But this editorial published yesterday sounds like it was written by a freshman journalism student at Georgetown.

The editorial board makes no effort to explain the issue - a rather controversial one - from either side. The entire argument seems to be something like this: "Georgetown is awesome! Our neighbors are ungrateful for our presence!"

Meanwhile, the valid arguments against Georgetown expansion from city officials and neighbors are completely absent from the editorial. Combine the one-sidedness of the editorial with mistakes of accuracy (Foxhollow is not a neighborhood; it's called Foxhall) and omission of words ("It will up to the zoning commission) and this article qualifies as poor journalism.

Ridiculous looking graphic in the Post

When you know a little something about newspaper page layout, you notice things like this and snicker. The Washington Post published a photograph of a Facebook page and centered it quite obnoxiously in the text. Frankly, the white space and lack of color looks horrible. If I wanted to look at a website, I'd be on WashingtonPost.com anyway. The page came out this way because the page editor demanded a graphic for the story to take up space and so that the page wouldn't look boring. I'd argue that the photo makes the page even more boring.

Although I have to admit that I do love what screenshots reveal about people (or media organizations). For instance, the Post still uses IE as its browser. (A little behind the times?) Even more revealing, the "photographer" of this lovely piece of art seemed to have come across the page through a google search. Again, what is this photograph telling us that we readers couldn't just google ourselves?

Washington Post bases an entire article off of a lame quote

Sure, it's important to cover Obama's jobs plan thoroughly, but WaPo tends to like to write non-stories and then publish them on the front page, as if it's reminding readers that "Hey, remember, this is happening?"

The Washington Post based this entire article - which is essentially identical to articles printed days prior - off of the quote, "We'll get to that."

Filler is one thing, but to waste valuable inches on what was essentially a blow-off Harry Reid gave your reporter? Not exactly hard-hitting. Intelligent readers would have given up on that story by the second graf. People who still read newspapers already know that Obama is touting his jobs plan, and that it takes time to pass bills in Congress.

Given the way this article reads, the reporter was clearly told to go get a quote from Harry Reid, couldn't get a good one, and instead decided to go off on a tangent. Unfortunately, given that "the aide predicted the Senate will debate the jobs plan sometime in October," it sounds like we'll face weeks and weeks of this filler.