NYT: The Washington Post shut one of its blogs yesterday, saying it had drawn too many personal attacks, profanity and hate mail directed at the paper’s ombudsman.
The closing was the second by a major newspaper in recent months. An experiment in allowing the public to edit editorials in The Los Angeles Times lasted just two days in June before it was shut because pornographic material was being posted on the site.
The Post’s blog, open to the public since Nov. 21, was shut indefinitely yesterday afternoon with a notice from Jim Brady, executive editor of www.washingtonpost.com.
Mr. Brady wrote that he had expected criticism of The Post on the site, but that the public had violated rules against personal attacks and profanity.
In an interview, Mr. Brady said the site had been overwhelmed with what he described as vicious personal attacks against Deborah Howell, the newspaper’s ombudsman.
“Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it’s a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.”
Too bad. Just when you thought Deborah Howell succeeded in her mass deletion do you find out those bots worked faster than her.
http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2006/01/deborah-howell-failed-to-get-rid-of.html
Well, the post is a business. For a business like a newspaper, reputation is everything. Bad press on their own site could be disasterous. It’s not like they’re silencing them- the web is big, and mostly open.