Tweetgeist: WaPo upgrades Rahm; HuffPo outsources site; bloggers pass as reporters

Emanuel vs. Obama: Post's shadow play

An inside-the-Beltway kabuki spilled into public view last week at the Washington Post. First there was a column by Dana Milbank blaming problems in President Obama's first year on the president's failure to do what his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, wanted.

Then the Post ran a lead story by Jason Horowitz, "Hotheaded Emanuel may be White House voice of reason," echoing Milbank's column.

Finally, David Broder's Thursday column declares the obvious:

It sounded, for all the world, like the kind of orchestrated leaks that often precede a forced resignation in Washington. Except that the chief of staff doesn't usually force the president out.... But, as one White House staffer said to me, "Rahm likes to win," and when the losses began to pile up, he probably vented his frustrations to some of his old pals in Congress. It's clear that some of them are talking to the press.

Jay Rosen commented on Horowitz's piece:

@jayrosen_nyu This appears to be about Rahm; but it's really about the worldview of the savvy. And one of the best texts I have found. http://jr.ly/xsad

To which Blake Hounshell responded:

@blakehounshell @jayrosen_nyu Your church of the savvy shtick is really just a plea to make journalists toe a more liberal line.

New York bloggers win some press passes

Gothamist covers New York City's proposed new rules for distributing press passes, which "for the first time, expressly incorporate online-only media such as blogs."

In MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Wendy Davis reports:

Longtime civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel, who represented the journalists who sued, says the city will now decide who a journalist is by looking at the type of work they do, and not the organization they write for.

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press director Lucy Dalglish comments, "What they're looking for tends to be some evidence of experience," and adds, "Certainly you can't give credentials to everybody with a computer."

That may be true as a practical matter, but it doesn't exactly come off as a rigorous, consistent or defensible standard.

ChicagoNow bloggers rebel, Atlantic bloggers relax

Chicago Carless's Mike Doyle complains about the Chicago Tribune's sluggishness at responding to changes requested by bloggers at its Chicago Now site: "You can’t run a 21st-century blog network at the speed of a 19th-century newspaper." The broadside sparked a discussion with hundreds of comments at Windy Citizen.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic reverses course on its de-blogification and restores the blog-style interfaces for many of its popular online contributors. Columbia Journalism Review has an in-depth report.

Twitter sucks, part 65,438

Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam knocks Twitter as

...the inane "news" feed favored by slackers too lazy to read any message that doesn’t fit on the back of their hand... Twitter is part of the Big Noise, the impressive arsenal of mass distraction that reduces citizens to "followers" of pre-packaged political, commercial, and "spiritual" messages.

To which Boston-based press critic Dan Kennedy tweets:

@dankennedy_nu An old story: Columnist doesn't know how to use Twitter, so he mocks those who do. http://b.globe.com/a2YyEm

Times' governor takedowns: praiseworthy?

In the wake of the New York Times' scoop revealing New York governor David Paterson's intervention in an aide's domestic-assault case, the Times' Brian Stelter retweets a comment by op-ed columnist Nick Kristof :

@brianstelter RT @nickkristof: NYT's work on Spitzer, Paterson underscore why newspapers are crucial part of checks, balances for state & local govts.

Michael Wolff dissented:

@michaelwolffnyc Knee-jerk no? NYT's work on Spitz GOT us Pat.

@michaelwolffnyc Not to say, self-congradulatory

Huffington Post blurs some more lines

Nieman Lab's Laura McGann outlines the complex relationship between Huffington Post and its partner Causecast. Late last year Huffington launched a section called Impact. The goal, writes McGann, is to "turn an audience of passive readers into activists for good causes":

The section’s underlying business model is novel, too: All of its content is outsourced to an outside company, a for-profit firm that has nonprofits for clients.

In exchange for that content, HuffPo shares the advertising and sponsorship revenue the section generates with the outside company, Causecast. And Causecast gets a platform to promote its services and the nonprofits it chooses to highlight, some of which are its partner organizations.

Whether you view Impact as an example of business innovation or ethical line-blurring, the issue doesn't seem to have hurt Huffington Post's growth: Peter Kafka of AllThingsD reports on the site's announcement that it passed the 40 million unique visitor mark last month.

Buffett to press: Your soundbites cost us

Jeff Jarvis highlights Warren Buffett's complaint in his annual letter to shareholders about being misrepresented by out-of-context selective quotation:

Last year we saw, in one instance, how sound-bite reporting can go wrong. Among the 12,830 words in the annual letter was this sentence: “We are certain, for example, that the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 – and probably well beyond – but that conclusion does not tell us whether the market will rise or fall.” Many news organizations reported – indeed, blared – the first part of the sentence while making no mention whatsoever of its ending. I regard this as terrible journalism: Misinformed readers or viewers may well have thought that Charlie and I were forecasting bad things for the stock market, though we had not only in that sentence, but also elsewhere, made it clear we weren’t predicting the market at all. Any investors who were misled by the sensationalists paid a big price: The Dow closed the day of the letter at 7,063 and finished the year at 10,428.

Given a few experiences we’ve had like that, you can understand why I prefer that our communications with you remain as direct and unabridged as possible.

Links and tweets to make you think

• Jay Rosen lists "Eight key terms for determining legitimacy in journalism"

• MediaShift's Julie Posetti on The #Spill Effect: Twitter Hashtag Upends Australian Political Journalism

• @carr2n RT @romenesko "I didn't kill newspapers, darling," says Arianna Huffington. http://is.gd/9wymH Nah, just snacking on carcass.

• @nickbilton The Web is shifting from a paradigm of *publishing* to a model of *communication* - @tedroden speaking to my NYU class.

• @jayrosen_nyu Notice, @mikeorren: web editors lower print standards by not fact-checking but do print editors lower web standards by re-purposing content?

Links and tweets for laughs

• The Onion: Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology

• @benjilanyado NB... Michael Foot was the subject of of the greatest headlines of all time: 'Foot Heads Arms Body'

• @howardkurtz Best New York Times photo caption blunder OF ALL TIME. Check it out. http://tinyurl.com/yjeekbe