Babysitting

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing has come under fire recently by other Washington Post reporters for its content and title. Their contention is that the title leads readers to believe they are reading a White House beat reporter's column when it is clearly opinion, but the truth is that they are apparently upset that Froomkin sometimes says snide things about the administration and the way they treat the press. I don't know if this is some sort of right wing push back or if the other reporters are pissed off by the fact that he is pointing out that they are not doing their jobs.

Post Editor Len Downie chimed in in the Editor & Publisher:

"We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column because it contains opinion," Downie told E&P. "And that readers of the Web site understand that, too."

Okay, so the Post is worried about whether or not the Bush administration understands the column is opinion because Downie concedes that the readership at large understands that it is opinion. By the way, I read it all the time and it clearly is opinion.

Solution: The Bush administration is a fairly small group of people, perhaps the Post could hire a babysitter to walk them through the daily column. I'm thinking maybe a first grade English teacher.