alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

June 20, 2009

Froomkin, Hiatt, Et Al

by AltHippo @ 5:02 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

Last Thursday the question of what happened at the Washington Post regarding Dan Froomkin came up. I had heard rumors to the effect that Froomkin and Krauthammer had a falling out over the issue of torture. As I recall Krauthammer called Froomkin “stupid” at which point Froomkin called Krauthammer a “Poopie head” and gave him a wedgie. Not really.

So, via Jane Hamsher comes this Jeffrey Goldberg Atlantic piece of some interest.

Jeffrey Goldberg asks Fred Hiatt about what happened, vis a vis an Andrew Sullivan blog post.

Hiatt replies:

“It is so incoherent, it’s hard to know how to comment. But I will try. He says I was acting on neocon orders when we published a piece suggesting that Ahmadinejad may have actually had popular support. But elsewhere I am being attacked for publishing ostensibly neocon pieces criticizing Obama for not supporting Ahmadenejad’s opposition. It’s hard to see how both could be true.

I had forgotten until today that Dan (Froomkin) had gone after Charles (Krauthammer), which Sullivan says ‘almost certainly’ would have ‘enraged’ me. If Andrew wants to know whether it enraged me, why does he not call and ask? That’s called reporting, and I would be happy to tell him. In fact nothing pleases me more than when our columnists engage with each other, in print or on Post Partisan, as any of them could tell you. It’s good for traffic, and it makes for lively debate.

The disappointingly dull truth is that the decision not to renew Dan’s contract–which was not made by me, but which I supported–was based on viewership data, budget constraints and judgments about how well the column was or was not adapting to a new era.”

Jane points out that the Washington Post never advertised Froomkin’s articles the same way they publicize Krauthammer, or George Will, or Gerson. Quite true. I’ve noticed that as well. I’ve also noticed that Froomkin never hung around the water cooler frequented by regular denizens of the Post, such as Dan Milbank or Chris Cillizza. I’m sometimes critical of Milbank, and I don’t mean to be here. He’s a media celebrity in the same way that other writers at the Post have become over the years. Froomkin isn’t. Maybe he’d like to be. I don’t know, I’ve never asked him.

I question Hiatt’s assertion that he likes it when writers at the Post mix it up. This is a crowd that, how shall I put it, puts an emphasis on the notion that their ideas have a greater validity than those of their peers. Ultimately feelings get hurt, and that means some of these auteurs of the public logos come complaining to Hiatt. I’m sure Hiatt would prefer to be off doing whatever those of a certain class do. I’d like to think he’s online playing Quake Live. I like to think a lot of things.

If you look closely, by the way, Hiatt never says that the conflict between Froomkin and Krauthammer upset him. He responds to the general case of writers at the Post mixing it up.

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