Is she a reporter, editorialist, or unfunny blogger?
We've long suggested that the Chronicle shutter its D.C. news bureau, and either rely on pooled Hearst coverage of Washington or go with wire copy. We've suggested as much because we can't really see why the local newspaper expends the resources required to maintain a bureau that rarely publishes news that isn't covered adequately by many other outlets, especially when those resources could be put to good use boosting the newspaper's local coverage or its woeful editing and headline writing.
The more we read Julie Mason's blog, the more we wonder what in the world the Chronicle is trying to accomplish with its D.C. bureau.
Mason is allegedly the newspaper's White House correspondent, which we think makes her not an opinion columnist, but a reporter. So we've long tried to understand why a reporter for a major newspaper is allowed to refer to the major newsmakers she covers on her blog with derogatory nicknames like "Bushie" (for the President of the United States) or Ciaoberto Gone-Zales (for the now-departed U.S. Attorney General). Whatever political opinion one may hold of those two men, surely most reasonable people don't think those nicknames are appropriate references by a White House beat reporter writing on her newspaper's website.
Some time ago, I emailed Chronicle reader rep James Campbell about Mason's editorializing, asking him if the Chronicle considered her a beat writer or opinion columnist (in light of her flippant and disrespectful blog references to the people she covers). Here is the response Campbell received from Alan Bernstein, then listed as National Editor for the Chronicle:
The Chronicle considers Julie Mason a beat reporter, whose reporting is usually online rather than in print as way of offering online readers a special resource and to allow her work to be read more widely. She does perform pool duty like any other White House reporter. Her column, like Clay Robison’s from Austin, appears on the news pages rather than the opinion page because she is chartered to offer insights and insider news from Washington, as opposed to, say, her personal opinion about who deserves to win the next election. Her weekly column is somewhat akin to the type of articles we run labeled “analysis.”
Her blog is a "special" resource, all right -- with the sort of fare we expect to find on Wonkette or Firedoglake, rather than the blog of a beat reporter who covers the White House professionally (if only for a second-tier newspaper). The Chronicle's Austin bureau runs a very good blog that supplements the bureau's news coverage, and Matt Stiles (with occasional co-bloggers) does the same for the City Hall beat -- without flippant and disrespectful references to the newsmakers they cover. It's not clear why their approach (with a cleaner break between reporting and editorializing) does not apply to Ms. Mason and her blog.
ANNE LINEHAN ADDS: We are often told that journalism is best handled by the professionals. If that's the case, where did Julie Mason's professionalism go? And why would we depend upon her for White House news and analysis, when we know from her blog that she's a liberal journalist harboring deep animosity toward the Bush Adminstration?
It colors everything she writes.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/03/07 05:53 PM | Print |
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