![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/ombudd.jpg\")
The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday
\n after the newspaper’s ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing
\n that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to
\n Republicans.<\/p>\n
At the center of a congressional bribery investigation, Abramoff gave money
\n to Republicans while he had his clients donate to both parties, though
\n mostly to Republicans.<\/p>\n
In her Sunday column, ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff "had
\n made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties," prompting
\n a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog.<\/p>\n
There were so many personal attacks that the newspaper’s staff could
\n not "keep the board clean, there was some pretty filthy stuff," and
\n so the Post shut down comments on the blog, or Web log, said Jim Brady,
\n executive editor of washingtonpost.com.<\/p>\n
"We’re not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue
\n with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more
\n carefully about how we do it," Brady wrote on the newspaper’s Web
\n site. "There are things that we said we would not allow, including
\n personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech.<\/p>\n
from AP<\/a><\/p>\n What’s the point here? That print media should stick to print? That Certainly, saying that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign Are we working on these problems? Don’t forget, 90% of cognition The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper’s ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans. At the center of a … Continue reading
\n the real people behind the marketing of major media news cannot expose
\n themselves, evan a little bit, without facing the full wrath of the insultocracy
\n of the blogosphere? That the pathological viciousness of flamers inevitably
\n exceeds community standards
\n of decency, whatever the community?
\n That we
\n need
\n an intelligent
\n software
\n solution to
\n block "personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech"?<\/em><\/p>\n
\n contributions to both major parties," can be parsed in various ways,
\n but however one interprets it it hardly seems to merit such vituperative
\n invective. This kind of petty demeaning of public discourse is the second
\n most disturbing disorder affecting blogging, after comment spam. <\/em><\/p>\n
\n is filtering….<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"