Thin paper, thin skin?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After 43 years, the Washington Post has eliminated the position of ombudsman, but getting to the bottom of why the struggling daily dropped the readers' champion slot requires the services of, er, an ombudsman.

According to an item by The Wrap.com, WaPo Publisher Katherine Weymouth said the paper will replace the position with that of a reader's representative. Unlike the ombudsman, however, the reader's rep will be a WaPo employee and will not write a weekly column about issues of interest to the readership.

Patrick Pexton, whose WaPo ombudsman contract just expired, described the change as a cost-savings measure, which the paper's management has not done.  The Wrap quotes a spokesperson for the Organization of News Ombudsmen (O No?!) who noted that nationwide, 20 members of his group are working as ombudsmen, reader's editors or reader's representatives.

Subscribers can share their concerns at readers@washpost.com beginning this week.

Post Plagiarist Punished

Image via WikipediaNo rest for the weary. No sooner had the dedicated staff of "TUOL" landed in the nation's capital for some
R & R from the rough-and-tumble world of media law and journalism ethics than it was confronted by three-time Pulitzer Prize winning, 27-year Washington Post veteran reporter Sari Horwitz's admitted plagiarism of two articles from The Arizona Republic.

Horwitz, a Tucson native, in reporting on proceedings against Jared Lee Loughner, accused shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, borrowed two paragraphs from a March 4 Republic story about charges facing Loughner, and 10 paragraphs of a 15-paragraph Republic story on March 10, without crediting the Arizona daily, according to a story in The Washington Post.

Horwitz owned up to appropriating the work of the Republic reporter, blaming tight deadline pressure for her transgression.  The paper suspended her without pay for three months. Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton weighed in on the subject, noting that plagiarism in his eyes was "theft."

Pexton cited a call he received from a local schoolteacher about the matter. "Teaching her students about plagiarism," Pexton wrote, "...has become her hardest task of the year because they are so accustomed to lifting information off the Internet with no attribution. She often uses The Post as a model for how to do it right. Her job just got harder."

Plagiarism is a cardinal sin in the profession that tarnishes the reputation of all journalists who already are losing ground in the credibility battle with a skeptical public. It has to be a firing offense, even when the wrongdoer is a Pulitzer Prize winner, and the Post has not covered itself in glory with a mealy-mouth rationale for its three-month suspension that Horwitz's cheating was an aberration in a stellar career.