I've got a few thoughts about Ben Domenech, the 24-year old conservative blogger who "resigned" (translation: he quit before he was fired) from the WashingtonPost.com yesterday, after being outed by liberal bloggers like Atrios and Daily Kos as a plagiarist. Thought #1: Why was Domenech hired in the first place? The Post doesn't have a liberal blogger on its staff, yet it feels the need to hire a conservative one? Why? Or, to put it in internet lingo, WTF?!?
Thought #2: Why is WashingtonPost.com executive editor Jim Brady not "resigning" as well? I mean, this guy edits the ONLINE version of the Post, yet - as DHinMi points out at Daily Kos, Brady demonstrates utter "ignorance about online communications, blogging and journalistic ethics." Among other problems, Brady apparently couldn't manage to conduct a simple Google search before hiring this prolific blogger, co-founder of the right-wing site RedState.com. As DHinMI correctly - and harshly - notes:
If you need to assign others to do a background check on potential hires, and all of you find that using Google is too difficult or simply beyond your intellectual or industrial capacities, you really should resign. One of the most basic tasks anyone performs online is a Google search. If you and the people you hire to do background searches are so lacking in the scrupulous care with sources one would expect from a journalist that you can't even Google some texts from potential hires, you don't belong in journalism.
Ouch. The truth hurts.
Thought #3: Why does Jim Brady say that, after the Domenech fiasco, "We're certainly likely to look for someone with a more traditional journalism background" when the Post looks for another conservative blogger? Does Brady think that because he screwed up - big time at that! - he can shift blame to the blogosphere? So, Brady thinks that "someone with a more traditional jouralism background" is less likely to plagiarize than a blogger? Uh, hello Jim? Ever hear of Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Mike Barnicle, Marcia Stepanek, or Jonathan Broder? Or did those people escape your Googling skills as well? Hint: Google the phrase "disgraced journalists" in Google.com and see what comes up.
Thought #4: I wonder what the Post's Ombudsman, Deborah Howell, will have to say about all this tomorrow? Hopefully, she won't completely botch this story as she did with her January 15, 2006 column on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the supposed "number of Democrats" to whom he gave money. As Howell later pointed out, amidst a firestorm of criticism from - you guessed it, bloggers - Abramoff only gave to Republicans. D'oh!
Thought #5: We in the Virginia blogosphere, Raising Kaine included, really missed the boat on this story, and that's too bad. Here we had a major story right in our own backyards - the Washington Post serves Northern Virginia, and Ben Domenech hails from Loudoun County, Virginia - and yet, as far as I can tell, nobody even wrote about the story, let alone took the lead as Atrios and Daily Kos did. That's a shame. Perhaps we were all distracted by the amazing NCAA tournament success of the George Mason University men's basketball team? (by the way, congratulations to the Patriots!) But still, c'mon...we've got to step it up a notch in the media criticism department, especially of major Virginia newspapers.