Oops-New York Times let Watergate slip

The New York Times had the first scoop on Watergate before the Washington post but let it slip.

That's according to an article in the paper this morning which says that

almost 37 years after the break-in, two former New York Times journalists have stepped forward to say that The Times had the scandal nearly in its grasp before The Post did

One of the journalists concerned says that two months after the break in during a lunch meeting

the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, L. Patrick Gray, disclosed explosive aspects of the case, including the culpability of the former attorney general, John Mitchell, and hinted at White House involvement.

but

In the days after that 1972 lunch, the Times bureau was consumed by the Republican convention,

They must feel like the man from Decca who turned down the Beatles

Top 10 US newspaper websites

The Biving's report has just produced its top 10 American newspaper sites

Newspapers selected were among the 100 largest in the U.S., and in addition to being judged by their abundance of web features, were graded on design and easy usability.

Top of the list was the New York Times which the report says

manages to combine classic style with managing a frequent onslaught of new web features,

closely followed by the Washington Post which whose home page it describes as crowded but buried beneath it

are some of the best efforts at direct user interactivity to be found among newspaper websites

Washington post sweeps the board

The Washington post must be pleased that it has managed to six Pulitzers compared to the New York Times's two

Editor and Publisher reports that

The Post's six-prize sweep is second only in history to The New York Times, which won seven Pulitzers in 2002, many for its Sept. 11 coverage.

You can read the winning stories here

Take 6 Tv's and a load of bloggers

Via Comment Central.

It is possible to know too much. It is possible to care too much. Hunger for information can become gluttony

Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post subjects himself to 24 whole hours locked away with just 6 televisions,2 radios and a rotating series of blogs.

Crazy? possibly

THE CRUDDIEST MOMENT OF THE CRAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE ON EARTH happened as I found myself watching five televisions simultaneously, each containing a different political pundit opining on the same subject. When I looked down toward my computer screen to see what the bloggers were saying about it, I noticed that a button on my shirt had come undone.

And did it work for him

I'll tell you it can be, but I cannot tell you how horrible it is. It rattles the very center of your being. If you care about the state of humankind, it fills you with despair. We are as a people bleak and hostile and suspicious, filled with senseless partisanship and willing to believe anything and everything about anyone. We are full of ourselves and we hate. And we do it 24-7.

War breaks out at Washington Post over Obama article

Via Editor and Publisher.


The Washington Post's story yesterday on its front page about Democratic candidate Barack Obama has ruffled a few feathers.

The article by Perry Bacon began

In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama's biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world.
Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama's stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.

and refers to the persistent rumours in the blogosphere that he is a Muslim plant.

Post cartoonist Tom Toles, has taken exception to the article and the cartoon that accompanied it.

The Toles cartoon shows a reader looking at an article in an unnamed paper with the headline: "Obama's eating of vegetables fuels rumors about him."
The text of the story reads: "Barack Obama doesn't hide his enjoyment of peas and beans, fueling Internet rumors that he's a jihadist vegetarian who will take the oath of office with his hand on a slab of damp tofu.
"He denies the rumors, but sure does eat a lof of vegetables, including tofu at times, and the real significance of the rumors is how they will hurt him if they get repeated enough.

Just in case

Every so often you get to see some inspired journalism.

I hope in this case that the article by David Ignatius in this morning's Washington Post has got his information totally wrong.David speculates about Al Qaeda plotting a nuclear strike.

A snippet

Most chilling of all was Zawahiri's decision in March 2003 to cancel a cyanide attack in the New York subway system. He told the plotters to stand down because "we have something better in mind." What did that mean? More than four years later, we still don't know.

US opinion on Patraeus

I have been reading the American Press over the weekend ahead of the report from Iraq from General Petraeus.The New York Times in particular has come out with some different opinions.

Its editorial yesterday claimed

"The military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is to deliver a report to Congress on Monday that could be the most consequential testimony by a wartime commander in more than a generation. What the country desperately needs is an honest assessment of the war and a clear strategy for extricating American forces from the hopeless spiral of violence in Iraq." It notes that the general has been overly-optimistic in the past.

This was backed up by Damien Cave and Stephen Farrell who claim that

Seven months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.

Micheal Gordon writing on Saturday said

The most comprehensive and up-to-date military statistics show that American forces have made some headway toward a crucial goal of protecting the Iraqi population. Data on car bombs, suicide attacks, civilian casualties and other measures of the bloodshed in Iraq indicate that violence has been on the decline, though the levels generally remain higher than in 2004 and 2005

.

There is also a very good video piece on NYTimes.com which goes on a video tour of Baghdad assessing the security situation in the country .

The Washington post this morning seems to think that the report of Ambassador Crocker may carry more weight.

With little progress to recount in how the Iraqis have used the political "breathing space" that Bush promised his war strategy would create, Crocker's inevitably more nuanced appeal for time and patience is likely to be the tougher sell.

Whilst its editorial yesterday asks for"Accepting Iraqi Reality
Both President Bush and Congress need to adjust to the mixed results of the 'surge.'

First and foremost, President Bush must accept the fact that what he defined as the principal objective of the military offensive, the stimulation of an Iraqi political settlement, has not been achieved.

A tenplate for online

Via Poynter,the Washington Post has produced 10 principles for its journalism on the web and tries to define the boundries between print and online.


1.The Washington Post is an online source of local, national and international news and information. We serve local, national and international audiences on the Web.

2.We will be prepared to publish Washington Post journalism online 24/7. Web users expect to see news as it happens. If they do not find it on our site they will go elsewhere.

3.We will publish most scoops and other exclusives when they are ready, which often will be online.

4.The originality and added value of Post journalism distinguishes us on the Web. We will emphasize enterprise, analysis, criticism and investigations in our online journalism.

5.Post journalism published online has the same value as journalism published in the newspaper.

6.We embrace chats, blogs and multimedia presentations as contributions to our journalism.
Accuracy, fairness and transparency are as important online as on the printed page. Post journalism in either medium should meet those standards.

7.We recognize and support the central role of opinion, personality and reader-generated content on the Web. But reporters and editors should not express personal opinions unless they would be allowed in the newspaper, such as in criticism or columns.

8.The newsroom will respond to the rhythms of the Web as ably and responsibly as we do to the rhythms of the printed newspaper. Our deadline schedules, newsroom structures and forms of journalism will evolve to meet the possibilities of the Web.

9.Newsroom employees will receive training appropriate to their roles in producing online journalism.

10.Publishing our journalism on the Web should make us more open to change what we publish in the printed newspaper. There is no meaningful division at The Post between “old media” and “new media.”