This ran in The Post on Oct. 22, 2005: Dom Perignon? "Postprandial liqueurs"? Beef Wellington and martinis? Please.
As much as I disagree with the predatory DUI practices of D.C. police
officers, Sally Quinn's essay was absurd and out of touch.
Who parties this way? Certainly not the majority of Post readers, who
have much more to worry about than the elitist nostalgia of a reporter
who used to party in Georgetown with a bunch of political yuppies.
Owings This ran in The Post on March 3, 2007 Holes in the Oscar Coverage I
like Tom Shales. But his Feb. 26 column's assertion that the
performance by Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and Jack Black at the
Oscars was "lame" and not funny was simply off the mark.
I watched all four hours of that show in my living room with six
friends, and we couldn't stop laughing when those guys were singing.
People were still chuckling about it at work the next morning. Shales
was right that much of the four-hour show was long and mediocre, but he
should have given credit where it was due. Beaufort, S.C.
This ran in The Miami Herald on July 9, 2008: ProPublica fulfills its mission In his July 7 Other Views column, Is nonprofit newsroom's shaky start an omen?,Edward
Wasserman was right to acknowledge the paucity of regional
investigative journalism at mid-size newspapers and publications. Too
little great journalism is created in areas outside of the county's top
metropolitan centers: Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. However,
as an education reporter, I think that he is wrong to question
ProPublica, with which I have no affiliation -- for the reasons he did.
He criticized the foundation's website for merely ''aggregating''
investigative journalism from other sites. From the start, I don't
believe anyone expected ProPublica to produce enough investigative
content to fill its own website on a daily basis. At the least, as
Wasserman said, the site is an indispensable collection of each day's
sharpest reporting. He questioned ProPublica's partnership with 60 Minutes
on its Al-Hurra investigation. From day one, ProPublica editors have
said they plan to offer their journalism to major media organizations
regardless of size or budget. The piece got more exposure than it ever
would on ProPublica's site alone, exposure that likely influenced
Wasserman's decision to write a column about it. Then
he inadvertently blamed ProPublica for The Washington Post's decision
to duplicate that reporting. Historically, The Post has ''answered''
good, investigative journalism with its own reporting. To
say ProPublica is less valuable when major media organizations
duplicate its work is to miss the point. ProPublica is a nonprofit
organization, and Wasserman's criticisms feel vaguely like those of a
financial analyst, wondering if the business plan is enough to turn a
profit. ProPublica is a philanthropic endeavor and, at the end of the
day, supplementary to the work of major media organizations. So far, I
think it's fulfilling that obligation quite well.
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SECTION: A; Pg. 18