There’s been some kerfluffle lately over Dan Froomkin’s “White House Briefing” column at washingtonpost.com. It seems the paper’s ombudsman thinks the column is too liberal, and the political editor doesn’t like the title. A few sites in the liberal blog sphere have reacted in exasperation over the issue. A large undercurrent seems to be along the lines of “You guys have reporters who are hip deep in this whole Plame affair continuing to write and comment about the case without a whiff of disclosure, and this is the thing you’re going to harp on?” I admit I can see the point, but then I’m probably ideologically sympathetic to what Froomkin’s doing.
In the larger view, I think the idea of a column that uses a less formal voice to try and hold politicans accountable is a good thing. And when ever there’s a Democratic president, we’ll get to see if Froomkin’s as bipartisan as he claims he wants to be. But as to the very specific complaint about the title, I think Froomkin’s critics may ahve a point. The first fiew times I clicked links to it, I did think the column might be a report from someone who attends White House press conferences or reports on the beat. ‘White House Briefing” jsut has that generic tone that you’d expect to see on a “straight” news piece. If it were something more colorful, like “White House Watchdog” or something, I think it might give a more accurate impression. (I noticed that the title graphic for the column now has “Dan Froomkin, Columnist” written up there.)
The whole title thing can’t help but remind me of the source of this site’s title. Back in college, one of my major ambitions was to write a Dave Barry-esque humor column. When I became features editor of the paper, I got to do just that. Well, at some point, one of the executive editors told me I had to give my column a title, because the faculty advisor was concerned that people would mistake my sarcastic recollections of dorm life for actual news. I admit, I found this absurd. I was writing about non-serious topics, in the features section, on the same page as our comic strips, with a byline box with my picture. If you see a guy’s photo in a big byline box next to his story, that’s like universal newspaper code for “This is a column, not an objective news story. See this guy here? It’s his opinion or perspective.” My objections were in vain. A title was demanded. So I slapped down black bars above and below the byline box, and in white Serpentine text I wrote “WARNING: This Is Not News.”
Snarky and immature? Probably. But that’s probably why it fit the column so well. And I grew to like it so much, I decided to use the name again when I started this site. Hopefully, if Froomkin changes his title, he’ll find one that suits him just as well.