If You Can’t Stand the Heat . . .
I’m not exactly sure what the title ‘executive editor’ entails at the Washington Post, but Jim Brady is it. Jim lost his cool and shut down the reader comments feature on post.blog, a blog the paper says is ‘dedicated to sharing news by and about The Post and washingtonpost.com.’
Note to Jim: Panic is not dedication.
Admittedly, it’s an edgy world out there as various forms of media struggle to find their stride in the Internet environment. But Jim’s an AOL veteran, having left the Post for that supposedly Internet-savvy company, returning a couple years ago to the WP. AOL has had its own problems, but we can assume that being stunned into submission over a weekend by 700 e-mails was not one of them.
The flap (and a small one it is) was caused by a posting on an item about Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell's recent column about the Abramoff scandal: Getting the Story on Jack Abramoff. Her mention of the fact that Abramoff has spread his largesse among Democrats and Republicans ali…