UPDATE (7:20 p.m.): “Everyone here is saddened about this,” Wemple told DCist via email this evening. “Jim is not only the ultimate web guy but the ultimate colleague. So that’s pretty much where we are right now. … Exactly how we’re going to do the work that Jim has done is something we’re going to have to sort out as time goes on. We’ll miss him.”
Washington City Paper Editor-in-Chief Erik Wemple Erik Wemple, editor-in-chief of the Washington City Paper, is leaving the alt-weekly for higher ground, City Desk reports. Wemple’s been tapped to lead a new, all-local online venture planned by Robert Allbritton, the brain behind the Capitol Hill upstart newspaper Politico and owner of local ABC affiliate WJLA and News Channel 8. Allbritton’s new project is estimated to have 50 staffers, some culled from WJLA and News Channel…
The Post has long pushed its online boundaries, putting more stock in their website than most of their competitors and launching blogs for pretty much everything. Now they’re taking the next step — they’re allowing comments on articles. Jim Brady, washingtonpost.com’s executive editor, made the announcement yesterday, writing: Over the next several weeks, we’ll begin allowing comments on articles from registered users of washingtonpost.com. To allow for us to get into the rhythm of moderating…
In a post just published at the post.blog, Jim Brady, WashingtonPost.com’s Executive Editor, announced that Ben Domenech, who on Tuesday launched a conservative blog on the site, has resigned his position. His resignation comes on the heels of multiple accusations of plagiarism. Since his debut earlier this week, both Domenech and the Post had come under fire for the content of the blog and the qualifications of its author. But as the week went on,…
As we reported last week, the Post has finally come around to the ugly reality that online comments are not all peaches and cream. And today the Post is inviting some notable bloggers to discuss how it can better handle comments on its increasing number of blogs and, by extension, explore the issue of online ethics and interactivity. The online chat starts at 1 p.m. and will feature Jeff Jarvis from Buzz Machine; Jane Hamsher…
Courtesy of our media-obsessed friends over at Fishbowl DC, today we find that the Post has been struggling with commenters on their official blog, so much so that yesterday they resorted to shutting down comments altogether. In a message posted yesterday afternoon, Jim Brady, Executive Editor of washingtonpost.com, wrote: Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp. But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use…
In an interesting move that could have repercussions for new media and other online newspapers, washingtonpost.com today switched to a dual homepage format. One homepage features more local and regionalized news, and the other has a national/international focus that won’t highlight the Post’s regional content (like the Entertainment Guide) as much. Which homepage you view is based on your registered zip code — if you provide a local zip code, you will get the local…