Joe Conason (Salon): A portrait of the blogger as a young plagiarist

Does the Washington Post intend to maintain journalistic standards in the brave new blogosphere? Or are those standards incompatible with the Post company's ambitions for WashingtonPost.com?

Those questions arise from the Post's hiring of Ben Domenech -- best known as a founder of RedState.com, but also known as a Bush appointee, and the son of a Bush appointee, and as a contributor to National Review Online -- to write a daily blog on the newspaper's Web site. That decision by Post management has provoked much speculation about its motive for employing Domenech. Many observers surmise that Domenech was brought on to "balance" Dan Froomkin, the popular White House Briefing blogger on WashingtonPost.com whose skepticism and wit have provoked whining from the right -- and defensive reactions from certain Post reporters worried by accusations of "liberal bias" at the paper.

Media watchers will remember that the Post's internal thrashing over Froomkin's column led to the Web site's last major public stumble, when it removed blog comments from a post by the paper's ombudswoman, Deborah Howell (after an imbroglio that began over Froomkin's column and continued over Howell's imprecise post about allegedly bipartisan political contributions by GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.) In their eagerness to appease critics on the right, the Post editors have blundered again. Whatever Froomkin's political views may be, he is a veteran reporter with a long résumé of newspaper jobs, including a decade at the Post. Domenech is a partisan operative with no newsroom experience of any kind, no training in journalistic standards and ethics, and nothing to guide him except home schooling and Republican reflexes.

Almost immediately the liberal blogosphere exploded with outrage over Domenech's hiring by the Post. But by Thursday bloggers had more than ideological reasons to oppose the Post's move, as Atrios, Daily Kos and other sites uncovered brazen examples of plagiarism by Domenech when he was writing for a student weekly at the College of William and Mary. Ironically, the young right-winger was apparently fond of Salon's arts criticism, at least, because he plagiarized film critic Stephanie Zacharek, and Mary Elizabeth Williams, writing about television.

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/03/24/domenech_blog/index.html?source=salon.rss

Tony Perkins group or some other right wing thinktanks or abrammoff-type lobby firms pick up widdle Benny after the Post ditches him?

Maybe Faux news has an opening for one of their vaunted "journalist" positions?

the New York Slimes.

worrying about having a 'consevative bias'? Thing is it isn't so much the bias as it is that they feel that they have to give propaganda and lies credibility. Truth has no equal and that's all we need, no bias is necessary.

Perhaps we should refer to them as the washedup post. I have unsubscribed from their news letters for all the good it will do.

Good. Jonah Goldberg's at the LAT, Sullivan is at Time- the wingnuttiest are being assimilated into traditional media while blogs on the left find no recourse but to rage at the injustice. -and then they're insulted and marginalized for THAT!

The sharks circled poor Ben Dumbass for less than a day before they went in for the kill.

And Good God, all that remains of him is a red blood smear in the water and a few hairs.



Just when will the WaPo and NYT editors, and owners perhaps, realize that fellating Karl Rove isn't worth it?