Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

The WaPo's ombudspoop tries unknotting several pretzels:

Photo errors can be worse than word errors because they stand out so much. The Post had two bad photo errors last week -- one a real howler. In Monday's Reliable Source, Amy Argetsinger wrote an account of the annual National Italian American Foundation gala. Post photographer Richard A. Lipski took the gala photos, as he had in 2006.

One of the photos in the layout was of actors Mel Brooks and Alan Alda and of Jack Valenti, former chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America. Valenti died April 26, 2007. Several readers, including ABC-TV newsman Sam Donaldson, asked how such a mistake could happen since Valenti was so well known inside the Beltway.

Here's how: A layout editor looking for the pictures in The Post's photo database picked three pictures and didn't notice that one was two years old. A copy editor wrote the caption, also failing to notice the date, and a copy desk supervisor failed to check the information on the printout of the photo. A proofreader failed to question whether Valenti was alive. One supervisor, upon seeing the page later, expressed surprise that Valenti was alive, but assumed the photo proved his suspicion wrong.

Argetsinger said: "I'm absolutely sick about this. Obviously it was a terrible, terrible mistake -- one that jumped out at me the moment I saw the paper." Besides the fact that Valenti is dead, there was another clue -- Alda and Brooks were not mentioned in the story either.

That's bad enough; it brings DR. EVIL back from the dead. But then it gets worse:

A story about a close election in Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District, in which state Rep. Eric Paulsen (R) is a candidate, included a photo meant to be of Paulsen. It actually showed Alabama state Rep. Jay Love (R). The Post used a Getty Images photo with an incorrect caption. The only way to have caught the error would have been to check the picture against a photo of Paulsen in a legislative directory; such a mistake is so rare that no one thought to do so.

That was bad enough, but the photo of the Democratic candidate, Ashwin Madia, was about 10 times bigger than the picture of the Republican. Since the story focused on Madia as an unknown in a heavily Republican district, it made sense that he have a somewhat bigger picture. But it looked lopsided.

The correction included a photo of Paulsen -- so small it's called a thumbnail. Such disparity feeds criticism that The Post is biased toward Democrats.

[END OF ARTICLE]

Well, let's put it this way, ombudspoop: WPO hit another new twelve-year low yesterday (it came back, unfortunately). Have you ever thought of shorting the stock?

P. S. And because over HALF of WaPoCo's revenues now come from TEACHING THE SATs and the like this means for all practical purposes its media operations are worth close to ZERO -- an outcome richly deserved.

By the way, we will no longer refer to WaPoCo; we will refer to KAPLANCORP -- and we are sorely tempted to call its diminishing "flagship" THE DAILY KAPLAN.