@johnhamer and I frequently talk about the decline of Ombudsmen in the news business. Andrew Alexander, Ombudsman for the Washington Post recently called it quits after two years, and puts some insightful commentary on the state of the industry in his farewell post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2009/02/25/LI2009022502075.html

I’ve written before that The Post on its worst days is better than most newspapers on their best days. In print and online, it retains immense influence through journalism that can frame public discourse. And it still produces stunningly ambitious work, such as last year’s ”Top Secret America” project on the huge national security buildup and the ”Hidden Life of Guns” series tracking firearms used in crimes. Priced lower than most competitors, the newspaper is a bargain.

But it has become riddled with typos, grammatical mistakes and intolerable ”small” factual errors that erode credibility. Local news coverage, once robust, has withered. The Post often trails the competition on stories. The excessive use of anonymous sources has expanded into blogs. The once-broken system for publishing corrections has been repaired, but corrections often still take too long to appear. The list goes on.”

Great read on the future of public media! (via @Johnhamer) I had the opportunity to meet Jessica Clark way back in 2008 during the Beyond Broadcast conference at American University. Sharp folks there.