What is the value of a newspaper’s blog?

The Arkin affair will diminish the ability of newspaper readers to know what biases affect mainstream reporting. It won’t stop the biases, just lead to they being more hidden.

A newspaper sponsors a blog for its print reporters and for others in order to extend its franchise (and maybe provide a transition to a paperless newspaper), to provide additional information and comment that doesn’t fit the space or relevance of the print version, and now we know not to let readers know how (at least for the Washington Post, and probably others) newspaper staff really think.

I’m conflicted. I’d really like to know more about what a newspaper’s reporters really think, and their biases. I don’t want to know in order to go ballistic on this or that matter, though I may.

I’d really rather be concentrating on understanding the news. In order to do so, I want -- need -- to know in order to better appraise what filters and foci are being applied to the background and larger environment of what they do select to report or emphasize.

That would certainly be easier than digging through many other sources, particularly in the alternative media and blogs, in order to get the crucial information the major media leaves out, and in order to get a better fix on which major media reporting is reliable.

Of course, it may be uncomfortable for a newspaper to be hammered for comments deemed egregious by many readers, and such prejudices should be kept out of reporting – indeed far more than at present. But, rather than cloaking the opinions of reporters, major media should encourage them to be more forthcoming in separate opinion sections and particularly at their blogs.

The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, reflects of the William Arkin affair in “A Blog’s Blast Damage.” Ms. Howell notes of Arkin calling our professional military “mercenary”:

Readers usually take things literally. And an editor should have told him to take out the word. That's what editors are for: They keep opinion writers from making fools of themselves.

Then, Ms. Howell reports what, instead, did and didn’t happen:

An editor read his column before it was posted but didn't see the problem. Jim Brady, washingtonpost.com's executive editor, said that had he seen it, he would have asked for changes. Arkin said he would have made them.

Why? Ms. Howell doesn't address the editor's bias that would lead him or her to see nothing wrong with calling our servicepeople mercenaries. She just sees a failure to be more tactful or better cloaked in being biased:

What's the difference between opinion writing for the newspaper and for washingtonpost.com? The writing can be similar, but the editing is more intense at the newspaper. More experienced eyes see a story or a column before it goes into the paper; The Post has several levels of rigorous editing. There is "less of an editing process" for blogs at the more immediacy-oriented Web site, Brady said.

Ms. Howell doesn’t dodge the issue of standards:

Arkin's column did not meet Post standards, but then, newspaper editing isn't perfect, either. But "mercenary" surely is live ammo; such an incendiary word should have popped out in flames to Post editors.

And it is good editing that should prevail when a report carries The Post's banner.

Newspapers’ bloggers and newspaper blog editors will become more circumspect as a result of the Arkin affair. We will have a smaller window into the actual thinking and filters that influence newspapers’ product. There are many more Arkins and editors who fail to meet standards. We deserve to have more of them expose themselves.