Fred Hiatt is an idiot - Boycott WaPo

I'm somewhere between outraged and flabbergasted. The man, Dan Froomkin, who gets the quote of the day with this post at Nieman Watch:

But here’s the good news for you newsroom managers wringing your hands over new technologies and the loss of younger audiences: Because the Internet so values calling bullshit, you are sitting on an as-yet largely untapped gold mine. I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter - whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way.

Got fired today from the WaPo. His column is practically the only reason I haven't boycotted WaPo entirely for publishing Hiatt's lame editorials, along with the KKK of the wingnut right, Kristol, Kagan and Krauthammer. And there are plenty more dissembling neo-cons to add to that list.

Here's Froomkin's statement on the firing.

I’m terribly disappointed. I was told that it had been determined that my White House Watch blog wasn’t "working" anymore. But from what I could tell, it was still working very well. I also thought White House Watch was a great fit with The Washington Post brand, and what its readers reasonably expect from the Post online.

As I’ve written elsewhere, I think that the future success of our business depends on journalists enthusiastically pursuing accountability and calling it like they see it. That’s what I tried to do every day. Now I guess I'll have to try to do it someplace else.

With apologies to Greg Sargent and Ezra Klein who recently joined the WaPo enterprise, this is too egregious to let pass. I'm boycotting. The WaPo will not get another link from me. I'll still read Greg and Ezra, and the occasional Dionne column but I'm not going to click on their other insipid columnists and they will be my last choice for any news coverage. I urge everyone to do the same. A major drop in traffic is the only way to send a message.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]