Deborah Howell, Washington Post Ombudsman
ombudsman@washpost.com
Dear Ms. Howell,
In yesterday’s Washington Post, you bemoaned the excess of white male opinion writers and columnists and the paucity of blacks and females.
You wrote that the Washington area is “a remarkably diverse region, and that should be better reflected in columnist jobs†and proceeded to list the paper’s columnists according to section, sex, and race. Especially notable was the number of white men in the opinion pages. Out of 20 op-ed writers, 17 are men, three are women, one man was born in India, and two men are black.
With all due respect, the title of your column is somewhat misleading. “Diversity of Opinion†is what the paper should be concerned about, but its chief concern seems to be diversity of skin hues, not of opinion.
This is where I come in.
You wrote:
So how could The Post increase diversity as the staff and space for stories got smaller? It wouldn’t be easy, but here are some thoughts. On the op-ed pages, don’t run all the columnists all the time. Create some space for new voices. In Close to Home, make a point of seeking out more women and minorities. Outlook can also bring in more such voices.
More women and minorities… that’s noble but very predictable. Might I add a third category? Why not add more conservative writers to the roster? If you want diversity of opinion, as your column title indicates, it will require the paper to publish pieces written from a non-liberal worldview, one that differs from the view of the current editorial board and stable of writers.
And the Post can begin with my voice. First, I’m black. BAM! Second, I’m a woman. BOOM! Best of all, I’m a conservative. ZING! By hiring me as an op-ed writer, the good liberal folks at the Post would kill three diversity birds with one proverbial stone. How cool is that?
Ms. Howell, the Washington Post needs diversity of thought, ideology and worldview, not just of race or sex. Skin deep-only differences aren’t very interesting to anyone but liberals. The real test of tolerance is how well you tolerate differences of viewpoint.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I care more about reading articles written by someone whose opinions and values — not race or sex — are similar to my own.
But that’s just me.
I look forward to your reply and hope your week is enjoyable.
Yours most sincerely,
La Shawn Barber
Update: Commenter Mike writes:
When I first saw the Post article, I immediately thought of you as a candidate. Not only do you fit their categories, you also live right there in D.C. making you local AND “urbanâ€! How could they possibly turn you down?
Oh, that’s right, you’re a pariah – a black conservative.
By the way, I sent Deborah Howell a link to this “tongue-in-cheek” post and a short note asking her to pass along my name, and she replied, “Sure, I’ll pass along to the op-ed editor.”
In a million years the Washington Post wouldn’t hire me. 
Read about the infamous Washington Post Telephone Rejection.
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To Whom It May Concern:
Thank you for your letter. We appreciate the time and effort you put forth in expressing your views.
The Washington Post has a long and proud history of speaking for women and minorities, such as yourself. We feel confident that we can continue to decide what is best for you and people like you without resorting to any suggestions from you.
We all enjoyed discussing the concept of a black conservative. Thanks for bringing a little fun into our day.
Please accept the enclosed coupon for one week of free home delivery of the Washington Post.
Cumbaya, just as long as you don’t disagree with me.
Why is it they say they are so tolerant of everybody, yet when someone disagrees with them, they are some of the most intolerant sots on the planet???
#1 Heliotrope, Your post scores a perfect 10.
Well, that would be a step in the right direction (looking at diversity of opinion), but the WaPo has two Left feet and seems to have trouble taking such steps.
LaShawn – I can see it now, “LaShawn Barber’s Corner at the Post”.
Heliotrope – When are you going to get your own blog? You are not only funny, you are one of the best all-around writers on LaShawn’s blog.
Good luck getting hooked up with the liberal rag. Perhaps you could give them more balance.
Comment #1 is excellent! It is right on.
Excellent letter, LaShawn, and laugh-out-loud comment up top there!
They only want the diversity that conforms.
Now, now, LaShawn. When you take the Post to task for their outdated race/sex/class/money blather, you are distracting from their distraction from real issues. By fluttering mightily about “new, authentic” voices they make themselves feel virtuous while changing nothing.
Asking for real diversity of opinion is the same as saying that the emperor is naked. How dare you, you bad, bad blogger, you!
Let’s say they find a Sudanese refugee lesbian who works as a chemical engineer and lives with her Thai-Maori botanist partner and “their” autistic son, and give her column space. The self-administered back patting could be measured on the richter scale, but unless she wrote liberal twaddle cut to the Post’s cloth, she wouldn’t last a year.
Just refer back to what the Seattle Times did to Michelle Malkin, a woman with diversity points off the top of the scale and writing skills second to none. When she failed to toe the liberal line, she was cut off like a chattering game show contestant at commercial break. So much for alternative voices and female representation.
Let the dead tree media fluster itself to into an early grave over these non-issues. In the meantime, don’t even in jest offer to prostitute yourself to those dead men walking, LaShawn. Blog, Vcast, podcast, and promote new communications ideas like PajamasMedia. You reach people who matter.
The Post reaches people who desperately need to read their horoscopes and get the lottery numbers. People who need newspapers to line cat boxes.
Me, I have cinnamon rolls to make.
When I first saw the Post article, I immediately thought of you as a candidate. Not only do you fit their categories, you also live right there in D.C. making you local AND “urban”! How could they possibly turn you down?
Oh, that’s right, you’re a pariah – a black conservative.
(BTW, Michelle Malkin would fit the bill, too, but I won’t hold my breath.)
Never say never LaShawn!
Are you a Black Conservative? How do you have so many readers and commentors? You shouldn’t have told them that, apply as a white liberal and you’ll get hired in D.C., especially at the post, or maybe the NYT’s.
Keep writing the truth and someone in power will notice.
So far, this blog has been a total pleasure to read! Your views on race and politics are a sweet breath of fresh air. In this instance, I applaud you on writing an entire article on a woman named Mrs. Howell without even one single Gilligan’s Island reference. Personally, I couldn’t have resisted that temptation.
Well, I’d like to see you in the “news” more, but I don’t see them adding you to their stable for all of the reasons you (and others in the comments) have given.
Besides, if they did, you’d only have the haters accusing you of selling out or being a token. For selling out your current (in their eyes) token status.
It will be a great day when people were judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Maybe someone should put forth that notion.
I love your letter La Shawn! Keep up the good work. It’s amazing how blind the papers are to what people really want to read.
La Shawn:
Just how many people actually still read the Washington Post and don’t just use it as something for the dogs and cats to deposit on? Not many, I’ll bet. Still fewer take it seriously.
One day, I predict your blog will reach more people than the Post ever did. Heck – maybe it has already happened!
I wish Deborah and the rest of the WaPo’s would practice diversity by starting to type their opinion pieces using white letters on a white background.
Regards
Buck
#20 Mwalimu Daudi: Bingo!
My first year with the WaPo was 1965 and I stayed with them until 2001. I was so disgusted with how they managed the news of the Bush election that I dropped them like a case of herpes simplex #2. However, I did write one letter a day for two months to the managing editor with my observations about the slanted “news” of the day before I bugged out.
Last August, the WaPo sent me an offer to get 52 weeks of home delivery for less than $50 and I decided to take it. Heck, the puzzles alone are worth it! In fact, my wife was beating me about the head and shoulders with a wet noodle to get the travel section on Sunday.
Ergo: you are correct. In this household: most of the WaPo goes into the paper bin as soon as it arrives. Sundays are particularly painful. I leaf through the “outlook” section and the book supplement to see if I can abide to scan anything.
I wish the WaPo would move Doonesbury from the “style” section to the front page and save us all the trouble of looking for some form of temperate doxology.
I might note that the WaPo long ago abandoned the third world of downtown DC for the affluent suburbs of Virginia! But then again, their current digs are near the infamous “mixing bowl” on I-95 which undoubtedly permeates their view of the universe.
We do all wonder what the subscriber statistics would reflect if the NYT or WaPo were to ditch their slanted presentation and try a straight presentation of the facts. (But then, they would have to admit that their readers are mostly above the drooling stage.)
For some national newspapers, with largely self-written content, it’s all about the pedigree, i.e., a graduate degree from Columbia j-school or its equivalent. Very incestuous at the big-time broadsheets.
One can be a scribbler nonpareil, but if one’s sheepskin comes from, say, NW Manitoba, Canada, it’s keep-your-day-job.
Keep plugging, La Shawn
I’m a niggardly white male. Could I write for the Post?
Don,
If you stop being niggardly, just maybe but being niggardly will keep you or anyone [regardless of color] from doing well in any endeavor.
Now that I think about it … why would being stingy impede ANYONEs progress ?
LaShawn: Please do not quit your day job.
I am a mathematician. The likelihood of the Post giving you a slot is .000000000000000…1 (you get the idea).
You left out the most important disqualifying characteristic which you have. You are a Christian!
Now the Post is an official paper of the ACLU, and thus legally obliged to contain no Christianity.
Just thank God every day that the abridgement of speech has not yet extended to the banning of all blogs (see Iran for details)!
I think it continues to be a problem where certain thought elites feel that it’s okay to be a conservative and it’s certainly okay to be black. The problem is that you’re a black conservative and that just drives them nuts. And it is a latent form of racism.
You mean, conservatives in the WaPo?
*faints*
You asked what we thought of the Post article.
I found it interesting that they called a report that cited the ‘usual woes’ navel gazing.
Just to be up front: Jayson Blair is Old News.
He has been hired by a magazine that is dedicated to issues regarding bi polar illnesses. You don’t think that editor didn’t triple check everything he sent in? You betcha she did.
To gloss over Jayson and Jack Kelley is to ignore their own incestous amplification of the problem of integrity in the fourth estate. The journals are making a big mistake by talking down to their readership.
They got a rude awakening with Dan Rather and the power of the internet and bloggers who DO care.
In a nutshell, I think the piece was a slap in the face of their readers and you got it in one.
Way to go, lady.
La Shawn:
I don’t have anything against bipolar people – but they have no business being in the news business.
I had hoped that the Wa Po was entering a phase of sanity, because they were quite rational when it came to the Iraq war.
But their Leftist corruption became obvious this fall, when they declared war on Sen George Allen, and repeatedlly commented on the non story of “macaca”. Quite unprofessional.
we’re sorry, dear. while the idea of someone such as you, working for exalted people like us is too funny for words, (we all had quite the laugh over this the other day at cocktails. it was tres difficult to stifle the snickers, when the lackeys came round to serve us!), it must be stated that – sadly – such a thing would never work. we did have quite the chuckle at your cheek, though. thank you so much!
you’re just not….how to say this?….you’re just not *our kind of people*, dearie.
surely you understand.
Clearly, the media is an “insider” profession. Many professions are so we need to look at it in that perspective.
Even at my college rag, I was relegated to “Sports Editor” while the “Editor” couldn’t even spell. I won two national awards with a Sports staff of one but my point is, the Advisor, who is or used to be director of media relations for the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, decided the stories AND the positions.
I give HIM (Kirk Clayborn) credit for one award because I actually broke a huge story as Sports Editor that he pointed me too. Plus, we were all black.
Imagine someone with a bad agenda that wants to just misinform … That is the fight I see.
It amazes me how stupid these newspapers are. In a time of declining newspaper circulation, they piss away conservative readers.
They ought to hire you for business reasons. Conservative opinion is a scarce commodity in the print media. The NY POST has always been a “tabloid” paper. What has caused their increase in circulation, as the NY Times’ decreases? They publish the most conservative opinions of any major NYC paper, as well as a fair amount of liberal columns. The WaPo would be wise to try some true “diversity of opinion,” and hire you, Ms. Barber. The paper would benefit from you, but the management might not get invited to the A-list cocktail parties anymore. Tough luck for them, I say!
I haven’t been here lately, but you are still as great to read as ever! I have to link to, and excerpt you on my LEAVWORLD blog more often. I’ve been spending too much time on the Gather website, and not reading (or posting in) the REAL blogoshere enough. I hope this signals a return.
Great post, La Shawn! You’re an inspiration!
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