The multiplex contexts of online news

Today’s ombudsman article by Andrew Alexander in the Washington Post “A Column Feeds Perceptions of Bias” discusses a recent article by style columnist Tom Shales called “Obama’s Enchanting Quizfest” which lavishes praise on Obama’s performance in his recent prime-time news conference marking his first 100 days.

You might notice I identified Tom as a “style columnist” since that is the section of the Washington Post in which his article appears, a fact that is incredibly easy to miss online where the context is more likely to be a link that says “look at this biased article in the Washington Post” rather than your own perusal of the style section. Alexandar wrote:

As a TV critic, it’s his job to offer a viewpoint. “I never talk about policies,” Shales told me. “I talk about how [Obama] comes across on TV. I like him based on what I see on television.”… But judging from the steady flow of complaints after each Shales review, a surprising number don’t see a distinction from the news pages.

Alexander feebly suggests labeling the piece as a review, and also acknowledges that this probably would not help.

Would these same conservatives be upset to find this article in the style section of their physical copy of the Washington Post? Probably. Would a lot of these people who are mainly interested in politics actually read the style section? No. News articles were circulated among groups long before Twitter or WordPress, but it was harder to accomplish. The one ideologue who does read the article can easily announce it to interested parties that share his/her views, which was not the intended audience of the style section.

The audience may have misunderstood the intent of the article, a television review, but the paper may also have misunderstood its readers and how those readers gets news – not just through the paper but through interpretive communities.