If you’re not loving the interviews with Colorado Senate candidaets in the Colorado Statesman, you’re not a news junkie.

They remind me, to some degree, of a transcribed talk-radio interview with a candidate. But talk-radio interviews, unlike the Statesman pieces, are conducted mostly by hosts who agree with the candidate or who aren’t very informed. (Local talk-radio interviews between conservatives and Craig Silverman are one partial exception, and there will be others, like, I hope, candidate interviews on Colorado Matters.)

The recent Statesman interviews mix chatty questions with arcane and tough ones. And the answers are kept short. Here’s an example from the Statesman’s interview with Jane Norton, regarding former McCain advisor and GOP heavyweight Charlie Black:

Statesman: What has been the role of Charlie Black in your campaign?

Norton: He’s been my brother in law (laughs).

Statesman: Right, and in terms of the campaign. What has been his involvement?

Norton: Oh I called him from time to time and asked for advice.

Statesman: Does he still provide ongoing advice to you?

Norton: Sure.

That’s the kind of questioning that makes for interesting reading for the news junkie, yes? Readers might have wanted to know what kind of advice Black gives Norton, but you can argue that would have been too much to ask. Other questioning revealed that Norton worked for the AARP and doesn’t exclude anyone from her events.

Contrast the Statesman’s questioning about Black to the lack of follow-up in The Denver Post’s exchange gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis, printed in this weekend’s Perspective section:

Denver Post: Would you have accepted the federal stimulus money? 

McInnis: You’ve got to look at what the strings attached are. Now we’ve got a lot of federal funds for this state …- our military bases, our highway things, and stuff like that. So you have to look at every one of those . . . . You [had] better read the fine print.

McInnis never answered the question, even though he’s on record as supporting Obama’s stimulus, but The Post let him go.

I’m not saying that the Post’s long interviews with McInnis and Dan Maes were a waste, by any stretch. Most of the questions were fairly tough and the answers clear. And it’s great more long interviews are planned for print. The transcriptions, allowing you to study the responses or lack thereof, are a window on the candidates that you don’t get anywhere else, even from long TV or radio exchanges.

And you have to give The Post credit for running them, given the shrinking news hole.

I asked Post opinion writer Chuck Plunkett, who called the Statesman interviews “great work,” why we don’t see more such transcripts online or in print:

“They [transcriptions] are hard to read, because of the non sequiturs and whatnot. The reality is that there are a few key moments that are the most useful, a few key distillations of thought that it took the other rambling to bring out. Normally, we don’t want to waste reader’s time. Our entire goal as journalists is to cut to the chase. But you are correct that for junkies and bloggers and folks who really care about the details, the long-form transcriptions can offer all kinds of riches.”

I asked Ernest Luning, who conducted the Statesman interviews along with Jody Hope Strogoff, how long the interviews take to produce. He replied via email:

“We have an actual transcriptionist who prepares a rough draft, then Jody and I spend some time making sure it’s an accurate transcript. The most painstaking editing involves punctuation — making sure sentences and so forth are reflected accurately, which can be difficult given how conversational the interviews are. Hard to say how long it takes, though I’d estimate maybe a dozen hours total to produce an hour-long transcript.”

Luning wrote that none of the candidates in the U.S. Senate race, the current focus of the “InnerView” series, resisted the Statesman’s interview request.

“Some of them have been difficult to schedule,” Luning emailed me. “But the candidates have been eager to sit down with us. They’re assured we’ll run the entire transcript, which makes sure everything is in accurate context, and they’re free to discuss a range of topics in as much detail and at as much length as they want.”

I asked Plunkett if candidates are generally willing to agree to open interviews. Here’s his reply:

The bigger the race, the less willing candidates are to sit down with reporters. Here’s an example from my time as a reporter — not an opinion writer — during the run-up to the 2008 presidential primaries.

 On the GOP side. Mitt Romney agreed to meet with me in person, but I had to fly Montana to meet him at the GOP state convention, and the understanding was I had only 20 minutes. (Possible translation, they must have bet I wouldn’t be able to fly out. But if that’s true, they were wrong. We had a good hook we really wanted to pursue.) Romney gave me better access once I got there. We went on for half an hour. With McCain, he agreed to talk with me by phone for 12 minutes shortly before an appearance in Denver. (McCain also met with our full board for an hour in the general. I joined the board shortly after the 2008 GOP Convention.) Huckabee’s camp never even returned my calls and messages. I didn’t reach out to the others.

 On the Democratic side. I got to talk, by phone, with Obama for six minutes. Can you imagine asking questions when you know up from the clock is running and you only have six minutes? If you ask a good question, the politician can just ramble out the clock. Never connected with Hillary.

 In none of the above cases did we publish the full interview, though I tried to make use of as many good quotes as possible. Newsprint is expensive. Our news hole, the space available for stories, has gotten much tighter over the years. Could I have published the transcription online? Sure, but a lot of the time the full interview isn’t that interesting. Politicians are difficult to pin down. They say a lot of things that don’t really mean anything. The tighter the race or the more delicate the issue, they do everything they can to avoid a clear answer.

Plunkett later added: “Though I said often that the interviews include a lot of painful filibustering, that’s not always the case, of course. The McCain interview impressed everyone at the table. Though we didn’t endorse him as a board, we remarked to ourselves that the John McCain we met was much better, more like the old McCain, than his handlers let him be on the trail and in debates. So looking back, that’s an interview we could’ve published, at least online.”

I’m hoping The Post posts videos of all its so-called endorsement interviews online, where partial video transcripts have been placed in the past.

For more Statesman interviews, which have appeared in recent couple years, (e.g. Dick Wadhams, Pat Waak, Dean Singleton, Josh Penry, Hank Brown, Bob Beauprez and Federico Peña) click here.

Last week, I was all set to rag on The Denver Post for paraphrasing a statement by gubernatorial candidate Jane Norton but neglecting to inform us that she had her facts wrong.

As a reporter, you don’t want to offer up false or misleading information from a candidate without setting the record straight. In this case, last week, The Post reported:

Norton touted her record heading the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment under Gov. Bill Owens, saying she cut her own budget there.

But I never got around to pointing out that, in fact, during the four years she headed the CDPHE, Norton did not cut her Department’s budget. It actually increased.

And then this week rolls around, and The Post got Norton’s CDPHE budget history right in an article Wednesday, though The Post left out some important information, which lucky for you I will provide in this blog post.

The Post reported that when Norton offers CDPHE “budget cuts as proof of her fiscal conservatism, the numbers don’t tell the whole story.”

Wednesday’s Post story states that Norton’s CDPHE budget increased during her first three years at the Dartment, and then:

Only in her last year was the general fund budget cut …- from about $32 million to $16.2 million.

That year, state lawmakers wrestled with a small shortfall sparked by a recession right after 9/11, and it was the first time state revenues fell short of previous years since 1981.

In an impressive bit of reporting, The Post quotes former state Sen. Dave Owen, a Republican who sat on the Joint Budget Committee when Norton headed CDPHE, as saying that Norton didn’t cut the general-fund budget at the time. He says Gov. Bill Owens or the budget committee forced the cut on Norton.

But The Post rightfully points out that this hasn’t stopped Norton from claiming, repeatedly, that she cut the general-fund  budget, quoting Norton as saying, “When I was head of the CDPHE, I cut my budget by 28 percent.” 

But even if you, as a reporter, think budget-maven Owen got it wrong, and you accept that Norton actually cut her general-fund budget during one of the four years she headed CDPHE, you still have deal with the fact that, under Norton, the overall CDPHE budget rose.

In Wednesday’s article, The Post should have stated more clearly, like reporters at 9News  and Fox 31 did previously, that in addition to the general-fund part of the CDPHE budget, there are also two other portions: federal allocations and cash funds.

The Post reported, correctly, that “federal allocations during [Norton’s] tenure from 1999 to 2002 increased from $147 million to $162 million.” So it’s clear from The Post piece that Norton did not cut the “federal allocations” portion of her budget at all.

But The Post did not report that the “cash funds” portion of the CDPHE budget, which includes fees and fines, also rose under Norton from $56 million to $86 million.

So, overall, if you count all three portions of the CDPHE budget (general fund, federal allocations, and cash funds), you find the overall CDPHE budget actually grew under Norton, as Fox 31 reported,  starting at $226.5 million when Norton took over and finishing at $269.5 when she left.

It’s the overall CDPHE budget numbers, which rose by over $40 million under Norton, that reporters should use to assess Norton’s claim that she cut the CDPHE budget when she headed the agency.

Norton has argued that she only had control of the general-fund portion of the CDPHE budget. But reporters shouldn’t allow Norton to point to the general-fund portion  of the CDPHE budget, which Owen told The Post Norton didn’t want to cut at the time anyway, and claim she has a record of budget cutting at CDPHE.

Norton had four years to find a way to cut the other parts of the CDPHE  too, the”cash” and “federal” portions. She didn’t do it. She claims that she had no power to do this, but before believing her, a reporter, like a Tea Party activist, would want to see proof that she tried…-and failed…-to  reject federal funds, for example, or to find mechanisms that would reduce revenue from fees and fines, revenue that she did not complain about spending, as Department head.

I mean, no one recalls Norton complaining, like some governors have done regarding stimulus funding, that she was forced to spend the cash her department got from the feds.  Ditto with the fines and fees. She didn’t object to spending the money, as far as we know.

Clearly, you can look at the facts about the CDPHE budget in different ways, but in the end, the fairest way to cut through the clutter is to look at the bottom line.

If Norton continues to claim that she trimmed the Colorado Department of Health’s budget, or its general fund, reporters should inform us, simply, that under Norton the Colorado Department of Health’s budget actually increased.

Here’s an exchange on Colorado Pols about The Denver Post’s decision to threaten legal action against Pols:

Jason Salzman:  free content

You can understand why The Post would want to try to protect its news content, even if it’s being offered for free.

Dear Denver Post —

Don’t mess with us, because you’re irrelevant, and getting more so by the day.

So you can take your bizarre threat to sue us if we quote any Denver Post article and wrap a dead editor in it.

We won’t quote your articles. We won’t link to your articles. And it won’t matter, as far as we’re concerned. There’s plenty of other news out there for us to discuss, much of it duplicating what The Post reports. We’ll continue to get our 617,661 page views each month without you.

But, please understand that by attacking us like you’ve done you’re actually digging your own grave–and we’ll help push you there by never linking to your little articles–even though you’re happy to let us link to you, you hypocrite.

Thanks, and good luck.

Colorado Pols

That’s a summary of a letter from Colorado Pols, the great Colorado political blog, to a letter from The Denver Post and other media companies asking Pols to stop quoting news articles or face a lawsuit. The Post letter claimed that any unauthorized quotation by Pols amounted to theft.

In its response, Pols claims that The Post never really tried to work things out–before dropping the legal bomb. That’s a shame for The Post, which needs web traffic and buzz from Pols, and for Pols’ readers, who won’t have the convenience of a quick click to a Post article. That’s an inconvenience that could add up because The Post is still the biggest journalism game in the state by far, reporting lots of political news that’s not found anywhere else.

How great would it have been if somehow, some way The Post (old media) and Pols (new media) could have announced today a deal to support each other. And maybe this could have served as a national model. Maybe such a deal could have been struck.

But instead, the battle lines are drawn, despite the “respect” that Pols rightfully has for “print newsrooms,” as acknoledged in its letter. As it is, Pols’ response could serve as a national model for how blogs will battle cranky old media, like The Post.

The Pols letter is a must-read for journalism observers. It’s funny and spot-on for the most part, but like a good blog, it goes over the top as well.

Anyway, it’s a sad day for journalism in Denver, but it probably won’t matter in one, two, three years from now, when the political reporting at The Post will probably be much much weaker than it is today, if it exists at all.

It’s been almost two weeks since 1) we learned that the Hasan Family Foundation paid gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis $300,000, rather than $150,000 as previously reported, mostly for his “series of in-depth articles on water, Colorado Water” and 2) that the series, titled “Musings on Water,” amounted to 150 pages, according to McInnis’ campiagn (though, mysteriously enough, the Hasan foundation is only in possession of 60 pages).

But I can’t find a single news reporter in Colorado who’s reported a water expert’s views about McInnis’ formerly stealth water articles.

Fortunately, while we wait for basic reporting on the matter, a few columnists and bloggers have weighed in. Here’s what they concluded:

Over the weekend, Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, who’s definitely counts as an expert on Colorado water issues himself, spotlighted big-time errors in McInnis’ work, including McInnis’ failure to list the South Platte among Colorado’s major river basins. Quillen writes, “We’re not talking arcane knowledge, just the ability to read a map.”

Quillen concludes, “So you may not learn a lot about our water issues from these $12.50-a-word musings, but you could learn quite a bit about McInnis.”

On KBDI’s Colorado Inside Out June 18, Post columnist Susan Greene had a similar view:

“You know, I’ve actually covered the Colorado River for 20 years, and you could Wikipedia this stuff. I’m not saying he did… I’m just saying his name is on it. I don’t care. It’s not edifying at all. It tells me nothing about the Colorado River Compact. It has these sort of flourishes and great moments of insights like, water is very important to humanity. You know, $300,000? I’m thinking, he could have done that much less expensively.”

The blogosphere has also been pretty quiet about the substance of McInnis’s writings. John Orr of the Coyote Gulch blog  was by far the most kind to McInnis: “He’s consistent in his message, bashing government and the Bureau of Reclamation specifically. He embraces the development of water and other resources and laments all the possible mineral mother lodes locked up by wilderness designation. He demonstrates a good understanding of water issues and the history behind Colorado’s present situation.”

Over at Westword’s Latest Word blog, Alan Prendergast has made a complete mockery of McInnis’ own claim in a memo to the Hasan Foundation that his articles were “carefully-proofed.”

In his third article on the topic, published the same day that the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was holding its national conference in Denver, Prendergast quoted a passage from McInnis’ water writings and then pointed out that McInnis got his Spanish translation messed up.

McInnis: “The Colorado River is the primary River of the Southwest part of Our Nation. It is called the ‘River of Rivers’ because of its importance in some of the most arid lands in the Americas… Do you know the name of ‘Rio Colorado’? That was the name, given by the Spanish, to a portion of what we now know as the ‘Colorado River.’ Colorado is ‘Red’ in Spanish. It was called the Rio because of the Reddish color that dominated the River…”

Westword’s Prendergast:  “No, Señor Snore, I’m pretty sure it was called the Colorado because of the reddish color, but who am I to contradict a $2,000-a-page man?”

So, despite some great work by columnists and bloggers, we need more serious news analysis of the McInnis writings. You might argue that journalists don’t need to go fact checking old articles of a former Congressman who’s got a long trail of paper behind him, but with the Big Question still hanging out there (Why was McInnis paid so much for this?), I think reporters should ask more experts about the substance of these articles.

Washington Post blogger David Weigel wrote Tuesday that not all Republicans are running away from Rep. Joe Barton’s surprising comment that the BP’s $20 billion escrow account for Gulf oil damages amounts to a government “shakedown” of BP.

Weigel points to a couple GOP candidates who’ve criticized the fund in Wisconsin, and writes:

In Colorado, it was an aide to once-frontrunner Jane Norton (Ken Buck now leads in some polls for the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination) who called the escrow account a “slush fund.” I’m not seeing a massive trend here, but I’m not sure that local reporters are all posing the question. Plenty of conservative candidates agree with Rush Limbaugh that the fund amounts to “thuggery” or a shakedown — something the Gulf Coast Republicans who favored the fund disagree with.

We know, thanks to the Denver Post and Progress Now, that Norton’s Josh Penry later said the aide, Aindriu Colgan, was not speaking on behalf of the Norton campaign, even though he had said he was representing Norton.

Penry said the campaign didn’t have a comment on the fund set up by BP.

So here in Colorado, reporters are posing the question, at least to Norton’s underling, but they aren’t getting an answer one way or the other. This makes me think reporters should, per Weigel’s suggestion, ask other candidates about the BP fund. I don’t know about you, but I’m curious about what they’d say.

Sometimes it seems that if you flutter from radio station to radio station in your car, like I do, and you light for more than a few minutes on a conservative talk show, you inevitably hear the host slamming journalism, not just The Denver Post or a specific story, but journalism in general.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with criticizing The Post. I do it all the time. But it’s the sweeping condemnations of journalism that are destructive and unnecessary, like the unsubstantiated claims that The Denver Post has a liberal bias.

I mean, just this morning, as I was driving to work and considering a blog post on this topic, I hear KHOW’s Peter Boyles agree with a caller who compared today’s journalists, like those at The Denver Post, to Catholic Church leaders who tried to stop the Gutenberg press because the Catholic Church didn’t want the masses to have their own bibles and their own access to the scriptures.

“Sure they are,” said Boyles in agreeing that journalists are like the self-serving Popes of yore who tried to put the lid on information and shut down the printing press.

Is that a stomach-turning and untrue analogy or what? The Post isn’t trying to stop ordinary people from learning on their own or publishing whatever they want on the Internet, whether it’s true or not. 

The Post is actually trying to give us the credible facts (not always accurate, but mostly) to help us be involved in public life in a meaningful way and to figure out stuff like who we want to vote for.

Boyles brought up this topic because Denver Post publisher Dean Singleton was on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show earlier this week saying, essentially, that people should be wary of all the untruths on the Internet. He argued that his newspaper is a credible source of information, versus much of the Internet.

And Boyles opinion of  Singeton’s radio appearance, as uttered on his show this morning: “That was bad.”

It was actually great to see Singleton defending journalism, and it raises the question of why don’t journalists defend themselves more often? Rocky Editor John Temple did it occasionally in his weekly column, even if his style was on the snooty side sometimes.

It’s ironic, of course, that talk radio hosts trash journalism, because they rely on it day after day for their shows. It’s hard to imagine how Boyles would fill his three hours if he didn’t have The Post to beat up on.

That’s the point I tried to make in this op-ed in Today’s Ft. Collins Coloradoan. KCOL’s Gail Fallen and Keith Weinman were perfectly happy to pat gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis on the back, as he condemned The Denver Post for doing its job and asking him to release his income tax forms.

Did the talk show hosts point out that The Post was performing the basic function of journalism, to get the facts on the table. Of course not.

Maybe they don’t care, but how great would it be if talk radio hosts changed course and defended journalism, instead of letting their callers and guests misrepresent the what reporters do and the role they play and have played historically in public debate?

Boyles knows better than to compare journalists to Popes. You can do better, Peter. So can other hosts.

Reporters have yet to interview Scott McInnis directly about his two-year, $300,000 fellowship from the Hasan Family Foundation…-mostly to write a series of articles titled “Musings on Water,” which totaled about 150 double-spaced pages.

Instead, spokesman Sean Duffy is handling the press, telling The Denver Post that McInnis fulfilled his contract with the foundation.

In a case like this, when a candidate is apparently not talking, reporters should go back and quote what he had to say on the topic previously, before he turned mum.

McInnis previously stated that his Hasan fellowship was “sweet.”

McInnis said this on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman Show April 26. He also said, “And so I was pretty excited to do it. It was the first time in my life I got paid to write about a subject that I, one, knew a little something about but, two, actually, I always like to tell, hey look at water look at history. So that’s what that was about.”

Questioned further by Silverman, McInnis stated, “When I got out [of Congress], we were having a conversation and they [the Hasan Family Foundation] said we’d be interested in doing this if you’d be interested in helping put together some articles at some point, could be used in a series for education on water in Colorado. So that’s what that was about. And I was thrilled to do it. I got paid to do it. That’s pretty sweet. And it was a family that cares intensely about the state of Colorado.”

Denver reporters should take a minute to read an op-ed by Lt. Gov. Barbara O’brien in Sunday’s Denver Post.

It discusses the broad ramifications of closing the federal Department of Education…-a position favored by GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton…-as well as GOP Senate candidates Rand Paul (in Kentucky) and Sharron Angle (in Nevada).

O’Brien did a good outlining the basic substance behind the soundbite, which is helpful because the issue has largely been ignored by news reporters across the state. Her opinion article defends the agency and describes the basic functions of Education Department, including innovative research, grant making , and job training.

You recall that in late December when Norton announced her position, The Denver Post, to its credit, tried to ask Norton about it.

Her spokesperson refused to comment, telling The Post, “It’s a holiday. Nobody cares.” 

Norton’s spokesman told The Post at the time that Norton would provide more details after the first of the year. But these details never materialized and, as far as I know, The Post hasn’t published any more information from Norton on the matter.

Also, as O’Brien’s op-ed pointed out, Ken Buck has a nebulous position to downsize the U.S. Dept. of Education, because it is “encroaching on local parents and educators.” His view…-and associated budget cuts–should be explored by reporters. Of course, Democratic candidates Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff should also be queried about this.

No matter what you think of the U.S. Department of Education, you’d agree that closing the $78 billion department would be a pretty radical change in U.S. education policy, one that should be thoroughly aired out during the election season given Norton’s and Buck’s views.

In the gubernatorial race, reporters should clarify Scott McInnis’ position on education cuts. Asked in February if there were any “Colorado agencies, boards, or commissions” that he would eliminate, McInnis replied, “You could look at the Department of Education.”  

McInnis isn’t joining an emerging national Tea Party backlash by gubernatorial candidates against state education departments, like his GOP compatriot Norton seems to be in attacking the federal Education Department.

Instead, McInnis is apprently staking out new ground in targeting a major state education agency for possible closure.

Reporters should find out the details of the state’s major GOP candidates’ thinking when it comes to the federal and state governments’ major education agencies.

You expect the news in The Denver Post to be fair and accurate, as opposed to the writinng in most blogs, which is usually gossipy, free-wheeling, and, with luck, accurate. As to fairness on most blogs, forget it.

If you’re a journalistic outfit like The Denver Post, and you’re operating a blog like The Spot, you face conflicting priorities. You want to post stuff that’s easy to read and talk about but you definitely don’t want to undermine the journalistic credibility that separates you from the blogging masses…-especially if your fair-and-accurate news reporters are the ones doing the blogging, as is mostly the case on The Spot.

 One really good way to undermine your journalistic credibility is to use political propaganda as descriptive terms for bills or laws.

 I did some bean counting and documented a small, but meaningful, way that this is happening on The Spot.

 The Post’s blog is sporadically using the term “Obamacare” as a synonym for the federal health-care law.

It’s one thing to report the term “Obamacare” as part of a quotation or within quotation marks but to use it as a descriptive term, no. You don’t want to do that.

If you’re thinking this is no big deal, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. “Obamacare” is an inaccurate and partisan salvo, and coming from a reporter, working for a publication that cares about accuracy and fairness, it looks sloppy…-not to mention the fact that this kind of term in news reporting, even on a blog, makes The Denver Post look like it has a hidden agenda in support of the right wing.

 On the Spot, during this calendar year, I found 15 articles using “Obamacare.” Of these, it was used nine times, inappropriately, as a synonym for the health-care bill or law. In the remaining six articles, the term was used, appropriately, in quotation marks or in a quotation from a partisan. Once it was used in a Spot headline, “Don’t Worry, we’ve got Obamacare,” on March 23.

In a May 22 post on the differences between Attorney General John Suthers and his opponent Stan Garnett, the Spot reported: “They differ on Obamacare and medical marijuana for starters.”

On May 1, the Spot reported, “The AG’s race normally is pretty ho hum but with Suthers and Garnett disagreeing on Obamacare and medical marijuana it’s shaping up to be a battle.”

 Asked about this via email, Denver Post Politics Editor Curtis Hubbard wrote, “Whether it’s ‘Obamacare’ or ‘the Party of No,’ it’s incumbent upon reporters and editors (I can’t speak for columnists and the editorial dept.) to attribute political marketing terms to a source or somehow put them in proper context for readers. 

“Without going back and re-reading each post, your analysis suggests that there have been instances on the blog where that hasn’t happened in regards to the term ‘Obamacare.’ While it’s possible that the entire tenor of a post made it unnecessary or that the author assumed the audience of a politics blog was astute enough to figure it out for themselves, our goal should always be to provide clarity.”

 I often see things in my favor, but I’ll take this to mean he at least partially if not mostly agrees with me.

 For fun, and because bean counting is so interesting if you’re counting the right beans, I checked out how “Obamacare” is being used in the print edition of The Post.

 In staff-written news articles, I found “Obamacare” in eight articles (from May 23 of this year through July of 2009). In each case, it was used appropriately–either with quotes around it, or in a quotation by a partisan. It was never used as a synonym for the health-care law.

 For example, in describing a speech by Sarah Palin March 23, The Post reported that she “called the freshly passed health care reform law an attempt to drive the country toward socialism. The article quoted Palin as saying, “Mr. President, do you understand now that Americans don’t want Obamacare? And do you understand that it won’t improve our health care system?”

In the Post’s opinion articles, where fairness is not expected, “Obamacare” is used as political marketing term, without quotation marks. In an opinion column, you’d expect this and it’s appropriate. In the print newspaper, in opinion columns and editorials, I found “Obamacare” in 10 articles from May 23 of this year through July of 2009. In nine of those cases, it was used as a synonym for the health-care bill or the health-care law passed by Congress. (Columnist David Harsanyi used it in six columns, columnist Mike Littwin in two, and columnist Susan Greene in one). I found it in one Post editorial, used within quotation marks. Once it was used in a headline (“Repeal Obamacare? Unlikely”) on a Harsanyi  column. (If I were an editor, even on the opinion page, I wouldn’t put “Obamacare” in a headline, because it’s not factually accurate and therefore not right for any headline.)

 In any case, with the exceptions I cited in the Spot blog, the Post is treating the term “Obamacare” as you’d expect, allowing its use in opinion articles but not using it as a descriptive term elsewhere.

If you read the Spot, especially more recently, you see writing that’s fairly similar, if more chatty and quirky, to what’s in the print newspaper. I think the Spot blog should follow the standard described in Sunday’s New York Times by Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson:

“Blogs are an important part of our news report. On big, running news stories, like the oil spill, the earthquakes in Haiti, the elections, and so forth, they offer readers the most important, up-to-the-minute developments-.While the opinion side of The Times also has blogs, the news blogs exist to report and analyze, not to offer slanted “takes.” Times blogs are never personal diaries. All of our blgos are carefully edited, and we apply the same standards for accuracy and fairness to them.”