Glenn Greenwald, Jay Rosen dig into Froomkin firing

The Washington Post‘s firing of blogger Dan Froomkin raises very interesting questions of

• the relationship of traditional media to digital journalism
• whether they can co-exist
• the inherent pro-establishment bias of traditional media and the opposite point of view from bloggers 
• how the Bush administration corrupted and co-opted traditional journalism

This transcript of a conversation between Salon’s Glennn Greenwald and Jay Rosen of NYU’s journalism school, though rambling, digs into the many implications of the Post’s dismissal of the author of washingtonpost.com’s White House Watch blog. (The conversation makes better listening than reading; use the audio link at the upper right.)

Rosen makes clear that this  is not to be understood as a liberal vs. conservative issue. Froomkin has held Obama to the  same standards of accountability that he applied to the  Bush administration. Nor is it about Froomkin’s popularity, as the Post would like to spin it. It’s about the newspaper’s distaste for the look of its own reflection in the mirror Froomkin held up to the Washington establishment. On Bush and so many other matters, Froomkin was right when the Post and all its ballyhooed reporters and columnists were wrong, and the bosses could no longer stand the contrast.