Greg directs his ire at Orrin Hatch, but the real problem is Fred Hiatt, whose vision of the modern newspaper editorial page, and the modern editorial page editor, involves letting the "right" people say anything they want even if it contradicts the paper's own reporting.
I think we're long past the time when most print newspapers could've been saved by simply providing a better product, but I also think there was a window to save, if not the print versions, the institutions which published them. Obviously the WaPo can survive as long as Kaplan Test Prep makes enough to keep them afloat, but I do wish more journalists bemoaning the losses in their industry would recognize that at least to some degree ceasing to be relevant and authoritative publications is a part of the problem. Why should people read them when they have to spend a lot of time figuring out when they're being bullshitted?
