Newspaper Official Urges More Coverage of Charity Issues

The controversy over spending by veterans charities demonstrates that newspapers need to look deeper at the issues of how nonprofit groups raise and distribute money, as well as how nonprofit watchdog groups evaluate organizations, says a column by Deborah Howell, the ombudsman of The Washington Post.

What’s more, they need to pay attention to the “huge role” that nonprofit groups play “in helping (and sometimes not) people and influencing public policy,” she wrote. Ms. Howell plays an independent role at the newspaper; she comments on the newspaper’s reporting, accuracy, and fairness.

Ms. Howell offered that view after looking into complaints from Paralyzed Veterans of America, which received a grade of F in a chart published in the Post to accompany an article about a report by the American Institute of Philanthropy.

The newspaper acknowledged that it was unfair to name the veterans organization in the chart without sufficient detail on how the grades were arrived at and without any comments from the group in the accompanying article.

Read The Chronicle’s most recent article on Congress’s inquiry into the fund-raising controversy.

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