Mistakes Were Made

Then Scott Deyo of Fairfax questioned a link that appeared Tuesday morning on washingtonpost.com to a video from the Onion, a satirical tabloid printed by The Post but not owned by it -- and obviously without The Post's standards of accuracy or taste.

"You may wish to have someone review the appropriateness of a link on washingtonpost.com: 'Supreme Court Rules That Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass.' The video is not exactly kid-friendly," Deyo wrote.

The Post has a business relationship with the Onion, and its content appears on washingtonpost.com. The link, which was off the Web site by afternoon, was to a video filled with profanity. The Onion can be hilarious, but its content shouldn't be posted without clear labeling and without profanity.

Jim Brady, washingtonpost.com executive editor, agreed. "We don't want readers to stumble onto inappropriate content they didn't ask for." He said the Onion's feed to the home page should remove headline profanity. "What we're working with the Onion on is making sure that what's behind those links is okay as well."

Brady said, "While the Onion is clearly different than The Post, our audiences aren't all that different. Part of what makes the Web the Web is trying to connect people to content that interests them. If everything we link to has to have the exact same standards as The Post, that would rule out an awful lot of good, interesting content. The word 'standards' applies to the way in which we do things and shouldn't be translated to mean that anyone who doesn't hold the same standards is wrong."

Deborah Howell can be reached at 202-334-7582 or atombudsman@washpost.com.