Washington Post ombudsman Michael Gertler wrote a column last weekend about the essential newspaper. This weekend, it was fixing the essential newspaper.

What some of his readers told him was that their essential newspaper should show a little more spine in challenging power.

Some excerpts:

If there was a dominant theme, it was the charge that the press generally, and The Post, have been timid in challenging the Bush administration, especially "when opposition in Washington seems to be out these days," as one put it.

"The Post's icon status was earned through hard work and nerve under fire, not through fear of criticism," a Maryland reader said. Another compared coverage of the Bush administration with the "fierce pursuit of Bill and Hillary Clinton." "You were overly focused on Clinton's sexual misconduct and in the last four years you gave Bush a bye," said another.

"My essential newspaper would be more adversarial to government and do much more afflicting of the comfortable. Journalists need to stop worrying about being accused of liberal bias," wrote a Wisconsin man. A Texan used stronger language: "The loss of trust in the newspapers and the news networks actually began back in 2002 when you failed to recognize, or responsibly react to, the lies used to mislead the world about the plan to invade Iraq. The failure to investigate and report the truth continues today, and that is the reason people are losing faith in you." ...

There were also complaints about writing and story-telling style, and doddering editors who remember the 1970s all too well.

Gertler went on to say:

Some of these observations are more useful and relevant than others. For me, the issue at the top of the list is whether the press has indeed been too timid in probing and challenging an administration that is, in contrast, perhaps the most skilled in modern times at diminishing and closing off many of the so-called mainstream media.

That may be the substantive challenge. Here's the practical one from a reader in New Hampshire. "I got rid of my TV, stopped my lifelong love affair with the N.Y. Times and Washington Post (I'm 83) when O.J. Simpson coverage and Princess Diana coverage just wiped me out. TV was the worst, but the newspapers weren't far behind. I had a brand new Apple computer with a big screen, a new easy chair in front of the screen and enough computer skills to make the type large enough for easy viewing. . . . I really thought it was only a temporary hiatus until the offensive coverage was over, but I have never gone back. I still read the Times and Post on the Web, along with the Los Angeles Times, Manchester Guardian, Der Spiegel and an eclectic bunch more. I Google the world and it waits for me. When I got broadband, then I knew I was hooked forever."