The Shadow Editors: Tiger Woods at the Masters Bigger Than Iraq Invasion and American Christmas 2010-03-16
Tom Scocca: What is a "media event"?
Tom: "CBS News boss: Tiger's return will be second-biggest media event of last 10 or 15 years."
Tom: "'I think the first tournament Tiger Woods plays again, wherever it is, will be the biggest media event other than the Obama inauguration in the past 10 or 15 years,' says CBS News president Sean McManus. Will his on-air announcers mention the scandal? 'I don't think there is a lot of reason to dwell on what has happened in the past because it is one of the most exploited and overexposed stories in recent memory.'"
Choire Sicha: Whoa. Sean McManus. The good news is that this "media event" will take place at the Masters, in three short weeks!
Tom: I can't really evaluate the truth or falsehood of this fairly false-sounding claim without knowing what a "media event" is. (READ MORE) 12
The Shadow Editors: Sally Quinn, Disinvited 2010-02-19
[CORRECTION APPENDED: Due to a totally reasonable inability to keep all of the Bradlee divorces straight, we did indeed get one of the Bradlee divorces slightly confused! A correction is inserted; a handy family tree of the Bradlee family will surely be published at a later date.]
Choire: We need to discuss DAVID PATERSON: THE TOLD UNTOLD STORY but my mind is so blown by Sally Quinn that I can barely think.
Tom: I KNOW RIGHT??
Choire: I mean, for starters, I've never gotten over them naming their son Quinn Bradlee? This naming speaks either of WASP customs I don't understand or narcissism. (If those aren't the same two things.) (READ MORE) 53
The Shadow Editors: A Scrutiny Draws A Quick Rise 2010-02-17
Tom Scocca: I wish the Times did have the composure and self-assurance it pretends to have.
Choire Sicha: Ah. The whole "black man has been in jail!" thing.
Tom: It's just like the McCain-and-lobbyist story.
Tom: I am not even using her name, because she didn't have an affair with John McCain as far as I could tell.
Tom: But it is the same deal. The Times becomes, through its strenuous efforts not to appear irresponsible, exactly as irresponsible as it is accused of having been. (READ MORE) 25
The Shadow Editors: Everyone Thinks He's Jill Abramson Now 2010-02-12
Tom: "Even with requisite journalistic care (including round-robin meetings with editors), it would seem that a [David] Paterson story should have been ready to be printed by Friday morning, especially since any yet-to-be confirmed charges against the governor could always run in a later article. Instead, the Times has yet to publish. While there may be extenuating factors, we have reached the point when the Times' care at being journalistically responsible has become irresponsible."
Choire: I mean. How do you even come to that conclusion?
Tom: It is crackers. (READ MORE) 10
Underparenting: Words! 2010-02-04
"Fuck!" the kid said, from the back seat of the car. They pick these things up from everywhere, the two-and-a-half-year-old children do. The child is like a runaway threshing machine rattling across the landscape of language, ingesting and scattering everything in its path: grain, chaff, string beans, feed buckets, chopped-up bits of mailboxes. How much of what your child says is understandable? the developmental survey form asks. You mean articulate? Or comprehensible? "The greens are taking care of the eights," he says. Or: "Welcome to Metro." Or: "I want a toaster in my ear." (READ MORE) 20
The Shadow Editors: Stolen Goods 2010-01-25
Tom Scocca: You are familiar with the "Free for All" page of the Saturday Washington Post?
Choire Sicha: Ha, vaguely.
Tom Scocca: In which serious complaints about the paper are mixed willy-nilly with letters from cranks, in a great condescending gesture of false responsiveness? (READ MORE) 5
The Shadow Editors: The "Looting" in Haiti 2010-01-14
Tom Scocca: Did we learn nothing from Katrina?
Tom Scocca: "The national police had all but vanished, and officials reported looting at a collapsed grocery store."
Tom Scocca: "Looting"?
Choire Sicha: UGH.
Choire Sicha: WHO DID THAT?
Tom Scocca: The New York Times.
Choire Sicha: UGH. And. EVERYONE DID. Good job, Meredith Vieira! (READ MORE) 72
The Shadow Editors: Clark Hoyt's Reign of Error Ends in June 2009-12-14
Much went awry in the handling of these two articles: a new freelancer was not properly vetted; e-mail in which she disclosed her personal relationship was overlooked; an editor wanted to accommodate a respected staff member even though she knew his essay was flawed. — New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt.
Tom: Whahuh, Clark Hoyt?
Tom: I don't….
Tom: Ha, wow.
Choire: Shall we turn first to the sad, sad story of the Times copy editor who wrote a Complaint Box column about Jet Blue, an airline that he'd sued after missing a flight because he couldn't find the gate?
Tom: Thirty minutes?
Tom: Dude showed up 30 minutes before a flight? (READ MORE) 17
Guest Op Ed: High School Football Whiners Are Destroying America, by Tom Scocca 2009-12-10
From time to time, The Awl offers its space to normal, everyday people with a perspective on national issues. Today, we're pleased to bring you this report by Tom Scocca, who at this time has some thoughts about high school football.
Hurry up and enjoy your rugged NFL action while you can, America! Also your willing soldiers and what's left of your competent builders, hard-working truckers, and anyone else who applies guts and effort to get through adversity. The Washington Post brings a report from the high school football fields where the character of the next American generation is being molded—or rather, not molded, because who wants to play around in icky, squishy mud? (READ MORE) 21
Half Baked, with Tom Scocca: Stir-Fried Romaine Lettuce 2009-11-24
This barely is a recipe at all, which is the reason for it. Who is interested in cooking a side vegetable? But if you are feeding yourself, you need to include side vegetables or you will eventually develop chronic ailments. If you are feeding other people, they will be gratified by the variety and will feel properly cared-for. Multiple dishes! A balanced meal! Here is a way to do that with as little effort and attention as possible, and with only a minor amount of danger. You need: garlic. Salt. Cooking oil. One head of romaine lettuce. (READ MORE) 15
Half Baked: Fundamentalist Macaroni and Cheese 2009-11-20
This is the recipe for macaroni and cheese. It is the only recipe there is for macaroni and cheese. Here is what goes into it:
1. macaroni
2. cheese.
It does also include butter and milk. Think of them as more cheese. (READ MORE) 34
Underparenting, with Tom Scocca: The Misplaced Child 2009-11-13
There was a loud but muffled scream, and when I looked up, the kid was gone.
It wasn't that scary for me; I did know where he was, more or less. But this was what I was leaving my wife with, on the other end of the phone:
[Child's screaming.]
Fuck! Shit. Uh, I gotta call you back—
[Screaming continues in background.]
[Call disconnects.]
I was standing by the elevator bank, all by myself. The screaming was coming from the other side of a closed elevator door. (READ MORE) 20
The Shadow Editors: Wordplay Most Fouled: How Not to Write a Headline 2009-11-10
Tom Scocca: Here is a headline from Sunday's Washington Post:
Tom Scocca: In art we lust
Tom Scocca: "At second blush, classic works are allowed to rise to their full erotic potential."
Tom Scocca: The Post is plagued by bad, amateurish, would-be-snappy headlines these days, and this one epitomizes the problem.
Tom Scocca: If you have to change two parts of a stock phrase to make your headline, you are making a dumb and clunky headline.
Tom Scocca: "In God We Trust" has nothing to do with the permeability of the barrier between "nude" and "naked" (aka "art" and "pornography").
Tom Scocca: So it's "In [WHOLLY UNRELATED WORD] we [SEMANTICALLY UNRELATED, BUT RHYMING WORD]." Half the phrase is swapped out.
Tom Scocca: If you can't do it in one step, don't do it.
Choire Sicha: Ha. 12
The Shadow Editors: Meat and Real Estate are both Murder 2009-11-09
Tom Scocca: Did they time this whole rollout around Jonathan Safran Foer's vegetarianism book so as to get the maximum number of semi-precocious 15-year-olds to ruin their family Thanksgiving dinners?
Choire Sicha: Well it may just be the need for a Hot New Nonfiction Airport Book for fall, as Malcolm Gladwell only had a "best of" book. And I think David Sedaris is off this year.
Tom Scocca: Nice of J.S. Foer to swing over from the fiction team to fill the gap.
Choire Sicha: He took one for the team.
Tom Scocca: My advice to young would-be reporters is to write a novel, because once you've written a book-length made-up story, you're qualified to write about any sort of factual business you please. (READ MORE) 48
Underparenting, with Tom Scocca: No H1N1 Vaccine For You, Kiddo 2009-10-23
"Keep calling back," the receptionist at the pediatrician's office said, ringing off. They were out of H1N1 flu vaccine, she had told me, and they didn't know when the next batch might be coming. So keep calling.
I would rather not keep calling. That was my third or fourth or fifth inquiry about the swine-flu vaccine, by phone or in person at the office while getting other shots for the kid. This is not because I am a hysterical parent, unable to bear the thought of my child going without medical intervention. I do not snap awake at three in the morning with flu panic, worrying that some filthy stranger may cough around my precious offspring before he has been properly immunized, cursing the government for not coming up with vaccine fast enough, scheming to intercept the life-saving product before it goes to someone else's child. (Let the other child die.) (READ MORE) 24
The Shadow Editors: Reading Mark Greif's Recent 'N+1' Piece In Real Time 2009-10-08
You weren't the only ones with lots of things to say on the topic of On Repressive Sentimentalism, in which, well….
Tom Scocca: Wow, this n+1 thing is PROFOUNDLY ARGUABLE.
Choire Sicha: Uh oh. (READ MORE) 68
The Shadow Editors: When Did Perez Hilton Become More Famous Than Paris Hilton And Why Were We Not Informed? 2009-09-23
Tom Scocca: Is your Fashion Week over?
Choire Sicha: Is it ever!
Tom Scocca: Did anyone there notice that Perez Hilton is now more famous than Paris Hilton? (READ MORE) 10
Underparenting with Tom Scocca: Stroller-Bullying on the Red Line 2009-09-21
It was a mistake to get on the Metro train with the kid riding on my shoulders. I should have taken him down and buckled him into the stroller out on the platform, even if it meant missing the train. But I had taken the wrong branch on the decision-making tree, and there I was, standing up in a packed train car at evening rush hour, with one hand on the kid's ankle to hold him in place, and another hand on the overhead handrail, which meant there was no hand remaining to put on the stroller handle as the train jerked into motion and the clumsily half-set foot brake came off, sending the stroller wobbling away from us, bumping through the crowd. Sorry, excuse me, sorry! (READ MORE) 10
The Shadow Editors: Hands Off That Rumpus, Dave Eggers! 2009-08-27
Tom Scocca: So because I am a subscriber to the New Yorker, my current issue is still the August 24 issue, which I guess people could buy off newsstands something like 10 days ago.
Choire Sicha: So you have just seen a truly hair-raising thing, I take it!
Tom Scocca: The pages are a little loose in this issue, because I flung it away from me and it hit the wall. I am not a satisfied customer.
Choire Sicha: The McKinsey consultants aren't going to like hearing that.
Tom Scocca: On page 61 of this issue there is a tiny bit of type. A photo credit. The photo credit reads "MATT NETTHEIM / WARNER BROS." (READ MORE) 51
The Shadow Editors: Five Ways Ben Affleck Interviews Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn! 2009-08-13
Tom Scocca: OK, so my September copy of Glamour arrived the other day.
Choire Sicha: You know what I'm going to ask you, right?
Tom Scocca: Are you going to ask me why I get Glamour magazine?
Choire Sicha: Okay yes that!
Tom Scocca: According to the sheet of paper enclosed with a previous copy, I am getting Glamour magazine to make up for the cancellation of my Domino subscription. This is a fine explanation except for the fact that I never had a subscription to Domino. (READ MORE) 10
The Shadow Editors: The Last Sad Gasps of the 'Baltimore Sun' 2009-08-03
Tom Scocca: Did you ever read that Baltimore Sun piece? About the hit-and-run?
Choire Sicha: About the 17-year-old boxer who was allegedly run down by the police, whilst on his dirtbike? Yes I did!
Tom Scocca: That was as bad as a newspaper story ever gets. There was no epistemological effort put into it at all. (READ MORE) 4
The "Family Bed" 2009-07-21
The beeping came on as the backdrop to a predawn dream—beep-beep-beep—and then, mhmm, is that the alarm clock?—beep-beep-beep—but too faint, unless we'd dropped our alarm clock under the bed and then dropped a comforter over it—beep-beep-beep—so it was maybe the bus, outside, idling, somehow generating a high-frequency overtone to the rumbling—beep-beep-beep-beep—or was it hrmm just the pulse in my ears—tinnitus, the blood surge—beep-beep-beep—hmrff NO, it was definitely, somewhere, an ALARM CLOCK, but— (READ MORE) 14
Memoirs! Leer At Yer Crazy Memoirs! From A Circus of 'Times' Employees, A Thousand Magazine Excerpts Bloom 2009-07-17
Tom Scocca: Can we talk about the Coney Island Freakshow of Defective Timespersons?
Tom Scocca: See! The Ghastly Addict & His Frostbitten Tots!
Tom Scocca: Smell! The Uncontrollable Vomiting of the Food Expert!
Choire Sicha: And let's not forget: Marvel! At the Guy Who Can't Stop Doing Other Dudes! (READ MORE) 10
What Are the Right and Wrong Ways to Get Access to the Washington Post? 2009-07-06
Tom Scocca: Even if you set aside the money. Which is hard to do! But set aside the money. Why is a newspaper offering to grease the way to backroom meetings between people who want policy and people who make policy?
Choire Sicha: Is the answer "the confusion of influence and influence-peddling"?
Tom Scocca: Here are three editorials from Thursday's paper, from the page that has Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth's name on it. (READ MORE) 3
The Shadow Editors: Malcolm Gladwell on Chris Anderson's "Free" 2009-06-29
Choire Sicha: Do not miss how amusing it is to have Malcolm Gladwell review Chris Anderson in the New Yorker.
Tom Scocca: Wha-
Tom Scocca: Zhu-
Tom Scocca: Huff?
Choire Sicha: So, yes, for starters? Gladwell finally makes the point that "approaching zero" is nowhere the same as zero.
Tom Scocca: That's how Richard Pryor's embezzlement scheme worked in Superman III. (READ MORE) 14
The Shadow Editors: Bill Keller, History Slut (Or, Bigfoot Strikes Again) 2009-06-18
Tom Scocca: Keller of 'NYT' in Iran: 'The Iranians Watch Us Closely'
Choire Sicha: Mr. Executive Editor of the Times is driving me a little crazy. His Reporter's Notebook?
Tom Scocca: Oh? Oh. "A newcomer to town."
Tom Scocca: Oh, he did not do a "Welcome to…" transition.
Choire Sicha: He's like 20 seconds away from a "Reader, I x'd Him." (READ MORE) 8
Underparenting: The Birthday Party, And Its Preparations 2009-06-10
Why was it that I baked the brownies from scratch? Well, first of all, there needed to be brownies. It's the kid's birthday, the actual birthday as opposed to the day we had the birthday party, and we were given to understand—in the way such understandings are given—that some parents like to send in treats for the preschool class on the birthday, to contribute to the birthday observances. Such things are done. (READ MORE) 23
The Shadow Editors: Matt Taibbi Has A Bad Pottymouth 2009-06-09
Tom Scocca: Am I the only one who sort of wishes that nice Matt Taibbi wouldn't use all those swear words?
Choire Sicha: YES.
Choire Sicha: I FEEL THE SAME.
Choire Sicha: I was like, "You wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal saying 'fellatio'? Ugh!"
Tom Scocca: Right? The letter needed not to say "fellatio."
Tom Scocca: (Why does iChat not recognize "fellatio" as a word? What is chat software FOR?) (READ MORE) 13
Ross Douthat, The Supreme Court, and Judicial Activism 2009-06-02
Today, New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat weighs in on the "controversial power grabs" of the liberal Supreme Court, though he notes that "right-wingers, too, have grown accustomed to turning to the Court." The court overturns laws far too frequently, he says. "Prior to 1954, the Court had struck down just 77 federal statutes in a century-and-a-half of jurisprudence; in the 50-odd years since, it's overturned more than 80." He figures that a "super-majority" can't reasonably be enabled for court decisions, so what about the next best thing: term limits to curb all this activism! (READ MORE) 5
Listicle without Commentary: The 50 States, In Order 2009-12-08
50. South Carolina
49. Utah
48. Delaware
47. Mississippi
46. Alabama
45. Texas
44. Virginia
43. Indiana
42. Connecticut
41. Idaho (READ MORE) 208