The Shadow Editors: Tiger Woods at the Masters Bigger Than Iraq Invasion and American Christmas @11:50 AM
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 @2:32 PM
[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 @11:20 AM
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 @1:15 PM
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
The Shadow Editors: Stolen Goods @11:40 AM
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 @4:20 PM
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 @1:30 PM
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
The Shadow Editors: Wordplay Most Fouled: How Not to Write a Headline @3:30 PM
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 @3:07 PM
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
The Shadow Editors: Reading Mark Greif's Recent 'N+1' Piece In Real Time @3:00 PM
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.
The Shadow Editors SMS Edition: Less Talkin', More Townin' @2:26 PM
This week's Talk of the Town in the New Yorker: was there not something odd about it? Tom Scocca sent a barrage of text messages on the topic. However, my iPhone is broken and unable to take screenshots, so, to share them, I risked opening a portal by actually taking pictures of my cellphone so that they might be spread. READ MORE 26
The Shadow Editors: Hands Off That Rumpus, Dave Eggers! @5:54 PM
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: The Last Sad Gasps of the 'Baltimore Sun' @12:50 PM
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
Memoirs! Leer At Yer Crazy Memoirs! From A Circus of 'Times' Employees, A Thousand Magazine Excerpts Bloom @3:38 PM
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
The Shadow Editors: Malcolm Gladwell on Chris Anderson's "Free" @12:14 PM
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) @4:52 PM
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
The Shadow Editors: Matt Taibbi Has A Bad Pottymouth @5:38 PM
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 @1:20 PM
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
The Shadow Editors: Some Day The Op-Ed Page Will Be Edited @1:02 PM
Tom Scocca: I go away for a weekend and Maureen Dowd gets caught plagiarizing?
Choire Sicha: You went away for a weekend? That's so unlike you!
Tom Scocca: We can't all have a house on Fire Island.
Choire Sicha: That island is only so wide, after all. But yes! You turned your back and suddenly Maureen Dowd is in the Scandal Of The Century Of The Moment.
Tom Scocca: Albeit sort of a listless scandal, it seems, thanks to the we're-all-dead-who-cares cloud hanging over Romenesko these past many months. READ MORE 15
The Shadow Editors: Who Is Michael Wolff Smarter Than Today? @2:32 PM
Tom Scocca: Great. Now Michael Wolff is smarter than David Carr.
Choire Sicha: Says who???
Tom Scocca: Says Michael Wolff's daily spam: Who Is Michael Wolff Smarter Than Today? Previous winners have included Rupert Murdoch, Barack Obama, and the Pope. READ MORE 4
