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
