Speaking of summaries, the WaPo's Peter Carlson has an essay on why editors love lists (i.e., "The 45 Best Bars," "378 Celeb Shockers," "The 8 Hottest Moments a Couple Can Have"...) One explanation: they're just lazy, or they assume readers are lazy, or both. He then compiles a list of bad lists. ("'33 Things You Should Know About Busta Rhymes' and '33 Things You Should Know about Missy Elliot' and '33 Things You Should Know About Metallica' [Blender, various recent months]. Instead of writing profiles, the folks at Blender, the Maxim-spawned music mag, just collect 33 random facts about a celebrity. Hey, guys, if you can't write maybe you should leave journalism and seek honest work.") I, of course, blame service journalism.
Lists, from naughty to nice [WaPo]