Great Moments in Journalism: The Adventure Begins
If you're a regular reader of this site, chances are you're as in love with journalism as we are. You undoubtedly read two or three papers first thing in the morning and then surf 'round the net looking for other material. You know how it feels to read a well-crafted story that transports you to a world outside of your own experience, or helps you see the everyday in a new light. Journalism has the power to instruct, to transform, to connect.
Hayden Christensen probably wishes he had a space ship to take him from Syracuse to Toronto Saturday night when his Ferrari broke down on North Salina Street. Instead, the 25-year-old actor who played Anakin Skywalker in the last two "Star Wars" movies, spent eight hours in a flat bed truck with an Oswego County tow truck operator.
That's why we at Gawker are announcing Great Moments in Journalism, a new feature that will highlight the more unfortunate tendencies of print media. Mail us the most egregious examples of vapidity, sophistry, or just poor writing and we'll choose one each day to share with you. At the end of the week, we'll all vote on the most deserving winner. There will be a prize.
To be clear, you must send us a quotable passage or sentence. It's not enough for a piece to be merely vacuous (like, say, Tara Weiss' "The Most Datable Jew in New York"), there's got to be a part that encapsulates the vacuity (like, say, "The most popular Jewish bachelor in Manhattan does not look like any member of the tribe I've ever been out with. Perhaps that's why he's so heavily clicked on. Is it possible that we all want to date and marry a Jewish guy, but we don't actually want him to look Jewish?," by Tara Weiss.)
Submissions need not be restricted to any particular form of journalism. Lifestyle pieces, hard news, criticism (we're expecting repeat wins by Manohla Dargis) are all eligible. Think of this as offering a gentle corrective to all those journalists out there who, overworked and underpaid, wrestle with the language and are occasionally overcome. If we don't help them, who will?
Also, you needn't bother sending in Gawker items. We know we suck, no reason to run the joke into the ground.