Machine-like purveyor of conventional media wisdom Howard Kurtz takes on the DC press corps' most important question today: Hey, is Politico's Mike Allen really Washington's Most Important Journalist? Or might that Most Important Journalist be [my name]?

The New York Times Magazine's big Mike Allen profile cover story last weekend—which, by the way, made him seem thoroughly bizarre and pitiful—is now having roughly the same effect on the DC press corps that Emily Gould's NYT mag cover story had on the blogger world: 'Fuck that person, why not me?' Howie Kurtz makes the point that since Mike Allen is just an aggregator, maybe the people who do the actual reporting should get more credit, hmmm? Why, he takes a look at the day's Playbook column and it links to, let's see..."um, three items summarizing pieces by me."

Howie then aggregates (see that?) bitching from other DC reporters on the same topic. Marc Ambinder knows for sure that Obama himself likes to read long magazine pieces like, I don't know, the type of stuff that, I don't know, people like Marc Ambinder write. And Marc Ambinder knows that many types of stories can move the needle in DC—"So can, as I discovered, a late night blog post [BY MARC AMBINDER] about some dumb remark Harry Reid made."

The WaPo's own Ian Shapira wonders, "wouldn't it be better if he were working on longer-term stories or investigations that served the public good?" Investigations like, "Is Ian Shapira receiving enough credit from blogs for his stories?"

Ha, that is a cheap shot. Of course it is a travesty to even contemplate a world in which Mike Allen's morning linkdump makes him the most influential journalist in DC. But the entire DC press corps is a travesty in general. So suck it up.

[Pic: Shutterstock]