I'd say because it lets white supremacist Charles Murray write its op-eds for it. But maybe the pay was too shitty to get anyone else, I dunno.

Glasses-adjusting New York Times-version-of-a-Republican David Brooks is a highly talented political columnist-craftsman, in the sense that he is able to lay a thin veneer of pop psychology-varnish over even the most cracked glass coffee table of intellectualism* (*David Brooks-style mishmash alert). Today, Brooks puts forth his most breathtaking ideological prescription yet: our leaders should always be doing opposite things at all times.

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams is America's least necessary cultural critic. Reading a Mary Elizabeth Williams column on any topic in the news is like sticking a needle full of SUPER SWEET SUGAR WATER in your veins and pushing the plunger until you say "Blaaaauuurrrrgghhhhpablumpablum." Does Mary Elizabeth Williams have something unnecessary—so unnecessary that it would have been a net gain to humanity to say nothing at all—to say on the topic of our recent Very Sad Aurora Movie Theater Shooting Tragedy? Yes of course she does. If you had hoped to avoid it, you lose.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to point this out, but it must be said: in the July 23 issue of The New Yorker, Jane Kramer has written a "Personal History" story entitled "A Reporter At Odds: Trading the notebook for a guidebook." The intro:

Or "Batman Fan is Undaunted by Evil." [Video courtesy of CNN]

When there's breaking news, especially about terrorism and national security, ABC News' Brian Ross is there. And under no circumstances should you listen to anything he says. His latest breathtakingly reckless report: Some Tea Party guy on the internet has the same name as the Dark Knight Rises shooter, so, you know, they have the same name. So there you go. Tea Party.

"It is a very real possibility this terrifying tragedy may affect The Dark Knight Rises‘s opening box office today and this weekend." [Deadline Hollywood]

Americans hate the media with a passion. So they'll be happy to know that the average U.S. journalist—grrr, the MSM!—is paid even less than the average American.

Let me just preface everything here by saying that, as someone who is dumb enough to still subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, I deserve pretty much everything I get. In the age of affordable tablets and comprehensive pop culture sites like the AV Club and Vulture, anyone still paying $50 a year for Entertainment Weekly just so they have something to read at the gym is a moron. I get all that. Your scorn is accepted and understood.

Last week, the blog world picked up an LA Times news story about a scientific study that had just been published in an academic journal, Communication, Culture and Critique. The title of the study: "Women (Not) Watching Women: Leisure Time, Television, and Implications for Televised Coverage of Women's Sports."

Dan Rather is reviewing HBO's The Newsroom for Gawker throughout the show's first season.

On Saturday, Gawker writer Louis Peitzman haphazardly insinuated that a tweet from KTLA newsreader Sam Rubin was a bad practical joke, but it turned out that he was actually hacked, according to Rubin. He sent this email to Louis on Saturday night:

Did you catch the BIG SPLASH on the front page of NYT Travel section this past weekend? "Single in Chicago." Summary: Single woman goes to Chicago. Opening sentence: "IT'S hard to decide, while sipping a citrine cocktail called Sex on the Roof, what to gawk at first..." And?

Dan Rather is reviewing HBO's The Newsroom for Gawker throughout the show's first season.

Mitt Romney is getting hosed. Admittedly not in an existentially threatening way, like watching his job get sent to Bangalore while a good health plan evaporates in front of him. But he's still getting hosed—in conservative media, of all places.

Generally speaking, no mischief perpetrated by teenagers is "news." Teenagers not perpetrating mischief is news. This is because—no matter what race, creed, nationality, or socioeconomic stratum they come from—teenagers are punks. Do not, however, tell this to the New York Times. They have a very incisive sociological story to write.

From the current (July 16) issue of OK! Magazine: "We often see Katie Holmes carrying around 6 year-old daughter Suri— dollies, blankets, and all. But on June 25, the little princess gave mom's back a break as they sprinted through the streets of NYC. With husband Tom Cruise shooting Oblivion in Iceland, the dressed-down Katie enjoyed some just-us-girls time with Suri, stopping by Chelsea Piers, Whole Foods and Jacque Torres Chocolate. They also saw the film Brave in the East Village. The pair rejoined Tom for his 50th birthday on July 3."

Wal-Mart has been the target of union campaigns for years. Why? Because Wal-Mart is the biggest fucking retailer in the world, and the most famous anti-union company in America. It makes sense for both practical and symbolic reasons. In L.A. right now, unions and worker advocates are trying to stop the construction of a new Wal-Mart in the city's Chinatown district. But Wal-Mart has an ally in the fight: the Wall Street Journal.

Dan Rather is reviewing HBO's The Newsroom for Gawker throughout the show's first season.

New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley, whose prodigious error rate has earned her such praise from her own colleagues as "a television critic with a history of errors"—not to mention the assignment of her very own personal copy editor whose sole duty was to try to face down her steady stream of mistakes—has offered up another doozy.