Despite very specific instructions by us to cease and desist with his nature-based musings, designated New York Times leaf-and-cow columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg continues to invade the Sunday op-ed section with some of the world's most artisanal writing. None of which has anything to do with anything.
Last night USA Today reported that two of its staffers, Tom Vanden Brook and Ray Locker, were the targets of a smear campaign, including fake Twitter accounts and web sites established in their names, launched by a Pentagon contractor specializing in "information operations." For some reason, the paper declined to name the perpetrator: Leonie Industries.
Last year, NBC News hired Chelsea Clinton to "report" on things for them, because here in America, major news networks are purely in the entertainment business and the privileges of dynastic nepotism will get you everywhere. That is why she was hired. Because of who her parents are. It has nothing to do with her abilities, or the concept of "journalism." I'm sure she's nice and smart and all. But that is not why she was hired by NBC News. Okay? Now. How is that going?
Interested in celebrity dick size? Boy, do I have the book for you: Celebrities with Big Dicks like Jay-Z, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, and Many More, edited by one Dana Rasmussen. It's out of stock right now on Amazon—I bought the last copy—but you can order one of three used copies available, starting at the low price of $37.73 (plus shipping).
Yesterday, New York Times foreign correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman (pictured) won a Pulitzer for his reporting on strife and famine in Africa. Though the Times traditionally decides who of its reporters deserve nominations, Gettleman didn't wait for the bosses—he nominated himself. Does that make him an asshole?
Dear Pulitzer Prize Committee: what is the point of you? Though we enjoyed this year's editorial-writing and fiction trolling — how very internet of you, Pulitzer Prize Committee — you are still, basically, worthless, and, worse, boring. You need some kind of makeover. You need Ryan Seacrest to host the awards. You need new categories, Pulitzer Prize Committee. We have some suggestions:
Katie Roiphe, a well-to-do white woman who will not shut up, has a case of mortal ennui which is relieved only by publishing cretinous trolling articles which draw sweeping pseudopsychological conclusions about womankind from a small handful of vacuous anecdotes mixed with pop culture strained through the special Katie Roiphe Psychic Sexxx Fantasyland Filter. The news today is, she is still doing that.
If you were looking for NRA president Wayne LaPierre's response to the Trayvon Martin case, you're not going to find it. At the annual NRA meeting, LaPierre said he would not comment "without a full understanding of the facts." He did, however, accuse the media of not caring about other violent crimes — presumably those not involving guns? And then he told us how he really felt.
Khristopher J. Brooks is a young reporter who was excited to be hired by the Delaware News-Journal last week. In a playful little gesture, he wrote up a fake "press release" on his own personal Tumblr announcing, "On Wednesday April 4, 2012, the News Journal Media Group acquired veteran education reporter Khristopher J. Brooks." He included some quotes about his career and background on the paper itself. For this, he was immediately fired, because NEWSPAPER WORK MUST NEVER BE FUN.
Katie LoCricchio and her partner are engaged. The two live in Queens and, now that same-sex marriage has finally been legalized in New York, they can begin the process of planning their wedding. LoCricchio, like so many frenzied brides-to-be, went straight for the magazines.
A judge has ruled that Sam Zell—the gnomish billionaire and purposeful asshole who singlehandedly bankrupted the Tribune Co. in one short year, thanks to his own personal greed and incompetence—will be the very last creditor to get paid out in the company's bankruptcy proceedings. Dead last. Zell has $315 million of his own money at stake.
A few weeks ago, New York Times science and health reporter Don McNeil sent out a scathing email to colleagues attacking Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. for piloting a "ghost ship" and running off to the Himalayas with a management guru while the paper founders.
This weekend racist pundit John Derbyshire lost his column at the National Review for being more direct with his racism than that magazine allows. We reached out to Derbyshire and Taki's Magazine executive editor Mandolyna Theodoracopulos, who is ostensibly responsible for publishing Derb's racist article, for comment. Mandolyna, the daughter of Taki's Magazine namesake and "soi disant anti-semite" Taki Theodoracopulos, responded thusly:
For millennia, media that comes on screens has operated on a very simple premise: they show you entertaining things like Three's Company for free, and in return, you sit there and watch the ads. Very simple. And guess who is now fucking up this wondrous model of passive infotainment? That's right: kids these days.
Mike Wallace, one of the original correspondents of 60 Minutes, has died at 93. Wallace worked for the program for four decades and entered semi-retirement in 2006. Since then, Wallace appeared intermittently on the show to interview such contentious figures as Jack Kevorkian and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His most recent 60 Minutes interview was with Roger Clemens in 2008.
Last week, writer John Derbyshire gained fast notoriety for a shockingly racist article "The Talk: Nonblack Version," in which he regurgitated a lot of tired racist stereotyping under the guise of "public safety" for white people. The immediate outrage did not go unnoticed — Derbyshire was fired from his job as a columnist for The National Review.
