Much Ado About Not Much
On your left, Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin. On your right, the hot teacher-stripper from the MTV football flick Varsity Blues.
“Choire Sicha Joins Radar: Last Media Job In New York City Gladly Taken”
…Very good indeed. I mean, thank God. About time, for chrissakes.
In other news, since Choire is otherwise occupied (presumably looking for a white suit and spats to go with his fancy new title), I’ll be guest-blogging at Radar this week. I can neither confirm nor deny that Doree Shafrir, Emily Gould and Joshua David Stein will also be joining me. Disgusting, it all is, isn’t it?
You should watch this, all the way to the end. You can do it. And not just because it’s a 14-minute video that nonetheless was the #2 featured clip on YouTube today, or because my talented friend Jesse Ruben sings in it. There’s a quadriplegic discussing the details of his sex life! Always awesome! Oh, and there are some fairly stirring and profound moments that might just make you rethink your Monday, if not your year. [ZackWeinstein.org]
Only in Americ—erm…Australia. Here in the land of the free we tend to just chop off the guy’s genitals. Click the image to join the nearly half-million other people who’ve visited this particularly delightful eBay auction. Less than eight hours left to bid!
If Alex Pareene and Doree Shafrir think they can go around taking all the blame for Gawker ignoring the John Edwards story last fall, they’ve got another think coming.
The day the National Enquirer story broke on the Edwards affair (almost two weeks after Mediabistro did a nice pointed little Rielle Roundup), I had this IM conversation with a Beltway reporter:
It went on from there. We dug around a little, but not enough. By the time we started getting anything actually new on the story, Pareene (at the time still mired at swampy Wonkette) was all over it. When you’re working for a stable of niche blogs, the thinking is it doesn’t make sense to have two sites running down the same story when they could be using that time to produce unique content. Seems reasonable, if frustrating and limiting.
Sooooo we let it go, barring the arrival of an email from Rielle Hunter herself delivering photographic evidence of her affair with the senior Senator from North Carolina. Which would have been pretty fucking sweet.
Wait! Could this mean it’s still Pareene’s fault—that speedy little devil—that Gawker didn’t stay on the story? Sigh. No such luck.
So: Why didn’t we or anyone else stalk this juicy, potentially huge story for all it was worth, like the Enquirer? It certainly wasn’t out of party loyalty or our undying John Edwards crush—the guy’s a dick and always has been. Son-of-a-millworker, my foot and ass.
The press is stumbling all over itself to give its readers an explanation (sort of like the one I just gave above!) They run the gamut from diminishing resources and manpower to cutbacks, layoffs, the primaries, the dubious credibility of both Hunter and the Enquirer, and the fact that nobody knows a politician who hasn’t fucked around, so how is that news?
Well, it’s sure as hell news once someone sluttier than you hits it out of the park. The best excuses so far are detailed descriptions of the reporter’s long-standing personal knowledge of Hunter and her flimsy connection to the Edwards campaign. Super job! You tooootally knew! You were on the inside, man! And you did…what? Nothing? Nothing.
The reason we ignored this story is that we are idiots. I even apologize, actually. There. Now (and yes, I am that chick), as Jed Bartlett/Aaron Sorkin used to say: What’s next?