Filed under: Journalism, Lame, Wonkette, BHR, Gossip, Patrick Gavin, Examiner, Yeas & Nays, Jeff Dufour
Let’s use the Examiner’s Yeas & Nays column today to dissect a gossip column, shall we:
Item 1: ”Senate candidates: The cream of the crop”: In which Patrick Gavin and Jeff Dufour ask readers to rank the hotness of Senatorial candidates on the Examiner Web site (They did the same thing yesterday with House candidates). We’ve seen this before. It’s called Gavin’s annual “Hottest Media Types” contest that he does for FishbowlDC at the height of the dog days of summer. It’s boring when journos are the main course and equally so when politicos get the attention. The columnists even quote a non-amused Jessica Cutler for the item (which has never been done before), saying, “Besides, none of them are hot anyway.” Radical!
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Item 2: “Figurine fetches big dough on eBay”: An item focused on the selling of a Mark Foley figurine with trousers around its ankles. Yes, no new gossip about the real Mark Foley — let’s leave that to the news department, right? Instead, let’s write about figurines of him. Like Wonkette already did the day before.
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Item 3: “Shell Oil honcho denies price-fixing on his watch”: Short piece on John Hofmeister speech at the National Press Club on Monday, in which he denied suggestions that oil prices have dropped “to improve the Republicans’ lot in November.” Might there have been time after the talk for the fellas to really grill him on the issue? Sure, but instead they focus on the question, ‘”In 15 years … what kind of gas will fuel your car?”‘ Fart gas, perhaps, because this is stinky.
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Item 4: “Will Redbirds help Dems convert red states to blue ones?”: The Cardinals versus the Tigers spawns a rather lengthy item (comparatively) on the old legend of the World Series as a predictor of midterm election winners. However, the legend hasn’t even always proven true, as the boys point out. We predict this isn’t gossip.
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Item 5: “Media mix”: In which the kiddos e-mailed Spencer Abraham, a former Senator from Michigan, last week for God-only-knows what reason. Maybe they prodded him to give some pithy one-liners, as DCist’s Sommer Mathis has revealed Gavin instructed her to do when being quoted for the paper? Didn’t work, if so. Sample: Q: “What are you listening to on your iPod right now?” A: “The Beach Boys.” Yawn.
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Item 6: “Speakeasy”: They actually turn to an editorial in The Ledger of Lakeland, Fla. in order to achieve the one funny quote in today’s column: “Katherine Harris’s bid for the U.S. Senate bears more resemblance to a Monty Python skit than a campaign for high public office.” Yes, a Washington newspaper that’s trying to compete with WaPo turns to a tiny circ Florida paper for humor, instead of gathering some fresh, fun material itself. Shame. Pure shame.
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