Welcome to Phawker! Please, make yourself at home. Take your shoes off, sit a spell. Beer’s in the fridge. Just leave the seat up, or down. We really don’t care. At Phawker, YOU are The Decider. But please be gentle, we are still fresh and pink from the womb, naked and shaking like a Polaroid picture just coming into focus. So by all means, come back again tomorrow. We only get better with age.
Why Phawker you ask? Because, like any band worth a damn, nobody was singing the song we wanted to hear so we made up our own. You see, we don’t just want to out-cool the alt-weeklies, we also want to be as dogged as the Daily News (hang in there guys, you’re gonna make it after all), as reliable as the Inquirer, as never-ending as KYW and as fast as stoopid TV news, faster even. But without the suck: the pandering, the timidity and the laziness, not to mention the tongue-tied ‘objectivity’ that’s left a citizenry virtually defenseless against the tyranny of evil men, or at the very least bombarded with breathless winter storm hysteria and carpet-bombing coverage of American Idol. Shame on us all.
We will make it our business to carry out H.L. Mencken’s directive to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. You see, we’re just idealistic enough to believe the media doesn’t have to suck. It just worked out that way. But that can be changed, one computer at at time. Fact is it has to be, because the job of the Fourth Estate is just too damn important to leave to the generals, and all the foot soldiers that are too scared, lazy or compromised to stand up and say THE SKY IS FALLING. Because you know what? It motherfucking is.
We are scared: not of terrorists, or Republicans or even Vince Fumo. No, we fear for what’s to become of this country. That we are damaging ourselves more profoundly than any enemy from without could ever imagine in their darkest dreams. Seriously. So we’ll say it long and loud and we won’t shut up until everybody knows that the dice were loaded, and everybody knows the good guys lost.
And we will do everything in our power to be a beacon of clarity in the data fog, and in our own little way maybe help straighten shit out, because pardon our French but shit is fucked up. Way fucked up.
Ordinarily, we wouldn’t make such a fuss. Frankly, we’re happiest sitting down, like we did in the 90s. I mean, do you know how long it takes us to get up on our high horse these days? Hours! And then we need help getting down. It’s embarrassing. But things have just gone way too far. Now is the time for all good men and women to stand up and say ‘Yeah.’ We the people of Phawker are Philadelphians, of course, but first and foremost we are concerned Americans. Very concerned. Let the record show that at 2:33 AM October 16th, 2006, we became legible. And the fight was joined.
Peace Be Upon You,
—The Editor
PS FYI, despite what I just said, shit’s not gonna be all heavy-handed and boring ’round here. There will be plenty of sunshine and lollipops, too. It’s just, you know, when you start one of these things people expect you to say high-and-mighty shit like that. At the very least, it gives the haters a reason to keep hatin’ on, god bless ’em. We don’t take it personally, they’re just doing their job. Just to be clear: we’re gonna have a real good time together. You WILL laugh at least once a day, probably more. We got all kinds of moon pies and penny whistles: We got tunes (check out Phawker Radio UPPER LEFT, LUPE FIASCO IN THE HOUSE! WHY? BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU! HINT: Start With “Daydream,” just click the left or right buttons to switch tracks, and listen like thieves), we got funny movies, cool rock pix, and badass comics. We got the skinny on scarf-rock, Smerconish, sports, pork, sex, and style in the 215. We got advice — the good, the bad and the fugly. We got hot gossip (whistle-blowers and ankle-biters holla at feed@phawker.com, anonymity guaranteed), substantiated rumor and enough innuendo to get you laid. All of which will be processed into actual news or revealed as the lies they always were. All except the part about you getting laid, that’s on you. So let that be our promise to you, dear reader, to not only tell you the things you want to know, but to tell you all the things you need to know, but are too bored to ask. That’s not really your fault. It’s ours. And we aim to fix it.