Coming soon…
HOT DOCUMENT: Tossing Bricks In A Glass House
NOTE: The following post was brought to you by the swell folks at…* As expected, the Inquirer is experiencing some blowback from its decision to let Citizens Bank sponsor the the front page of the business section. Some of that blowback is coming from within: From: Lavin, Carl [Inquirer Deputy Managing Editor For News] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 1:57 PM To: Inquirer Subject: Newsroom ethics To the staff A version of this is on the Romenesko blog, but I wanted to be sure you have a copy. Please note that all the examples cited here are very recent. There […]
BOBBY “BORIS” PICKETT: Monster Mash
WASHINGTON POST: “Bobby “Boris” Pickett, whose dead-on Boris Karloff impression propelled the Halloween anthem to the top of the charts in 1962, making him one of pop music’s most enduring one-hit wonders, has died of leukemia. He was 69.”
THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICAN BANDSTAND: The Fall Of Bob Horn And The Rise Of Dick — Drunk Driving, Statutory Rape, Geator The Bagman, And Mrs. Annenberg Is NOT Amused
Let us just say up front, we have no idea where the truth lies in all of this and merely offer this up for your consideration. In the last 10 years, a very different story about the rise of Bandstand has emerged that runs counter to the soft-focus squeaky-clean nostalgia we’ve all come to know and accept about the beginnings of the Philly-based Mecca of Sock-Hopdom. (The time-hook on this is a glowing notice in the Inquirer about Leonore Annenberg — widow of Walter Annenberg and noted philanthropist and a major 215 civic supporter in her own right — being […]
MEDIA: ‘Corporate Crime Reporter’ To Watchdog Inky ‘Bidness’ Section
[E]ven with the consolidation of corporate journalism, there still existed an imaginary wall separating the editorial from the advertising side of most corporate newspapers. It has kept alive in the public mind the illusion of objectivity. Now, that wall too is crumbling. Earlier this month, the Philadelphia Inquirer announced that the front page of its business section will be sponsored by Citizens Bank. According to the Inquirer, a Citizens Bank ad will appear across the bottom of the front page of the business section — and another smaller ad in the top corner. And a front page business column will […]
INGRATITUDE: NOLA Mayor Literally Trashes Philly
PHILADELPHIA — New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin criticized the cleanliness of Philadelphia after a visit to the city last week. “Let me tell you something. You ought to go to Philly and you will appreciate how clean New Orleans is,” Nagin said Saturday to a crowd of New Orleans residents concerned about the city’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina. “Just go and walk around Philly a little bit and you will appreciate,” Nagin said. ” … We still have some work to do but we definitely beat them by a long shot.” Nagin struck a different tone when he was in […]
ADVERTISEMENT: I Want My PTV!
Coming soon…
SHOOTING THE MESSENGER: DN Offers Dueling Mea Culpas & Self-Serving Justifications For Cho Cover
“We’d also like to think [NBC] had a profound reason to give this murderer just what he wanted, some sick moment of glory after his death. He knew he’d get it. He knew how our world of 24-hour news works. Could any news organization resist such temptation? The answer was on your TV and computer screens. And on the front page of yesterday’s Daily News. The photo of the man pointing his gun in the reader’s face was meant by the killer to elicit fear, and the depraved hope that those who saw it would have to contemplate what it […]
Drudge Pimping Smerconish As Imus Replacement
This has Smerconish’s fingerprints all over it: A semi-blind item on Drudge with NOTHING to substantiate it but a link to the WPHT site, where there is NO mention of the Imus tryout. Thank god the Supreme Court legalized sodomy, because otherwise all the mutual analingus that goes on in the right-wing echo chamber could land these guys in the pokey. Either way, it would appear we called it first: Does the Inquirer pay you by the word? Because if I was your editor I would tell you that re-printing your resume is NOT […]
ONE SENTENCE EDITORIAL: When an angry loner massacres 32 fellow students JUST SO PEOPLE WOULD PAY ATTENTION TO HIM, you only validate his psychotic reasoning by publishing his self-styled assassin’s portrait; you have rewarded a monster with a glory he should never know and, in the process, you invariably create more just like him.
Stop it! HARRY SHEARER: What is the possible journalistic explanation for splashing Cho’s self-dramatizing poses and self-justifying bullshit over network and cable air? Did we learn anything useful during the spate of interviews of Charlie Manson years ago, except that he was one crazy motherfucker? Cho’s pathetic outpourings deserved to be put back where they came from–in a small room, with FBI guys sentenced to read/see and parse them Instead, a hundred thousand self-pitying mentally ill young men (and women?) have just been shown the road to glory one more time. A society in which it’s easier to become famous […]
MEDIA: Former Inky Newsroom Brass Win Pulitzer
The Race Beat, a masterfully researched account of civil-rights-era journalism by Gene Roberts, former executive editor of The Inquirer, and Hank Klibanoff, a former Inquirer deputy managing editor who is now a top editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has won the Pulitzer Prize for history, the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University announced yesterday in presenting its annual awards in arts, letters and journalism. Subtitled The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Alfred A. Knopf), the Roberts/Klibanoff book took its two coauthors almost 15 years to complete. The Inquirer’s Michael Bryant was a finalist in […]
THE MICHAEL SMERCONISH EXPLAINER: Wiping The Smirk Off Mr. Clean With The Dirty Rag Of Truth
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Michael Smerconish looks just like Mr. Clean, or, as he is known to Russian housewives, Mr. Proper. Michael Smerconish is also a country club Republican, a talk-radio host and, as of late, a regular fixture of the Inquirer’s Sunday Op-Ed page. Bully for him, we’re all for equal time and open debate even if we think he has his shiny head up his ass most of the time. Sadly, because of guys like Smerconish — Machiavellian media climbers that will say ANYTHING to ensure their butt space in the game of musical chairs that is the talking […]
BREAKING: Gunman Kills 32 On Virginia Tech Campus; Gunman Dead, Death Toll Expected To Rise; ‘Worst Shooting Rampage In American History’
DEVELOPING… Gus Van Sant’s Elephant.