Belated Thanks, Eve Zibart
Eve Zibart told mediabistro.com that she's taking the buyout offer from Washington Post management.
This is not good news. Zibart's been a food writer at the Post forever, but I'm too busy eating to read about food. So I haven't read much of her later work.
But before forever — back in the 1970s! — she wrote about rock and roll. I was a paperboy for the Post for most of the decade, and I remember sitting on my stacks of Sunday papers before delivering 'em one morning in August 1978 and reading her feature story on the front of the Show section about Bruce Springsteen.
Eve had gone to a Michigan show and written about the experience. She made it all seem so exciting.
Springsteen was going to make his first Capital Centre appearance a couple days later (tickets were $8.80, he didn't sell out), after a long, post-"Born to Run," litigation-inspired hiatus from performing. And I was going to see him for the first time.
Springsteen was my Jonas Brothers back then, and up-to-date intelligence on your favorite rock stars was tough to come by. I saved Eve's story, and still have it, brown and tattered.
If any article meant more to me before or since, I can't think of it.
11:33 pm
You must have not read her since then. If you did, you would join the rest of us as seeing her as perhaps the biggest hack at the Post. She won't be missed.
11:01 am
Bob:
why so mean? if the Pope's still here, find him and confess and get it all out. eve zibart is my hero forever...
10:37 am
As hundreds of thousands of people know throughout the region and even in journalism nationwide, Eve Zibart is not and has never, ever, been a "hack." As Dave mentioned, for years she covered rock for the Post in a straightforward, intelligent, entertaining manner. And she's done great with her similarly straightforward, intelligent and entertaining food pieces for the great Weekend section. We should all give great kudos to Eve and to the great Richard Harrington, who is also retiring from the Post. Richard, point blank, is just one of the best popular music writers in the United States, and his prose will also be missed. Anyone who thinks otherwise about Richard and Eve doesn't know what the heck they're talking about.
--Matt Neufeld.
12:33 pm
Matt:
by singling out eve zibart, I surely didn't mean to slight the legendary Richard Harrington, who reportedly also has taken the Washington Post's latest buyout.
now that I think about it, I'd bet I've read more Richard Harrington stories than any other writer's ever ever ever. I also think that Richard's gonna keep writing about rock and roll til he drops, and that I'll keep seeing him out at shows.
Thanks for your thoughts.
2:32 pm
I still miss the rock and roll writings of Eve Zibart. With her departure, and that of her colleague, the legendary Richard Harrington, The Post will be sucking wind for a while.