Sports! We all watch them. And what a weekend it was for Washington’s teams. The Caps, holding onto their postseason life, and the Wiz showing again that they’re not in the same league with the Cavs. Even though they are.

*Wizznuttz–whaddaya say about this series? C’mon, it’s playoff time, yet you fellows can’t give me a weekend update? C’mon!

*On Frozen Blog has a great meditation on the woes of Flyer Mike Knuble and the implications for the rest of the Caps series, in which the home squad is down 3-2 heading into a big game on Monday night and then–locals hope–Tuesday night.

*WaPo draws a powerful link between the local econ and one of the most environmentally devastating practice of modern times–mountaintop mining. The fundamental: Washington needs more and more power, and more and more of it is coming from coal. The coal has to come from somewhere, and it often comes from mountains whose buzzcuts make them look like “Mars,” in the characterization of an environmental activist.

*Recycling feat of the weekend: Examiner puts story on its site about how burglaries are up 21 percent in the District. Credits and links to WTOP. Go to WTOP, and find that WTOP links to and credits the Washington Post, which actually did the journalism.

*Columnist Mike Wise makes a good point about the Wiz–until and unless Abe Pollin’s team actually wins a series against this “rival,” there’s no rivalry. Just a one-sided relationship of sorts.

*Check this out on the Washington Times site: Ollie North executes hit piece on Jimmy Carter.

Sure, there’s no such thing as bad press in the era of the hit-counter. But damn if it don’t hurt to be mocked on a site as grand as DCRTV.

“DC City Paper is out with its annual ‘best of’ issue. And it confirms that the weekly rag is pretty cluelessly brain dead about local TV and radio,” writes the heroic DCRTV Dave.

Ouchie. DCRTV-D goes on to rail against our failure to cite local personalities such as “Elliot, Geronimo, the Junks, Cerphe, Russ Parr, Chris Core” etc…

No defense here, DCRTV-D, though we have weighed in on your idol and sponsor Chris Core recently. Hope we don’t disappoint you so much next time around, DCRTV-D. And thanks for the hits.

I’ve done it. I’ve written the most cliché poem in the world. Waldo Jaquith, over on the Virginia Quarterly Review’s blog, tried to prove that writers of clichés don’t get published. He discovered the opposite. And in doing so, gave up a juicy list of 12 clichés rampant in (usually) bad, bad poetry. Put them all together, and you get the most publishable poem ever! The New Yorker, I’ll be waiting for your call:

In the water, there is death.
Blood stains a stone,
once the color of bone.
My poetry is dead as is my heart. Like that fish.
No more birth, only darkness,
its eyes the color of rust,
no longer fears the cat.

First Kentucky, next…America! Last week, Kentucky state legislator Tim Couch filed a bill to end anonymous internet comments. Here’s some more info from the local ABC News affiliate ACTION NEWS 46 WTVQ out of Lexington:

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weekend marked an end to a mid-winter Sunday slump for the Washington Post. Readable articles this time included:

*Definitive assessment of ravages of condo conversion trend. Sure, story’s a decade old, but still compelling.

*More immersion on the drama of the superdelegate votes for Hillary and Obama.

*The last word, hopefully, on Charlotte Allen’s idiotic piece on women and her editor’s craven pursuit of buzz.

*A solid piece by Liza Mundy on the true meaning of those marriage vows that you parroted without really thinking about.

*The Examiner’s prize bit of wire copy discusses bad water being used by the troops in Iraq.

*The Washington Times could have come up with a less duh headline than this one: “Pennsylvania demographics resemble Ohio”. Well, you don’t say.

*New York Times Mag–in the Money Issue–goes deep on the impact of celebs in advancing do-gooder causes worldwide.

The 10 most popular City Desk posts in February:
1. Washington Times “Scare Quotes” Are History

2. Chairman of the Bored

3. Photo of the Day, “Fuck You, Bill Belichick” Edition

4. Barnum & Bailey & Davis*

5. Morale Boost at the Post: A Game Room

6. Washington Post Staff Now Huddled With Publisher

7. LNS Makes a Literary Debut

8. The “O” in Obama Has Frosting and Sprinkles

9. Party Report: The Young and the Guest List

10. 2 Girls 1 Cup and 1 Slate Article**

*From January, but Lance fans/haters kept it hopping all month

**Also from January, but timelessness of subject prevailed

Thanks for reading all month, folks. CP staffers whose posts didn’t make the list: Be very afraid.

Pete Wentz: Statesman. Lover. Genius. But not Fall Out Boy’s lead singer.

Fishbowl NY reports out Maggie Shnayerson’s firing from Gawker, which I’m sure is a huge injustice, but the piece brings up something that drives me crazy. Here’s what Fishbowl quotes Shnayerson saying:

He’s pushing Gawker to its broadest conclusion — and this reduces its caché.

I think the word they’re looking for is cachet. Thing is, I see this misspelling everywhere (could it be because of the movie? this retailer?). But it’s not just as weird as the past participle of an already anglicized French word gaining currency—quite often, I see references to a caché or even a cachet of weapons. The word you want there is cache.

His inability to recognize critical genius aside, City Paper Arts Editor Mark Athitakis is one smart guy. Here’s an interview he did with the blog Tales From the Reading Room, in which he discusses blogs, how sweaty men brought him to journalism, and his bizarre, maybe even personal, hatred of Dave Eggers.

(Actually, his interview is completely safe for work. I’m just trying to up our page views. It’s part of my job.)

image swiped from Mediabistro

When I started working as a journalist (OK, as a paid intern), there was no Internet or e-mail, unless you count PINE, located at one terminal where you stood up to use it. At our giant, metal desks, we pounded out stories and briefs and obituaries on word processors. The future of newspapers meant an end to ashtrays in the newsroom. Or so I thought.

Read the rest of this entry »

While we wait for news on the Elijah Dukes–related press conference (Yo, Sheinin! Fewer Drive-By Truckers shoutouts, more live-bloggin’!), let’s catch up with the Nats bloggers.

• Hard not to lead with Capitol Punishment’s grab from the Washington Times‘ blog of Jim Bowden tooling (was ever a verb so apt?) around on a customized Nats Segway. “What’s amazing about the mode of transportation,” Chris Needham writes, “is that it makes you completely glance over the flowing mane… looks like someone’s been to Siegfried’s haidresser!”

  Well, it’s not calling him “leatherpantsboy,” at least. Or saying he looks like “A confused old man with a bad toupee wondering why the line at Denny’s is so long?” Larger point, though: “Is it any wonder that nobody takes us seriously?”

• Sworn City Paper adversary Dan Steinberg reports on Thomas Jefferson’s brown nose.
• Much talk lately about Bowden’s balloon signings of Odalis Perez and Bret Boone.

  Federal Baseball, easily the most detail-rich Nats blog, gives a good overview of Perez’s career and mentions only off-handedly that a certain group of bloggers may soon be COMPLETELY DEVASTATED.

Incidentally, I took a tour of the new Nats stadium this week and take back everything bad I ever thought about the stadium deal. Even the $5 seats are amazing.

UPDATE: Sheinin blogged the press conference. Elijah Dukes: once a “hard-headed guy” but now an “easy-going guy” and a “fun-loving guy.”

Today’s Style section includes a glowing read about newspaper-curmudgeon-turned-influential-blogger David Yepsen. In a telling anecdote, the story describes how the political columnist for the Des Moines Register fired up a blog on just what Hill needs to do to win the hearts and minds of Iowans and then his phone rang. “Senator,” he said. “Why are you calling me?” Well, shucks, Mr. Iowan journo fond of sweater vests, the most powerful woman in America just wants some advice. Can’t you help her out?

The piece describes another choice detail: Yepsen huddled with Clinton and her Iowa campaign director at dinner in a private room. No other press were invited.

Here’s another headline that ran in the Post: “Clinton Wins Key Endorsement. Des Moines Register Cites her ‘Readiness’ for the Presidency.”

Iowans have long relished their importance in picking the horses for the rest of us. Likewise, the Register has long relished its role as a perceived kingmaker. It’s even more important, then, that its reporters and columnists draw a clear line between being a critic and being an advisor. Sources try this trick with reporters they come to know all the time. They’ll call up a journo and elevate the relationship. Just between you and me, they’ll say: What would you do? This is followed by: I trust your opinion, bla, bla, bla.

It’s horse shit.

Yepsen should be ashamed by the Post story about him and his implied fawning over Clinton, especially in light of his paper’s endorsement of her. And the Post should have called him out on it. Giving advice to a candidate in a heated race while also covering that race isn’t a feather to replace the press card in your hatband. Stick to sweater vests, Yepsen, and leave the strategy to the people paid to do it.

If the Post has truly cracked the code of what works on newspaper blogs, well, we’ve been doing it wrong; see “What Doesn’t Work,” bullet point No. 1. But heaven knows a whole bunch of Post blogs are in violation of rule number four of the nine-point checklist, which says a blog must be updated once every weekday. (I’m looking at you, Post I.T.) If WaPo managers do start cracking the whip on the productivity end, I’d be happy to see more of Post Mortem, which is written by paper’s obituary writers.

Post Mortem is the only Post blog that I’ve been inspired to add to my RSS feedreader; I’m not particularly morbid, but I am an adherent to the argument that obits are often the best-written stories in the paper. (One of my all-time favorite ledes comes from this New York Times obit.) Mainly, I’m a sucker for the weird, picayune details that tend to emerge only on the death beat: the BLS staffer who Nixon accused of being part of a Jewish cabal; the Army lieutenant colonel who turned out to have a second career as a hotel pianist; and the always-hilarious dead person who isn’t actually dead.

A couple weeks back the blog tried to get itself moving more often by launching a daily roundup of obits. Alas, like many attempts to launch a regular feature on a blog, it’s, uh, dead.

With more than 50 blogs on its Web site, washingtonpost.com and their counterparts at the Washington Post have learned quite a bit about blogging. And lucky us, they’ve decided to package their collective wisdom in a single memo on this ever-evolving news art.

Here it is.