With all of the changes happening in journalism, it seems to be a good time to opine and report about the media. Plenty of blogs and bloggers do so brilliantly, but so do a few hearty souls in traditional outlets. A quick brainstorm session brought forth a list of high-profile names: Romenesko and Beaujon, yes. But also, The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz, NYU's Jay Rosen, the Maynard Institute's Richard Prince, plus four more City Paper alumni: Reuter's Jack Shafer, the New York Times' David Carr, former New York Observer media beatster Tom Scocca (now at Deadspin) and the Post's Erik Wemple.

Aside from Prince, all of these people are white men. It's generally accepted that diversity (geographical, economic, gender and race) bring differing perspectives to the newsroom and can enhance coverage. That's why journalism has been fighting (and some could say, losing) a battle for greater diversity for decades.

Beaujon has a theory for why white men are so prevalent in the field: "Media criticism, which is a fly-in-the-soup job, is fundamentally an alt-weekly pursuit, and alt-weeklies' DNA is heavily white and male. In turn, I have a couple theories about that, but my working one is that it's because working at such places gives white males such as myself a chance to feel like an underdog for once in our lives."

I think he's onto something. Alt-weeklies—including the one you're reading right now—are super white. And this particular alt-weekly has at various points employed half of the critics listed. (Maybe the real problem is diversity at City Paper? Hmm.)

At any rate, reporting on longtime acquaintances, colleagues, and even friends, can be a pretty rough business no matter what your demographic background. A willingness to be frequently unpopular—something all journalists have to learn to deal with, though usually not within their cohort—is definitely part of the description.

But maybe more importantly, the ability to criticize probably comes a bit easier for folks who don't ever have the question, "Should I even be here?" hanging over their heads as they look around a room and don't see anyone who looks like them. To that end, it seems highly unlikely that media criticism will diversify until newsrooms do.

The whole thing appears to have started with a post on Fishbowl by intern Alec Jacobs that, in turn, was about a post by TBD writer (and another former City Paper staffer) Amanda Hess. So if you're scoring at home, yes, this item you're reading is a blog post about a series of Twitter posts about a media gossip post about a post about the Oscars.

Assuming the various levels of recursive pointlessness involved here haven't scared you off, here is our dramatic reenactment of the Twitter fight:

A transcript is below the jump. (Note: We were inspired to make this movie by this Deadspin post.)

@FishbowlDC: Abeaujon: Stop picking on an intern. WTF is your problem? And you have no idea what you're talking about. We should pinch you.

@FishbowlDC: P.S. Not that @alecjacobs can't handle you, he can. He can eat you for breakfast. Or, er, pinch you. [Insert laughter here Beaujon]

@FishbowlDC: @abeaujon: And pls. You're counseling our intern on what is "playful" touching? You sound like someone I wouldn't want in my neighborhood.

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC Betsy, I assure you, I wouldn't want to be in your neighborhood either!

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC (metaphorically, of course; I'm sure where you live is very nice!)

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon Good then we'll never move in together. Great. In the meantime, you can talk all the stupid you want to our intern @alecjacobs.

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC He did do a great job of talking stupid. I look forward to more of it!

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon Fact is, you counseling our intern on appropriate touching just sounds plain creepy.

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon He did a great job with the item. Considering how ridiculous your colleague's story was. That was the point. Get it?

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC Now we're coming full circle. His post was about @amandahess saying a touch was creepy! Love you, love your work, don't stop.

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon This is your prob, Andrew. You arguments make no sense. We're not full circle to anything except that you should get pinched.

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC I'm pinching myself that you're talking with me! Really, it makes every day like spring.

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon Ahhh...too bad feeling isn't mutual. Keep pinching yourself though... a good start to getting real insight.

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC I think my real problem is how much smarter than me both of you are.

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon Well, there's no test on who is smarter, but between the two of us we could pinch the hell out of you. Think of it as a service.

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC Betsy, I'd fail that test against you any day. I'm sure most people who read both of us would agree. You arguments make sense.

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon You'd fail a pinching test? I think we might kill each other if together for too long.

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon And really, I don't think many people really read us both. We are very different, Andrew. Is that not clear enough yet?

@ABeaujon: @FishbowlDC It's clear.

@FishbowlDC: .@abeaujon Good.

Does this picture make you sad? I call it Last Robin of Spring

One time in an edit meeting, Erik Wemple said I'd make a terrible profile subject. Drawing a line on a piece of paper, he put me at one end and Jonathan Rees at the other. Rees was too nuts, he said (paraphrasing here) and I was too boring. The ideal City Paper subject, he posited, straddled the center of this continuum. He was right about all three things, so I'll try to keep this goodbye brief.

This is the best job I've ever had. I choose that superlative carefully. Here, I've been privileged to work with the best reporters and critics, the best photographer, the best co-workers, and the best stories I've ever known. I came here from magazines, where fact-checkers sweep up behind writers whose primary talent is being good at parties. I took my first correction not long after landing and realized I had learned next to nothing about journalism in the previous decade. The joy of this job isn't turning out product reviews between languid lunches, it's telling stories well and getting the details right, week after week, day after day.

Here I learned to despise trend pieces and Q&As, but more important I learned that often the best way to tell a big story is through a small one. I learned that puns don't work as headlines on the Internet (just try searching for an old District Line EVEN IF you know the jokey hed! (e.g.: 1, 2). And I learned the importance of chronicling crushed dreams.

Like this one! After City Paper was purchased by Creative Loafing in July 2007, it became a different place. We lost half of our staff to budget cuts, and those and the recession let the air out of many of the paper's cherished traditions–great copy-editing and general-assignment writers, for example. For a while, we mourned. Then we started finding the humor in the situation (some people never got the joke, which to me is the hallmark of a good City Paper comedy piece). Then we tried to figure out what we could do well given the circumstances. Results have been mixed, but Internet-wise, I'm proud of where we stand in relation to our early attempts.

I'm going to miss this project, you know, the one where we keep trying to figure out how to inject the alt-weekly DNA into what's now a daily, vertical-driven publication. And I'll miss the bike commute (new office is too close to my house). But mostly I'm gonna miss the people I worked with, even the ones who sometimes made me bash my head into my screen. For all of you, here's another anecdote from a meeting: In a plenary session, one person who has managed this company said that life was like a crap sandwich. The more bread you have, he said, the less crap you have to eat. I wish my coworkers, their sharp new editor, and the people on our business side nothing but bread.

I will stay in touch with them, but it'll be harder to stay in touch with the readers, who I love in a way that may not always be apparent to those of you who've called to yell at me. (Except the guy who screamed for 27 minutes and threatened to "expose" me after I said I didn't know why our receptionist had trouble transferring me his call: You, pal, can kiss my ass.) Now I'm gonna become one of you, which is more comfort than one usually gets in a goodbye. I'll miss the view from this side of the WordPress interface, but I can't wait to see what the people with the best job in the world do next.

Life is coming full circle for best-selling author Michael Schaffer. "The first story I wrote at Washington City Paper, I was living with my parents at the time," he says. "I think I'll be staying with them again during this transition, although I better ask them first."

The 36-year-old D.C. native and City Paper alum, currently living in Philadelphia, was named the paper's new editor on Monday. (Schaffer and his family will be moving back to the D.C. area as soon as he can find a place, or gets sick of riding Megabus, or whichever comes first.)

"I'm sort of over the moon right now," Schaffer tells City Desk. "City Paper was the first job I ever had and the most fun I've ever had at a job. I cherish the place."

His appointment plugs a nagging gap at the top of the masthead left by former editor Erik Wemple's departure in March.

Schaffer, who previously worked as a reporter and senior editor at the paper from 1997 to 2000 (before slumming it at U.S. News & World Report and, later, the Philadelphia Inquirer), met with editorial staffers over lunch last week, a powwow he described as encouraging.

Schaffer says one early priority will be filling some of the holes caused by a spate of previously announced staff departures, including several City Paper stalwarts, such as managing editor Andrew Beaujon, senior writer Jason Cherkis and Loose Lips columnist Mike DeBonis.

"A lot of really good people," Schaffer says. "But I also see it as an opportunity to bring on board some people who I feel comfortable with, and who the staff feel comfortable with ... who have strengths that I might not have."

In accepting the post, Schaffer will be taking the reins of an almost entirely different beast than the one he left a decade ago. But he's just fine with that.

"In my life, I tend to not believe in going back," Schaffer says. "One of the things that is most exciting to me about it is, even though it is still Washington City Paper and some things are the same, a lot is really different and it's a very different organization that I'm taking over. It's a multi-platform media organization. I'm not one of these nostaglic people who's trapped in the Why Can't Everything Be Just Like It Was in 1984 kind of mentality. I'm really keen on making the paper, as well as the web site, as excellent as they can be."

Herewith, the official press release from company headquarters:

Washington City Paper Welcomes Noted Journalist Home As Editor

(April 26, 2010, Washington, DC) – Michael Schaffer, a DC native, best-selling author, and an editor and writer whose assignments have taken him from Afghanistan to Adams Morgan, has been named editor of the Washington City Paper.

City Paper Publisher Amy Austin, in announcing Schaffer's appointment, called attention to his previous experience in Washington, including three and a half years at the City Paper as a reporter and senior editor from 1997 to 2000.

"Michael honed his journalistic talent at City Paper and then went on to further develop his skills at US News & World Report and the Philadelphia Inquirer," Austin said. "We are so pleased to welcome him home as our editor."

As editor, Schaffer will have overall responsibility for the content of the Washington City Paper, one of the nation's best known urban weeklies, and its website. The City Paper was founded in 1981 as an alternative to the traditional press. It focuses its coverage on life and politics in the nation's capital.

Last year, Schaffer's first book, "One Nation Under Dog," a critically acclaimed examination of America's mania for pets, was published by Henry Holt & Co. Schaffer spent two years on the project, which combines investigative reporting, narrative journalism, and cultural history.

Previously, Schaffer spent four years as a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer. In addition to coverage of local politics and corruption, he covered the 2004 Presidential election and spent time in Iraq. Knight-Ridder Newspapers recognized his Iraq coverage with the James K. Batten Excellence Award in 2003

Schaffer joined the Inquirer from US News, where he served on the national and world news staff from 2000 to 2002. He was dispatched to Pakistan for the fall of 2001, and also reported from a dozen US states, covering the 2000 Florida recount, poverty issues, and scandals in the Catholic Church.

Schaffer's freelance work has appeared in Slate, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, The Washington Monthly, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, New York Press, Obituary Magazine, Philadelphia, and Men's Journal.

"I grew up reading City Paper, and later got my first job in journalism there," Schaffer said. "Back then, we printed a paper weekly; now, we also update a website 24/7. I'm incredibly excited about tackling the new media landscape while using the values I learned here at the start of my career: Curiosity, fearlessness, humor, and a deep knowledge of the city we call home."

###

Washington City Paper is one of six of America's leading urban weeklies owned by CL Inc. The group also includes the Chicago Reader, Creative Loafing Atlanta, Creative Loafing Tampa, Creative Loafing Charlotte, and Creative Loafing Sarasota. CL Inc.'s holdings also include websites associated with those newspaper properties, the Straight Dope (straightdope.com) and Listen.com sites, and the Digital Advertising Network.

Photo by Ryan Donnell

If you missed our item yesterday on post-snowstorm parking spot hogging—the one with that photograph of the handmade sign promising that anyone who parks in the signmaker's spot better have a "good spare"—check it out.

According to one commenter on that post, some genius was selling "reclaimed" chairs from parking spots on Craigslist yesterday, for $10 a pop. City Desk has not confirmed this, but if you bought an Ikea chair that way for that price yesterday, you now know where it came from. "Unfortunately, the listing has been removed, but it was priceless," wrote Chickenbot. "The person said they were doing a 'public service.'"

Speaking of dumb stuff to say or do, here's another suggestion, from the supersnippy Hill East listserv (I thought my neighborhood listserv was bad!), on how to deal with the parking spot hoggers: "Anybody who saves a space should get the electric chair." Wow, what a good idea!

There will be more pictures on City Desk today of neighborly signs left on cars, so stay tuned for that.

With apologies to City Paper Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon, who fawned in this space yesterday over "Lindsey Vonn! Lindsey Vonn!", it must be reported that Lindsey Vonn! Lindsey Vonn! crashed on her slalom run, did not finish, and, to that end, did not win another gold. Perhaps that would have been too much for Andrew anyway. Had Lindsey Vonn! Lindsey Vonn! won more ore, I mean.

In other news, Gordon Lightfoot is not dead. I didn't even know that he was dead, before I found that he wasn't dead, but there you go. He's not. The Edmonton Journal's original story—now "no longer available"—cited "sources close to the singer." They must not be that close. Canadians! Eh!

Also, the Tiger Woods Rehabilitation Tour (the Post's Paul Fahri made that phrase up) begins today. Don't miss it. Friday is always a good day to start a rehabilitation. Take note, Marion Barry.

Public domain photo of Lindsey Vonn! Lindsey Vonn! by Gerwig Loffelholz

But what I really want to talk about is how today is the Busiest Travel Day of the Year. You may never have heard this, even though it happens every year. It means lots and lots of people will be going from one undisclosed location to another in cars, planes, trains, and possibly even buses. (City Paper Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon gave the Bolt bus a good review the other day, which I'm sure has already affected sales.)

The Washington Post was way ahead of this whole Thanksgiving travel story, reporting already last Saturday on some cold, hard stats. Some 978,000 people in the Washington area—about 16 percent—plan to travel more than 50 miles over the holiday stretch, according to AAA. Some 824,000 of those intend to drive. I suspect it may feel later today like all of them are on the Beltway, so I'm really looking forward to that!

Anyway, that's a 3.6 percent increase in local travelers from last year. So people must either really want to see their families, or they think the table spread is going to be better this year. (Haven't they heard about the canned pumpkin shortage? I reported on it in last Friday's Morning Roundup.)

Lon Anderson, spokesperson for AAA Mid-Atlantic, gets extra points for working a reference to pilgrims (small p) in to his quote to the Post: "When it comes to traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it appears that we are still a nation of pilgrims, and that's especially true of Washingtonians." (Perhaps I appreciate this more than the average person: I am practically one of the original Pilgrims myself! I grew up in Massachusetts near historic Plymouth Rock, the most visited rock in New England! Actually, the rock is puny and lame, and the Pilgrims probably never set foot on it. But whatever.)

This morning, on WTOP, I heard more Thanksgiving travel coverage. The station sent a reporter to Reagan National Airport to interview people about how they're going to travel, because that's really interesting. For instance, I learned that one woman is going to go somewhere to eat turkey, fried chicken, ham, greens, corn bread, and other items. I can't remember if she mentioned pumpkin pie. See, there's a shortage!

By the way, if you take away anything from this roundup, it should be this: Be thankful for stuff. Research says it's good for you.

So go be thankful! And catch up with me on Twitter!

Bottom line: Cheap Seats Daily's hype of Dim WitsGate™ is validated!

From all the hate going Henson's way on Sunday's postgame shows on local sportstalk stations, I was certain this was going to develop into the biggest Redskins controversy ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media. Or at least one of the biggest Redskins controversies ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media.

And now it's on the front page!

Also, it's always nice to see former longtime DC resident the Great Dan Steinberg, the Woodward & Bernstein of Dim WitsGate™, on A1.

(Full disclosure: I still have my 35-year-old "Nixon Resigns" issue of the Washington Post in my paperboy bag in the basement. I'll get 'em out for Halloween. Hence the "-Gate" fetish...)

***

There they go again. Dan Snyder is using his web site to go to war with the Washington Post.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Is Henson being used to take heat off the real Redskins villains? Pravda's Ashburn bureau strikes again? How would you copy-edit multiple Twitters? Leonard Shapiro now using out-of-town newspapers to blast Dan Snyder? The NFL's blackout policy is as big a sham as the Skins waiting list?)

"Robert Henson did not get on the field on Sunday," read the faux news article written by Skins PR man Gary Fitzgerald and posted yesterday on Redskins.com, "but somehow he’s the talk of the town and strangely enough he’s a big headline in The Washington Post...Henson’s apologies on Twitter and in his Monday media session–as well as Zorn's comments on the young linebacker–were not fully included in a Tuesday story in The Washington Post. The article focused more on the mistake and not the contrition."

I pity the tool who had to put a byline on that.

If the organization hadn't already proven it can't do anything right PR-wise, I'd be wondering if this whole Post-bashing exercise wasn't a ploy to deflect the media's attention away from Jim Zorn, Dan Snyder, Jason Campbell, Vinny Cerrato, and the parking and tailgating fiasco at FedExField.

They'd all be getting more play, and taking a bigger beating, if Henson wasn't all thumbs.

***

For those not obsessed with the Redskins off-field soap opera, Steinberg's A1 story had an interesting copy-editing situation, if that ain't oxymoronical. Here's how some of Robert Henson's Twitter ramblings appeared in the Post:

"No I didn't play but I still made more than you in a year and you'd [gladly] switch spots with me in a second," Henson wrote during a string of responses. "I was talking to the fans [who] said the crazy stuff, I'm use [to heckling] but I've never been booed in my own stadium. Again that was for the half hearted but if everyone wants to jump in come on. The question is who are you to say you know what's best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at Mcdonalds [sic]. You don't wanna follow me anymore then fine but we play for you and win lose or draw we represent you!! My guy on the Rams said they never got booed even when they didn't win a game."

That paragraph was made up of more than one of Henson's Twitters, yet was treated as a single quote.

I've never come across this situation before, and I'm guessing AP Style hasn't yet weighed in on how to treat multiple Twitters. So this is a time for Post copy editors to leave a lasting mark on their craft. I'm going to have to stare at my WWABD bracelet ("What Would Andrew Beaujon Do?") before I decide if this is correct copyediting or not.

***

Leonard Shapiro had to go to Miami to run this story blasting Dan Snyder as the worst owner in the NFL. I can't find it locally. Why didn't the Washington Post run it?

***

Now that everybody but the crazies accepts that Dan Snyder's season tickets waiting list is bogus and has been bogus for years, I wish somebody would expose the NFL's blackout policy as a similar fraud.

All you need to know: The Skins home games ain't sold out — the team was selling general admission tickets for the Rams game through email blasts all week — yet the games are on TV.

Case closed. Shut up.

Obviously, the NFL owners have as much motivation to enforce the blackout rule as they do to enforce the steroids prohibition.

Oh, right: Only baseball players and cyclists are dopers!

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

For the second year in a row, contributor Jeffry Cudlin won the arts criticism category for his work, which this year included the following: "Pine of the Times" about the Martin Puryear retrospective at the National Gallery of Art, "Sheet Smart" about the Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit at the Phillips Collection, and "Pain by Numbers," a wrap-up of what D.C. museums did and didn't offer in 2008.

Editor Erik Wemple won first place for media reporting/criticism with his cover story "One Mission, Two Newsrooms" about the Washington Post's struggle to bridge the cultural and geographic divide between its print and online operations.

In the elusive "innovation/format buster" category, the cover story some loved and others hated—"Washington City Paper Files for Chapter 86 Content Bankruptcy"— also took home first-place honors. The piece by Wemple, Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon, and Asst. Managing Editor Jule Banville was written and presented in the form of a legal document spoofing both the changing nature of City Paper's journalism and and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by our paper's owners, Creative Loafing.

Creative Loafing's Atlanta paper received second-place honors in the feature category for the first-person account, "Sober," by Thomas Wheatley. The Chicago Reader, also our sister paper, received two second-place awards. Ann Ford was so honored in the arts feature category for "Life Without a Script" and columnist Ben Jarovsky's "The Works" was named in the column (political) category

The AAN Awards are open to its 130 member papers. Most of the altweeklies in U.S. cities (plus a few in Canada) enter the contest each year. This year, the top all-time AAN Award winner, the L.A. Weekly, led the pack with four first-place awards. In the 14-year history of the awards, Washington City Paper has won the second-most overall awards in the top-circulation categories: 51.

The Association for Alternative Newsweeklies announced finalists for its annual prizes today, selecting Washington City Paper as a top contender in four categories: Photography, Arts Criticism, Media Reporting/Criticism, and Innovation/Format Buster.

Staff photographer Darrow Montgomery, who's been shooting for City Paper for 23 years, is among the top three entries for the highest circulation category (50,000 and over). This is the fourth time Montgomery will be honored by AAN. He was given honorable mention for his work in the 2008 awards.

Galleries writer Jeffry Cudlin, who won the top prize for arts criticism last year, was again named a finalist for 2009.

Editor Erik Wemple was named in two categories. His cover story about the Washington Post's struggle to merge its print and online operations, "One Mission, Two Newsrooms," is a finalist in the Media Reporting/Criticism category.

Wemple also contributed to the finalist in the Innovation/Format Buster category, "Washington City Paper Seeks Content Bankruptcy," along with Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon and Asst. Managing Editor Jule Banville.

The Village Voice takes home the most nominations this year with nine. Our sister papers were also nominated. Creative Loafing Atlanta is a finalist for Feature Story for a first-person piece, "Sober," by Thomas Wheatley; the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky is a finalist in the Political Column category. Entries from 57 papers made the final cut. Winners will be announced at the annual AAN convention on Friday, June 26, in Tucson.

Only one other paper, LA Weekly, which has a grand total of 68 nominations, has received more AAN awards than Washington City Paper, which now has 51.

Finalists for the Blog category have not been announced.

Pictured: One of Darrow Montgomery's nominated photos, which appeared with Ruth Samuelson's cover story, "Truce and Consequences," about a turf war in Shaw.

Happy Wednesday, D.C.! You might remember City Paper's kind-of-a-big-deal Inauguration Photo Contest, whereby we elicited "dope" photographs from readers across the land. Two weeks later, we announced the winners. Recently, we even decided to send the winners their super-special swag, inspiring fourth-placer Aziz Y. to photograph his pooch in our delightful knit cap (above right). I think Beaujon's was more of a statement, natch (above left)—but hats off to Aziz and his BFF, regardless.

Newsier stuff below the jump.

*In (much) more somber canine news, the Post reports that a District Heights boy is in critical condition after being mauled by a pit bull yesterday morning. Prince George's County EMS said the boy's face and eye wounds are "not considered life-threatening." It's a sad story with a weird twist:

Officer Evan Baxter, a spokesman for Prince George's County police, said county animal control had taken custody of the pit bull. Any pit bulls born after Feb. 3, 1997, are illegal in Prince George's, Baxter said

Anyone know why that is?

*The New York Times has some admirable coverage of the man-trips-over-pet trend. Looks like dogs get the short leash on this one:

The data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that while we sometimes trip over our cats, dogs are the primary cause of pet-related falling accidents.

*Speaking of pooches, Farm Fresh Meat has some thoughts on the Washington Humane Society's fundraiser this past weekend. (His headline, "Val Kilmer To Save Cats And Dogs, Get Drunk," pretty much sums it up.)

*And in this very paper, Jason Cherkis has written an excellent cover story on the March 21 triple homicide in Northeast. Nothing to do with dogs, and definitely not an April fool's joke. Just damn good reporting.