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.