In which Erik extols the unexpected joys of the Sunday Examiner and introduces a new fuego feature: the battle of the Spanish-language weeklies!

If you are a reporter with the cop beat, there is no story more loathsome than the cop-gets-transferred story. These stories are boring and usually filled with anonymous hand-wringing and inside-baseball org charts that in the end offer very little consequences for the average reader. The only people who care about police officials getting a transfer slip are other cops.

Write enough of these stories, and you will swear off the police beat. These stories will wreck you.

Bill Myers, a reporter for the Examiner, is the latest victim in the cop-transfer genre with his piece on Asst. Chief Winston Robinson’s taking over the police academy in Blue Plains. Myers was saddled with this grabber headline: “Assistant Police Chief Named To Head Academy.” Who the hell is going to read any further?

So Myers tried to juice his story with one ancient story and some dubious allegations that have gone unproven. What’s his lead graph?

“D.C. police Assistant Chief Winston Robinson has been on the job for nearly 40 years. His behavior has caused him trouble for nearly as long.”

I’m gonna call bullshit!

Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, we know, you’re still in a post-coital stupor over Obama’s victory last night, and all you want to hear are sweet nothings whispered in your ear about our country’s new love object/president-elect. But in a brilliant counter-intuitive editorial strategy, we at City Paper are following up the most historic election since 1876, when His Fraudulency stole the race, with our latest Food Issue. We think it’s better than a McCain presidency.

Inside this year’s issue, devoted to the fussier side of food, you’ll find:

• Jule Banville on whether the New York Times‘ ultimate chocolate chip cookie is worth the multi-day prep.
• Ruth Samuelson on diners with fake food allergies.
• Anne Marson on the fear and loathing of plastic bags at farmers markets.
• Mike DeBonis on the fussiest menus in the area.
• Darrow Montgomery and Jule Banville on the step-by-step process that food stylist Lisa Cherkasky follows to get a dish photo-ready.
• Me on a quest to find the area’s most obsessive chef.

It hits the stands and the Internet tomorrow.

The partners of EatWell DC, which own the Commissary on P Street NW, requested and got what they wanted following Washington Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsema’s harsh early look at their new Logan Circle eatery: They got the Post to retract the First Bite article, which was originally published on Wednesday in the Food Section and is still available on Mediabistro.com. And they got this nice mea culpa in the Sunday paper:

Critic Tom Sietsema should have recused himself from reviewing the Commissary, a restaurant featured in the Oct. 29 Food section. He and one of the restaurant’s owners had earlier had a personal relationship. The Washington Post regrets that he reviewed this restaurant, and will remove the review from its online archive.

When contacted on Monday, EatWell DC managing partner David Winer said he didn’t want to comment any further on the matter. “I can’t be party in the destruction of another human being,” Winer said during our brief phone conversation. He said he had hoped to keep this ugly situation out of the media, which is why he didn’t send me (or other members of the local food media) the letter that he e-mailed to the 5,000 members of the EatWell DC mailing list. I told him that I had received a copy of the letter and would run it. Winer agreed that, at this point, the letter was essentially a public document. It runs below the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Palin can’t name a single publication—newspaper or magazine—that she reads regularly. Watch:

This week’s episode is a veritable gauntlet, as Erik takes on the Post’s “Sunday Source,” sexist sports editing, overly rhapsodic weather reporting, and the Washingtonian—whose wretched T.O.C. proves disastrous for Erik’s central nervous system.

Oy!

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.