Posts Tagged ‘Washington Post’
The Friday Limerick Review
Today we introduce Hannah Neprash of districtlimerick.com, who will write regularly on D.C. news and politics—in limerick form.
Election week left some aghast
From last year, the difference was vast
A bell-weather? nope
Creigh Deeds had no hope
Before the first ballot was cast
The hearing for marriage rights raged
The witnesses—they got engaged
To make Council swoon
Could be a real boon
Who cares if it felt a bit staged
Final Thoughts on Allen v. Roig-Franzia
Last Friday, two Washington Post journalists got into a fistfight about their work. Longtime writer and editor Henry Allen dissed a piece by staff writer Manuel Roig-Franzia, whereupon Roig-Franzia referred to Allen as a “cocksucker.” Allen responded with blows.
Cheap Seats Daily: David Donovan, Snyder’s Latest Newspaper Hater, Was a Paperboy?
For all his media hatred, Dan Snyder stuffs his staff with media people. Karl Swanson was in newspapers. Larry Michael was a radio executive. Even Vinny Cerrato came back to the team after a stint at ESPN, where he spent a season in exile after being banished by Marty Schottenheimer (who looks more like Vince Lombardi every season for what he accomplished here.)
Turns out the latest attack dog added to Snyder’s pack, David Donovan, fits the pattern. Donovan’s complete lack of respect for the media or the truth or both comes out every time he talks to a reporter these days. For but one example of Donovan’s outlook: He’s the guy who told the Washington Post a couple weeks ago that Redskins officials “don’t see any difference” in “the way our actual fans are behaving” this season.
But, there was a time when Donovan was way into newspapering. It was all spelled out in a 2007 feature story in the Daily Times Herald of Carroll, Iowa, his hometown, to honor the local boy made good when he took the job as General Counsel with the Redskins.
Make that the local paperboy made good.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Iowa State gave DC David Donovan AND Vinny Cerrato? What did DC ever do to Iowa State to deserve that? Why did David Donovan join the dark side leave journalism? Snyder’s media appearance starting to smell fishy? Ripken statue stolen by guy named Stoneburner who hangs out with a bunch of stoneburners?)
Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: David Donovan, Snyder’s Latest Newspaper Hater, Was a Paperboy?” »
Morning Roundup: New Cell-Phone OS vs. Father of Modern Anthropology Edition
Real Talk With Andrew Beaujon™: What is weighing on you most heavily this morning: The death of Claude Lévi-Strauss…or the impending release of DROID?
If you picked DROID, keep reading!
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Allen v. Roig-Franzia Fisticuffs: The Movie
Did anyone actually end up writhing on the floor? Where did Allen connect? Was there any shoving involved? How quickly did Brauchli get to the scene of the crime?
Hit play and find out!
Allen v. Roig-Franzia: From the Beginning
When one man hauls off and punches another in the face, the conflict often has a long-tailed provenance. Such appears to be the case with Washington Post Style section staffers Manuel Roig-Franzia and Henry Allen. Those two got into a tussle on Friday afternoon in the vicinity of Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli’s temporary office on the 4th floor of the Washington Post building at 15th and L Streets NW.
Let’s mark the start of hostilities as mid-week. That’s when, according to an informed source, Allen raised questions about a Roig-Franzia story about a woman who had undergone multiple abortions. In the back and forth, Roig-Franzia allegedly called Allen a “dick.” No punches were thrown.
Weekend in Review
Well, it took a few days, but the opinionmakers over at the Washington Post came up with some impressions on how D.C. public schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee handled herself at a pivotal Thursday hearing before the D.C. Council. Here’s the WaPo editorial board, which hardly interrupts its yearslong standing ovation of the Rhee regime:
Read More “Weekend in Review” »
Our Morning Roundup: Chuck Lane Strikes Back
Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to Freedom Friday! Today’s topic: Chuck Lane, former editor of the The New Republic and promoter of the conventional wisdom on the editorial pages of the Washington Post. For those of you who missed last week’s FF, I said some not nice things to Chuck. Why did I say those things? Because Chuck Lane was acting like a dick.
Cheap Seats Daily: Will ‘Dumb’ and ‘Dumber’ Shirts Be Allowed at Snyder’s ‘Night of Quarterbacks’?
In case you missed it: Rocken Rollen Stewart, who showed up at televised sporting events carrying a “John 3:16″ sign throughout the 1980s, had his sign removed from a Redskins game at RFK in 1984. So he sued.
And he won. But it took eight years before Stewart was told by the courts he could carry his sign into the stadium here.
Times and venues have changed. It’s unclear if Rockin’ Rollen’s case will help victims of the Redskins latest purge. Will somebody who had their poster taken please sue Dan Snyder so we can find out?
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Also, for the eating-disorder-looking print edition, I squeezed BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ for a few more drops. Completists will want this umpteenth revisitation upon the same story so they can see the only appearance of “oral-fecal” in a sentence. Kind of like getting the repackaged Elvis Costello’s Greatest Hits every three years, just for the remixed-again version of “Mystery Dance.”
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David Alperin checks in with some more Dan Snyder weirdness.
Alperin was the first guy to tell me that Snyder changed the sign policy at FedExField. Before the Tampa Bay game, stadium guards confiscated a sign he made saying “Love the Redskins, Hate the Owner.”
(AFTER THE JUMP: Fake cheering at FedEx? You’re going to use “Douchewellian” again? AND the trademark sign? El Al disputes charges that its security is as Douchewellian as Dan Snyder’s? You’re going to promote the Great Dan Steinberg again? GEICO signs good, Snyder Sucks signs bad? Why would anybody go to Snyder’s “Night of the Quarterbacks”? Brett Haber plays the feud with his former boss?)
Cheap Seats Daily: Snyder Overstepped Legal Authority While Suppressing Fanimosity?
When the Great Dan Steinberg ran photos of the fanimosity at FedExField during the Tampa Bay game on his blog a few weeks ago, Dan Snyder told the paper to take the shots down. And the Washington Post complied quietly, removing the photos without any explanation to readers for the disappearance.
Snyder’s heavyhanded attempt at message killing, Douchewellian as it was, worked in the short term: The censorship of fans was treated as a non-story. (Well, OK: Almost a non-story.) And, as we’ve learned over time — Jeff George, Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith, etc… — Snyder only cares about the short term.
No doubt feeling empowered after the Post’s appeasement, Snyder’s behavior had grown insane by Monday’s game with the Eagles. And the once-burned Steinberg, who now buys tickets to the Redskins games to avoid the team’s new restrictions on his reporting, became a war reporter. He embedded himself with the insurgents that night, and has continued telling their tales.
The results have been gripping.
(AFTER THE JUMP: The lawyer who whupped the Redskins on the pedestrian ban thinks fans might have some more cases against Snyder? The Redskins have lost federal freedom of speech cases in the past? One small typo for a columnist, one giant slur of Dan Snyder’s legacy? Agent Zero is No. 1? The Wizards peak?)
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Our Morning Roundup: Marijuana Is so Going to Be Legal One of These Days Despite Hacks Like Charles Lane Edition
Good morning City Desk readers, and welcome to the dawn of a new era of freedom (Friday!). This week, the Justice Department announced that medical marijuana–and the people who sell it through dispensaries and the people who smoke it with a scrip–is no longer one of its concerns.
Do I want to be elated? You betcha. But then I had a total downer moment this morning, courtesy of the Washington Post’s Charles Lane. In a post titled “‘Medical Marijuana’ Is a Trojan Horse,” Lane argues that weed has very few medicinal properties and that we’re all just using it for recreation, and that that’s wrong because it’s not honest.
Then he compares the medical case for marijuana to the scientific case for creationism.
Cheap Seats Daily: Will the Third Coming of Joe Gibbs Keep You from Wearing a Bag?
In case you missed it: For the malnourished print edition, now available in several dozen boxes around the metroplex, I reminisce about the Day Dan Snyder Tried Crushing the Message.
Redskins security seized anti-Snyder paraphernalia at the FedExField gates before the Tampa Bay game a few weeks ago, without any honorable explanation for the seizures. The guards’ heavy-handed tactics kept shots of bags on people’s heads and “Snyder Sucks!” posters off the Fox airwaves for a few hours on that Sunday afternoon, but Snyder’s strategy has otherwise totally backfired. Those whose agit-prop props were taken by Snyder’s jack-booted thugs or otherwise censored got really motivated, and are now among the leaders of some very organized campaigns to demonstrate against the Dan Snyder Administration on a much bigger stage: “Monday Night Football.”
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The Third Coming? Mike Florio, the one-man TMZ of the NFL, rumors that Joe Gibbs will return to the Redskins to save Dan Snyder again.
The Gibbs rumors might take some steam off Snyder for yesterday’s Steve Largent blasts. Largent, a former U.S. Congressman (awesome trivia about Largent: he lost his last election because Oklahoma voters were outraged by his stance against… cockfighting!), told a Seattle radio audience that Snyder is humiliating his buddy and onetime Seahawks teammate simply to avoid paying him the $6 million remaining on the head coach’s contract. Largent says Zorn told him that Skins officials, presumably meaning either Vinny Cerrato or/and Dan Snyder, tried bullying Zorn into quitting by waving a copy of his contract in his face, and repeating the clauses that state that wholesale subservience is required or the team can fire him for cause. That sounds unbelievable, unless you’ve heard several dozen similar accounts of bizarre and mean behavior from Snyder from former employees.
Snyder was seen yesterday at practice talking to Zorn. Standing side by side, Snyder came up to Zorn’s sternum. You know Zorn would like to go to the top of the boss’ head with an elbow drop. But in his press conference after practice, Zorn simply said, “I have to hold back on any feelings.”
God god. Forget a new set of eyes. Jim Zorn needs to grow a new set of balls.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Doc Walker puts a happy face on Skins’ budding playcalling disaster? Sherm Lewis looks like Chief Zee without the headgear? Sam Elliott shills for horse racing? Horse racing leads to domestic bliss? Where’s Karl Swanson when you need him?)
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Bill Walsh, Still Respecting Sherm Lewis
Bill Walsh, the “genius” football coach of the San Francisco 49ers, died in July 2007. He’d had an amazing career, turning the 49ers from the worst record in the NFL to the best in just three seasons (1979-1981). That, plus numerous other accomplishments immortalized Walsh as one of the game’s greats.
Yet not quite as immortal as a photo caption in today’s Washington Post suggests. Sitting under a photo accompanying a column by Michael Wilbon on the merits of new Redskins play caller Sherm Lewis, the caption reads:
“Top coaches like Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren respect the Redskins’ Sherman Lewis, who was a successful offensive assistant with them.” (Emphasis added.)
Creative Commons photo courtesy of Kevin Severud
Cheap Seats Daily: Even Bobby Beathard Goes After Dan Snyder?
I’m hearing that yesterday ESPN jumped on the BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ bandwagon with a story of its own. I knew this was viral…
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You don’t need to read the Washington Post;s redesigned weather page to forecast the perfect shitstorm that is heading for Raljon on Monday evening.
The rest of the paper has all the evidence. There’s no section of the Post that doesn’t hold horrible news for Dan Snyder.
Mike Wise fills up the front page of Style with a profile of The Man Who Would Be Snyder, John Kent Cooke.
Some of the bitterness from Cooke, whose birthright to become owner of the Redskins was never exercised:
“Dan Snyder destroyed the reputation of this franchise,” Cooke said. “I sure as hell don’t like the way he gutted the organization after we left. And he commercialized the Redskins like my father would have never commercialized the Redskins. People brought cushions and pennants to the games. You know how they got those? My father gave them out at fan appreciation days.”
Cooke also took issue with recent controversy over tickets. “Suing season ticket holders?” he said, incredulously. “My God, it’s embarrassing. We would have never done such a thing.”
(AFTER THE JUMP: Mike Wise dusts off Bobby Beathard to throw some jabs at Snyder? The Post’s Business section tells readers that Snyder’s a lousy businessman, just for the hell of it? The bingo caller line, again? The bingo caller last called plays for the Detroit Lions? How much would you have to get paid to go to a Redskins game? Eastern gets its first and last win? )
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Washington Post Discovers Facebook, Again.
Good on Bsom, who today faithfully noted that page A1 of the Washington Post features yet another Facebook story. That’s the 15th time Facebook has claimed this turf, by Bsom’s count. He’s got all the links to back it up, too.
Creative Commons photo courtesy of Jacob Botter
