Posts Tagged ‘Washington Times’
Vincent Gray Calls Misconduct Allegations ‘Clearly Political’
D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray this afternoon described the motivation behind a pair of stories alleging improprieties on his part as being "clearly political."
The first, and more serious, story was penned by Jeffrey Anderson in this morning's Washington Times. It detailed various small jobs done on Gray's home by William C. Smith & Co., the politically powerful local development company. The second, a Washington Post story by Tim Craig, involved his use of council stationery to ask Comcast for a $20,000 donation to the local delegation to the Democratic State Committee. Gray addressed the controversies in an afternoon appearance on NewsChannel 8's NewsTalk With Bruce DePuyt.
Regarding the DNC allegations, Gray made the case that the fundraising effort was focused on voting-rights awareness, and thus kosher. Given that the check benefited local Democrats attending a political convention, it's awfully questionable distinction to make. But he gets points for this realization: "'If I had to do it over again, I certainly wouldn't have used the stationery."
As for the work on his Hillcrest home, Gray insisted "there was no impropriety that was involved."
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Opacity Rules at Washington Times
The Washington Times has historically placed a real low value on transparency. For years, the place ran corrections only at gunpoint. It was nearly impossible to get newsroom leaders on the line to defend their journalism, a task that often required going through a flak and then getting a "no comment."
Editor John Solomon changed a lot of that. Having taken over the newsroom in early 2008, he was not only easy to get on the phone, but he'd talk your ear off, evangelizing about this great new initiative or that one.
Yet he's not helping too much on the great unanswered question of this new round of weirdness at the Times.
Solomon Loses Parking Space at Washington Times
The Washington Times is doing everything in its power to maintain its stranglehold on weirdest local publication. For starters, it fired top newspaper leaders on a Sunday night. Then, the next day, it fills its flagship facility on New York Avenue NE with security personnel and holds a quickie meeting with staff to not-explain what went down. The third floor of the building, where the execs hang out, is somehow closed for business.
And then there's the whole John Solomon angle. The outgoing, popular newsroom leader hasn't been seen since the putsch. The staff-wide meeting yesterday featured no mention of the guy who happens to top the masthead. Solomon isn't commenting and even people who consider him a close friend are reporting no contact with him.
One possible reason for Solomon's scarcity: He has lost his parking spot. According to Washington Times sources, the signs that reserved spaces for top company officials have been stripped away, including the one for Solomon.
So even if he did have plans to come back, where the hell is he going to park? At the Arboretum?
Weekend in Review
No wonder the Washington Post is playing up the story on its homepage. That's what happens when the paper provides compelling Sunday reading. I am talking about the feature piece in Outlook titled "I Didn't Tell. It Didn't Matter."; it's about a young man, Joseph Rocha, who served in the Navy and got abused constantly over his sexuality.
The gripping part comes when the Rocha, a dog handler, describes in extensive detail just what his superiors did to torment him:
Graham’s New Press Guy Picked a Lousy Day to Start
It's been a week now since Ted Loza, chief of staff to Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, was arrested on federal bribery charges.
LL and other news outlets have explored a lot of angles in the arrest's aftermath, but there's a media angle that's been neglected: Graham's press guy was just getting settled in.
"Thursday was my second day," says Brian DeBose. "I came in, and I was starting to just get myself acclimated to the computer and the system. And, you know, by 12:30 the FBI came in to Ted's office," he says, "which vastly changed the job."
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Weekend in Review–Lions Edition
Hard to imagine much going on over the next two or three news cycles save for post-mortems on the Redskins central role in ending the 19-game losing streak of the Detroit Lions. I suppose ending that terrible run of fecklessness has to fall to one team or another. But the fact that it was the once-proud Redskins does indeed chalk up another mark of ignominy for the reign of Daniel Snyder. So add an historically bad performance on the field to the Frerotte wall head-butting to the ripoff parking schemes to the club-seat fleecing to the ripoff parking schemes to the ruinous free agent acquisitions to the ripoff parking schemes to the filing of lawsuits against lifelong fans to the ripoff parking schemes to the commercial exploitation of 9/11 to the ripoff parking schemes Read More "Weekend in Review–Lions Edition" »
Weekend in Review
We're going to front the retrocast in this edition. What happened between 6 pm on Saturday and 7 am Sunday? Something big, 'cause when I went out to check for our newspapers, I felt as if I was in another macroclimate altogether. Talk about a dry front moving in! Was the difference between walking through roof cement and a Newport breeze. We're looking at a mid-80s day on Monday then back to the low 90s. Those 90s---they're not going to stay away all summer!
Weekend In Review: Two Years for Rhee
Good to see Michelle Rhee getting some ink these days. It's been two years since she started as chancellor of the D.C. public schools, a time the Washington Post figures is as good as any to go long on her performance.
The catchy lede, on why Rhee appeared on the cover of Time mag holding a broom---a cliched pose for a reformer of any institution. Here's the Post's Bill Turque, reporting Rhee's account to D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray of why she allowed this photo to go get shot:
Weekend in Review: Parking Tickets!
Before you do anything, learn all about our hometown fire chief's outing at the Nats game. He freaked out when he saw there were fireworks going down. More!
Much has been made of the District's plan to step up enforcement of parking restrictions all around town. The push will affect nightclubbers who try to press their luck in all of those spaces just shy of intersections, not to mention street-sweeping violators: The machines that roar down the alternating sides of certain D.C. streets will be equipped with cameras to nail all scofflaw automobiles in their way.
WaTimes Implicates Sasha & Malia in Chicago Youth Violence
Note to photo editors/Web producers/guardians of good taste: Please don't run a gratuitous photo of Sasha and Malia Obama next to a piece announcing that Chicago "has become the nation's most violent city for youths."
The piece itself is pretty harrowing, describing monstrosities straight out of the biography of Rasputin:
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Weekend in Review
Solid weekend, weatherwise---spring, a month or so behind schedule.
With the better weather come turf battles. This past week, Washington City Paper's sports & games columnist/resident genius Dave McKenna wrote about soccer pitches around the city, and their dwindling numbers. The piece dwelled on the situation at Malcolm X/Meridian Hill Park, that gorgeous spread of fountains, steps, and grass on the 15th Street threshold of Columbia Heights. McKenna laments that the entire field isn't available to soccer players and picnickers:
Weekend in Review
Easter weekend, aka illegal parking weekend, went off pretty much hitchless here in D.C. Lots of people driving around in nice clothes---that's what it looked like to me. Anyone ever take Metro to church? I mean really, have you ever heard someone utter the sentence, "Yeah, so I was late for church because of a delay on Metro. Red line was all screwed up." That's when we know we live in a green world, when WMATA starts announcing special Sunday service for services.
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Our Morning Roundup: Doored–Again
Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to another edition of Freedom Friday. Before we get started, I have to confess that I was doored again--the second time in as many months. I know the rules of the road/engagement, but I can't help myself: when I see a chance to avoid slowing down or stopping, I take it. Last night, that meant getting knocked completely off my bike by a guy exiting a cab and landing on the trunk of a parked car nearby. But don't worry about me, I escaped with only a small cut on my shoulder. My front rim, however, is wrecked, as is the cabbie's back right passenger door. While I should probably find a new route or learn to take my time, I doubt I'll do either. And that's what freedom is all about.
The Washington Times' evolving credibility, the Motorhome Diaries, the Veterans Administration, and more after the jump.
Our Morning Roundup: Gay Momentum & Stagnetti’s Revenge
*PRETTY SOON THEY MIGHT START REPRODUCING: After victories in Iowa and Vermont, "[gay] momentum...could spill into other states," the New York Times speculates. Closer to home, the D.C. Council voted resoundingly to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Jason Cherkis has some comments on that, as well as some intriguing internal polling, here.
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Weekend in Review
The news for 'Skins fans is not just that your team has alienated Jason Campbell with its attempt to acquire Jay Cutler. It's also that Plaxico Burress could be there for the taking after he serves some kind of sentence on a gun possession charge in gun-unfriendly New York City. The New York Giants late Friday let the 6-foot-5 receiver go, apparently because he was still copping attitudes and generally evincing all kinds of citizenship dysfunctions. But he's still really tall, very good, and---this is the key for the Skins---has a record of absolutely destroying the Philadelphia Eagles.
