The Washington Blade served as D.C.’s gay newspaper of record from 1969 until Monday morning. This Friday, the paper intends to return as the D.C. Agenda. Editor Kevin Naff confirmed the re-Christening this evening at an event at the Hard Rock Hotel supporting the paper’s rebirth.
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College sex columns: So wrong, they’re . . . boring.

This week, the Nation’s Alex Dibranco declared that the college sex column represents “a radical progressive movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the status quo.” That might have been true when sex columns first popped up on college campuses in 1996, but now, fucking and telling is a normal campus activity for radicals and right-wingers alike. At this point, simply rehashing your heterosexual, vanilla, and gender-role-informed Saturday night hook-up through the campus press does not a sexual revolution make—even if you publish under the pseudonym “Buster Darkhole.” Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I talk about where the student sex column should go from here.

References: George Washington University’s sex column, penned by “Mr. Darcy” and “Layla” [Exhibits A & B]; Georgetown University’s sex column, penned by Colleen Leahey [Exhibits C & D]; American University’s sex column, penned by “Amber Sparkles,” “Maxwell Hillcrest,” and our pal Buster [Exhibits E & F].

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: “Buster Darkhole” and the Conservative College Sex Column” »

Now that we’ve all endured this FOX 5 story on “morning prostitution”—which deemed sex workers “too gross to describe,” much less speak to—I think it’s about time to begin the healing process. How might we, as journalists, begin to make local news reports on prostitution less insanely creepy?  Cyndee Clay, Executive Director of Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), graciously agreed to help us reporters out with our sex work work. Hint: scrubbing your copy of a platform heel fetish, highly sensationalized “censored” antics, and use of Nelly’s “Pimp Juice” is a good start. “Well . . . I mean, it was a very interesting story,” Clay allows the FOX 5 story. “However, considering a less sensationalistic approach to the story might have let viewers understand the larger issues here.”

The Street-Walking Montage: “I think it’s unfortunate. I think there’s a larger human story there about who those women are and why they’re working the streets at six a.m. I think a lot of media tends to take the easy way out, go with the sensationalistic side, and it doesn’t help us as a community to get a dialog going about why this is happening in our city, and what an appropriate response would be. I don’t know. Maybe it was sweeps week.”

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As much as it pains me to see the following byline pop up in the Washington Post:

. . . at least people are reading the goddamn thing:

Why pay journalists to write about Sarah Palin when Sarah Palin is perfectly willing to pay people to write as if they were Sarah Palin? It’s almost too easy.

Via pukeimmediately: And Huffington Post’s sexism spills to the business pages.

Every single business reporter selected for HuffPo’s latest parade of sexism interactive slideshow is a woman. While I love to see women succeeding in business, this particular feature isn’t exactly what I had in mind. Let’s take a look.

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Welcome back to “Daily Palin,” in which we detail Sarah Palin’s refusal to go away—every day. In this edition: Everything I need to know (about Sarah, journalism, and myself) I learned from my commenters.

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SARAH PALIN: REVEALED!

COOL. “SARAH PALIN IS SO COOL AND BEAUTIFUL–AND HONEST TOO—AND FROM THE NORTH A STAR IS HERE” – “navy”

BROKE ALL HER FINGERS. “I’d like to see you take a 1,000 pound moose, field dress it and bring it home — at 3 in the morning in *actual* temperatures down to -45F; or maybe you might try gill netting thousands of pounds of salmon — with all your fingers broken — the day after breaking them — like Sarah has so she could earn some money.” – “Ron Devito”

Read More “Daily Palin: Everything I Know I Learned From My Commenters” »