As a past date lab participant, I want to vomit every time this beaten to death subject arises. Luckily none of the above mentions my particular article, but I have to chime in. As with any reporting, as I’m sure Ms. Hess knows, the interview process which took about an hour and a half over two days was boiled down to about 45 seconds worth of quotes pieced together to make an ‘interesting’ story.

Most questions are fairly run of the mill to try to get a dialogue going (what did you do before the date? How did you feel about blah blah blah), but a fair number were very specific and in hindsight an attempt to lead the interviewees toward a particular topic. I recall being told that a certain application question answer was used to set us up, and was asked if I was happy with the looks and race of the date since they thought he would be ‘my type’ . . . then the interviewer linked my response to this question to a totally separate one in which she asked me to describe in detail what my date looked like physically ‘because she hadn’t seen photos yet.’

Yes, obviously in retrospect after reading the final product I should have foreseen this, but at the same time it’s kind of ridiculous of readers to take these stories as truth and divine prejudice/racism/whatever. Maybe, City Paper, if this is newsworthy, you should create a better date lab type column? Or highlight something actually new and different for a change?

Interesting. Any eager applicants for the Washington City Paper's Race Lab?

Eligon begins by recounting the woman's assault, and its aftermath:

Elizabeth Pressman recalled sitting in her bedroom last year drinking tea and chatting with an acquaintance of 20 years when he snapped. The man began choking her, trying to force her to perform oral sex and shoving his fist in her mouth, she said.

Somewhat in shock the following evening, Ms. Pressman, 51, said she let the man back into her apartment to pick up belongings he had left there. He attacked her a second time, she said. The next day, she went to a hospital and reported the attacks to the police.

Ms. Pressman, a news researcher who formerly worked for The Times, said the officers who interviewed her at the hospital had told her that because she had invited the man in, it would be a “he said, she said” situation and that she did not have a case.

The matter was referred to a detective, who interrogated her, Ms. Pressman said. After she described what had happened, Ms. Pressman said, the detective told her, “Sounds like rough sex gone awry.”

Manhattan prosecutors eventually determined that there was not enough evidence to proceed, Ms. Pressman said. (The prosecutor’s office declined to comment on her remarks.)

In Eligon's story, we don't learn much about Elizabeth Pressman. We learn her age and gender and that she drinks tea, details which help us place her as a specific character in our minds. We learn that she was raped twice by a longtime acquaintance and that police dismissed these assaults, facts essential to Elgion's story. And we learn that Pressman is a "news researcher who formerly worked for The Times," a disclosure which covers any potential conflict of interest in Elgion's reporting of the story.

But then, Elgion closes the story with this odd kicker:

“If I were to speak to a woman about reporting a rape, I would say: ‘Don’t put yourself through it. Don’t put yourself through the humiliation and the abuse,’ ” said Ms. Pressman, whose father is the veteran television newsman Gabe Pressman. “It’s horrific what the cops do to you. It’s not worth it. Be ready to be raped a second time.”

Why? Why, at the conclusion of a story about a woman's traumatic assault and the humiliating and abusive police response that followed, is it necessary to note her father's name and occupation? Does the Times think Pressman is a more credible rape victim because her father is an accomplished journalist? Was the newspaper worried that we'd walk away from the story of this woman's rape with the nagging suspicion that she is somehow related to a man we've seen on television? Personally, I can't find any appropriate reason for derailing a woman's thoughts about her own assault in order to talk up her dad.

The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), a leading resource on journalistic style, chimes in on the LGBT vs. GLBT debate: "The NLGJA stylebook supplement does not give explicit guidance, but only lists 'LGBT' as an option, perhaps revealing a preference." A commenter chimes in: "Our college campus’ group . . . technically referred to themselves as LGBTQQIA—the last part was queer (as in studies?), questioning, intersexed and (straight) allies. Most people were confused, even some gays. They ended up changing their name to 'prism.'"

Photo via brainchildvn, Creative Commons License 2.0

On Saturday, Nov. 28, Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner was found dead in his Los Angeles home, the victim of an apparent suicide. Penner had been covering the sports beat for the LA Times since 1983. But the writer's public profile skyrocketed in April of 2007, when he came out as transgender, began living publicly as a woman, and changed his byline to Christine Daniels. The world lost Christine Daniels before it lost Penner: In 2008, Daniels quietly detransitioned back to Mike.

Penner's impermanent gender transition left obituary writers with an identity problem. Whose obituary to write: Mike Penner's or Christine Daniels'?

In the 25 years he worked at the LA Times, Penner evolved into a modest public figure in the sports world. But in the eighteen months that Penner lived outwardly as Christine Daniels, Daniels became a celebrity in the LGBT community. Daniels' coming-out column, in which she announced, "I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words," was one of the LA Times' most widely-read stories of 2007. That year, Daniels launched a new blog for the paper, Woman In Progress, which discussed trans issues with transparency and humor. She spoke about her experiences coming out in the workplace at the National Gay and Lesbian Journalist's Association's National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association's annual conference. She earned a coveted spot on Out Magazine's annual "Out 100" list. Then, in October of 2008—with none of the fanfare that accompanied Penner's original gender transition—the celebrated sportswriter resumed the public persona of Mike Penner, reclaimed his original byline, and scrubbed the L.A. Times' Web site of all work attributed to Daniels.

The obituaries penned in the days following Penner's death revealed a fault line among his public mourners. Some writers favored Penner's sex assigned at birth—and his final public identity—by employing masculine pronouns in their obituaries. Others favored Daniels' brief public persona as an out trans woman, and referred to the deceased as "she" and "her." Gawker, puzzlingly, chose to straddle the gender divide by reporting the death of Mike Penner but referring to him as "her."

The sports world overwhelmingly chose to remember Mike Penner as male. Penner's editor, Mike James, remembered Penner as "a gentle man, a kind man." SportsBlog Nation writer Jon Boise's obituary referred to Penner with masculine name and pronouns, but took care not to erase Penner's transgender identity in doing so:

Changing one's gender is always met with apprehension in our culture, but within Penner's sports subculture, the process was likely even more difficult. Penner later took back his original name and resumed living life as a man a year later, which led to the unfortunate misconception that his decision was a thoughtless, ill-conceived one. In fact, Penner had taken on months of therapy and self-searching before making his decision. . . . At the very least, I hope that those who do decide to play expert for a day and cast judgment can accept that their judgments are completely irrelevant.

A few obituary writers in the LGBT and feminist communities, however, chose to remember Penner for his year of trans activism—-by running obituaries for Christine Daniels. The Advocate's online obit of Daniels went so far as to edit out the gender signifiers used by Penner's colleagues, in order to re-frame all remembrances of Penner as female:

“[She] was one of the most talented writers I’ve every worked with,” said Times Sports Editor Mike James, adding that Daniels covered numerous beats including the National Football League and sports media during her more than two-decade-long career at the paper.

Bitch Magazine's Anna Clark also chose to present Daniels as a woman, even as she recognized Penner's more recent choice to detransition:

One thing that is troubling–and that perhaps foreshadows today's sad news: last year, Daniels started to use the "Mike Penner" byline again. This is presumably why the coverage of Daniels' death at the Times uses male pronouns to refer to her, and why James describes her as a 'gentle man, a kind man,' and why the "Woman in Progress" blog was removed.

(Clark explains her choice to eulogize Christine here. The Advocate did not return a request for comment. The Advocate's obituary has since been heavily edited without comment; you can read the original obit here).

Daniels, left, at the 2007 NGLJA conference

Interestingly, the decision to remember Penner as female in his obituary lies in direct opposition to a longtime cause of the LGBT movement: Ensuring that the mainstream media accurately represent the gender identity of transgender subjects. According to several professional style guidelines, writers are to use the gender identity, name, and pronouns preferred by the subject. So, if Mike goes publicly as Mike, you call him Mike; if Christine goes publicly as Christine, you call her Christine. The GLAAD Media Reference Guide instructs journalists to "ask transgender people which pronoun they would like you to use," or to "use the pronoun that is consistent with the person's appearance and gender expression." Since 2006, the Associated Press Stylebook has accepted that standard. The book's “sex changes” entry reads:

Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics (by hormone therapy, body modification, or surgery) of the opposite sex and present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

Given Penner's most recent bylines—and his attempts to erase Daniels from the public record—it's clear that in the last year of his life, Penner wanted to be publicly identified as male. By GLAAD and AP standards, that means that a correct obit should refer to "Mike Penner" and employ male pronouns. Penner was a lifelong journalist, and it's only fitting that his obituary writers follow the standards of the profession.

But the life story of Mike Penner and Christine Daniels hinges on that divide between the public and the private, the professional and the personal. It's technically correct to refer to Penner as "Mike," but that treatment fails to recognize Penner's inner life. By remembering Mike Penner only as "a gentle man, a kind man," the media runs the risk of contributing to the widespread transphobia that likely played a role in Penner's death.

Penner never spoke publicly about his motives for transitioning back to Mike. But when Penner chose to "detransition"—when he stopped identifying outwardly as Christine Daniels—several experts weighed in on the latest development in Penner's public persona. According to psychologists, most transgender people who choose to "detransition" do so as a result of external pressures resulting from their public gender transition, and not because they no longer internally identify as transgender. In his coming-out column, Penner informed the world how difficult it was for him to live outwardly as a male sportswriter for upwards of 40 years. He never publicly aired the fresh set of problems that came with the alternative—life as an openly transgender female sportswriter. Penner, already a public figure, traded four decades of inner turmoil for a deluge of public scrutiny from the sports world, the LGBT community, and snarky gossip blogs. Given what we know about detransitioning, it's understandable why the LGBT community and its allies would be reluctant to embrace Penner's reclamation of his male persona, particularly in light of his apparent suicide.

Autumn Sandeen, a trans activist who knew Penner when he was living as Christine, has struggled to process Penner's death on both a personal and a professional level. On the blog Pam's House Blend, Sandeen eulogized Mike. In private, however, she continues to think of her friend as Christine. "In my heart, I know her as Christine. In my job as a writer, I have to think of him as Mike," she says.

To Sandeen, adhering to media style standards in Penner's case shows a respect for every person's autonomy over his or her own gender identity. But the professional treatment also leaves her frustrated. "I would love to remember him as Christine, but he didn't give us that opportunity, and I'm going to be sad about that," she says. "It seems cruel that we need to stick with the style guides, but we need to stick with the style guides. How he identified was important. We can’t just pick and choose how we want to identify someone. I’m militant about that, but I’m frustrated at my own militance."

In the past two years, Penner lived a very public life. But his gender identity didn't belong to the public, Sandeen says—not to the LGBT community that wanted to claim him as Christine, and not to the sports community that wanted to reclaim him as "any regular heterosexual guy." "In the end, he called himself Mike," says Sandeen. "Who am I to call him Christine?"

MORE: The Case for Eulogizing Christine Daniels

Photos courtesy of Autumn Sandeen.

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.
Naff, who was accompanied by about 100 supporters at the Hard Rock Hotel event, says he believes that all of the Washington Blade's former staffers are in on the new project. Their first task, he says, was to agree on a new name for the paper. D.C. Advocate Agenda, Naff says, was "a group decision of about 25 of us." Earlier today, the paper sealed the deal by securing its new Twitter account, @DCAgenda.

Now, the staff just needs to decide which aspects of the Blade to carry on in its new Agenda. "This is still very new," Naff says. "We're still looking at everything. Our core strength has always been news coverage, and that's going to remain our core strength. But we're not going to ignore the other areas, as well."

The new outfit will need to get its editorial priorities straight quickly. The first issue of the paper, due to hit newsstands this Friday, Nov. 20, has already sold "six pages of ads without even trying," Naff reports. "We were initially thinking of releasing it just as a newsletter, a leaflet, just to say, 'hey, we're still around,'" Naff says. "Now, we have plenty of space to fill."

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].

SADY: ah, the kids today. what are they up to? other than pretending they know enough about sex to write about it, OBVS, since the kids of many various days seem to believe the same thing.

AMANDA: also, inventing hilarious pseudonyms for themselves, like Rex Butthole and V. Gina

SADY: i know, right? or BUSTER DARKHOLE, Legitimate Writer and Giver of Mature Sexual Counsel [Exhibit E]. somehow, i just hold out the hope that Buster Darkhole is his real name and this is the only career path open to him.

AMANDA: hahaha

SADY: actually, as i read your summary, i was fondest of the work and pseudonym of MR. DARCY [Exhibit A]. i remember the third-act twist in Pride and Prejudice which mr. darcy exclaimed, "verily, miss bennet! our coffee date has involved a most unexpected oral manipulation of my genitals! yet i cannot refuse the fair lady Bingley, who is a superfreak in word and in deed!"

AMANDA: agreed, but at least mr. darcy is better than "layla" [Exhibit B], the name of the female columnist. though i knew a lot of kids in college into Clapton, so i guess it's a cultural thing

SADY: haha. but, you know, reading these things and your summary of them, i was reminded of (CURSE ME FOR UTTERING THE FORBIDDEN NAME) T*cker M*x. [Exhibit douche]. Somehow, it's just not scandalous any more to note that ladies like to have sex and are having casual sex. Unless you are the Pope, in which case all sex scandalizes you to some degree or another. The Kids These Days are pro-sex, including the lady ones. but they're also pro-ridiculously-conservative-gender-norms. and i had somehow hoped that making the point that ladies and dudes can both enjoy sex would change things. IT HAS NOT.

AMANDA: one idea i've seen in a couple of these stories (and from adults talking down to college-age people, too) is: yes, women like to have sex just as much as men do, but they have to not do it in order to be happy [Exhibit E].

SADY: oh, yes. the HOOKUP CULTURE! which is DESTROYING LADIES' CHANCES OF HAPPINESS!

AMANDA: because if they don't not have sex they'll never be in a relationship, which is what they REALLY want.

SADY: right. your vagina has to accumulate enough charge, through non-use, in order to work its Boyfriend-Entrapping powers on the dude of your choice.

AMANDA: i just read a chapter of a new book about young adult sexual experiences, ill remember the name later [Exhibit Laid: Young People’s Experiences with Sex in an Easy-Access Culture], and the introduction compared "hooking up" to a "microwave burrito" — you want it in the moment but eventually, you're going to regret it. the book called casual sex "settling," and insisted that good sex can only be had in committed relationships. personally, i really like being in a relationship, but part of the reason i like it is because i'm not only in the relationship so that i am ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX. i imagine this worldview just ends up with a lot of women settling into relationships with people they they don't really like that also don't provide great sex

SADY: yeah, and the mr. darcy column (i am sorry i keep returning to it! it fascinates me!) sets up the same good girl/bad girl paradigm. like, i COULD be with the girl who i might legitimately want a relationship with... or i could be with AWESOME SEXY TIMES lady. and, you know? it's kind of sad to me that dudes still think this division exists. although hilarious that dude is puzzling out loud over how he wasn't able to "settle down" as a damn college student.

AMANDA: i know. but then at the end, darcy is all, "you know what, maybe i can find a freaky girl that i love!" but you know he's just gonna kinda keep fucking both of them. Whatever. that is the weirdest thing to me about the Concerns over the Hook-Up Culture. why should college students be encouraged to search out their Final Life-Long relationship among the first relationships they've ever had? that makes no sense, and neither does telling girls that hooking up will damage them. they can look for a boyfriend whenever they want to do that. or a girlfriend, which is one thing that none of these sex columns is really addressing.

SADY: YEAH. it's all boys sexing the girls, and ridiculous gender stereotypes of boys sexing girls [Exhibit D], but these "sex" columns often seem more like the work of not terribly reflective or original straight college kids marveling over the fact that they can have sex and not worry about their moms overhearing them or showing up to offer suzy a ride home before it gets too late. but shouldn't "sex" be a more, um, inclusive discussion than this thing about giggling over how you got SOOOO wasted and sexed up someone in your totes heterosexual manner last night?

AMANDA: of course, i would say yeah, but i can see why this happens. when you're in college, those things are exciting to you, as a boring heterosexual person, even if its not terribly interesting to even, say, your classmates. it can be hard to look past your own experience when you're first experiencing all these things. also, it can be hard to write when you've recently graduated from 5 paragraph essays.

SADY: oh, yeah. and, i mean, that's cool and all. but it also – and i speak as someone who is ancient as the grave and yet remembers similar pressures from when i went to college – it creates this weird atmosphere on campus, where you ARE, to some degree, pressured to have enough casual sex to prove that you can do it and aren't some clingy relationship-needing heterosexual female, yet you're also a slut if you don't eventually have a relationship, and you don't exist, basically, if you're queer.

AMANDA: yep.

SADY: like, it's about "freedom," and rebellion, but freedom can only ever take one pre-existing shape. by trying to make sex more public, you should be opening it up, but you end up writing a script for what sex should look like. which is not good for anyone, actually.

AMANDA: no, and it's not particularly fun to read. which should be the main point. though i thought the American University anal sex column was getting there a little bit. at least Darkhole was all, "if you want her to put her finger in your butt, it's cool, man." [Exhibit F].

SADY: well, i mean, you have SEEN HIS NAME, right? he is buster darkhole! this is the column he was born to write!

AMANDA: yeah. I mean, it's possible that Darkhole is a little too eager with the anal sex. i think i noted that the column didn't mention the fact that like, it's cool not to have anal sex, too, if you're not into it.

SADY: maybe his full name is actually Buster Orhis Darkhole III.

AMANDA: i really want to score an interview with this person. but the AU column is an interesting approach because it is three people, two men and one lady, and i don't know if there's any gay or lesbian representation on that board, but that approach does open up the possibility of diversity, and not preaching one person's crazy high school abstinence-only education lessons to an entire campus [Exhibit C]. although god knows how they actually get together and write that thing.

SADY: yeah, i mean, i'm fond of the collaborative approach to all this. maybe if there were like FIFTEEN college sex journalists per campus (and there are probably enough candidates!) you might get one of them that is confident enough not to just say whatever they think will make them look cool and sexually experienced, middle-school style. and hey, maybe one or two that aren't straight people! that would be fun! i mean, i am skeptical of the entire "sex expert" position. i'm a grown lady who has been thinking about this stuff for the majority of my grown lady life, and i'm still not an expert on how my OWN sexual relationships should go.

AMANDA: it's interesting, because the Nation's piece on student sex columns painted them as this really radical progressive movement. and i think there's a confusion there, because people still think that "talking about sex" makes you a liberal and saying "people shouldn't talk about sex" makes you conservative.

SADY: right! and i think it is an issue of the younger generation! battle lines have shifted a bit; now, EVERYBODY talks about sex, liberal and conservative and that's kind of taken for granted. it's what they say that is the issue. or, alternately, the fact that everybody who is given a platform to do so seems to say the same thing.

AMANDA: right. and i don't know what Mr. Darcy or Ramm Bottomham's political persuasion is, but I imagine there's more political diversity in these columnists than there is actual sexual diversity. which is weird!

SADY: yeah. and, honestly, i think T. Otis Notavirgin or whatever are – MAYBE! JUST MAYBE! – feeling more pressure to seem in line with the most widely accepted version of College-Age Sexuality than to actually, seriously think about sex and maybe come up with some insights.

AMANDA: yeah, and seeing as whenever i happen to write about college students they all flood my comments with insights like, "gay," or ... "gay," i can't really blame them [Exhibit frat]. college students are really harshly scrutinized over their sex lives, and college sex columnists must experience the worst of it.

SADY: Honestly! Here is what I think: I think that Buster Darkhole and Layla and Mr. Darcy and whoever are all filing these pieces that are like, "so I got totally WASTED! and had SEX! like PEOPLE MY AGE TEND TO DO!" then they are going home to make microwave popcorn and watch a movie and call their moms. and maybe ask someone out to a movie. that is what i believe. or hope?

AMANDA: i think they're probably also silently weeping over the comments and/or getting shit from their friends [Exhibit single tear].

SADY: oh, god yes. but, you know, if embarrassing college sex columns are what it takes to teach the young people about Dealing With The Terrible Mean Blog Comments That People Will Eventually Leave On Any Blog Ever, I think it's a sacrifice worth making. sort of!

Photo by BodogGirl

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."

The Use Of "Pimp Juice" In Said Street-Walking Montage: "Oh, awesome. It almost makes it a joke. These women’s lives aren’t jokes."

The Huge, Red "Censored" Button Inserted Over A Sex Worker's Personal Hygiene Routine: "What did she do? I’m trying to think of what it possibly could have been. God forbid I ever have to walk down the street and adjust my underwear at some point. How many guys walk down the street and adjust their junk every day? . . . Again, it just doesn’t seem like serious journalism."

The Same Story You Wrote Last Sweeps Week: "I think that there’s always some hook for doing a story on sex work in the city, whether it has to do with a community complaint, an act of violence—or a Senator getting arrested. There will always be reasons. We’re obsessed with sex but we don’t want to talk about it in any way that’s really mature, that looks at all the layers. Unfortunately, what ends up happening—no matter what the hook is—is that it’s always the same story. There are girls walking down the street wearing short skirts and heels. And that's basically it. . . . If we look at say the history of articles like this, it’s showing the same problem, the same problem, maybe switched to a different time or a different neighborhood. But it doesn't get at why this problem isn't going away."

The  "Frightening, New Epidemic" Approach to Sex Work: "If this is a new thing that people are seeing, I would definitely challenge the statement. The part of the segment that said that the Prostitution-Free Zones eliminated the problem ten years ago? My organization has been around for 15 years, and we have not been hurting for clients for the past 15 years."

The Lack of a Key Perspective: "Stories like these are really sadly uninformative about what the real issue is. Women aren’t walking the streets at 6 a.m. to ruin your commute. They’re not walking the streets at 6 a.m. to annoy local businesses. In many cases, they’re out there to survive and make money, because they have to work. Or their pimp is forcing them to work. . . . I think that there are quite a number of community organizations they could have reached out to to show that there is a human face to this issue.  . . . Instead, they're only showing businesses and law enforcement, not the women who are involved and why they’re out on the streets. Admittedly, it can be difficult to do, because there's a lot of distrust. Sex workers know, 'this is how they’re going to portray me.'"

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.

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.

* Where the dudes at? HuffPo chose to only place women on its list. It must be because, as Pukeimmediately points out, men don't have to be attractive to be respected as reporters. And so, Eric Bolling's camera-ready tan and Cody Willard's glorious mane have gone un-dissected by the Internet sexy police:

* Meow! Why not just put a few guys into the mix in order to create the facade of gender-equality? That would ruin the whole Fox vs. CNBC girl-on-girl cat-fight scenario HuffPo has constructed here. Throwing a Cody Willard may boost HuffPo's progressive cred, but progressive cred can be a real boner shrinker.

* Experience bad. In the real world, the more years a reporter has slaved away at a beat, the more valued they are as a journalist. When HuffPo wonders if Maria Bartiromo has "lost some of her hotness to her younger colleagues," however, we see the limits of experience: it's valuable only until you're too old to be hot anymore.

* Boobs good! When it's not knocking FOX Business for low-ratings, HuffPo is commending it for its steady stream of "buxom women." (I wonder where they found that business model?) Some FOX business reporters are so good at their jobs, they actually have the power to make business viewers not give a shit about business. On Rebecca Diamond: "She recently conducted a well-researched interview about commercial real estate, but it was hard to pay attention. She was wearing a turquoise mini-dress with a deep V that nearly reached her belly button." In other words, women must be attractive in order to become journalists, but they still won't be respected in the field, because they are attractive.

* Newsflash: Pretty girl not dumb! HuffPo doesn't entirely ignore these female reporters' professional accomplishments—it just lists them as some sort of surprise twist to their hotness. Tracy Byrnes is hot, and wrote a book! Melissa Francis is hot, and attended Harvard! Trish Regan is hot, and wrote about pot once! Jenna Lee is hot, and looks American! Okay, so HuffPo couldn't dig up a career accomplishment for all of these women.

* And while we're at it: We get it, HuffPo: "Hard-hitting" means more than just "serious journalism." It also means you guys have a boner. Using this double-entendre twice in this slide-show alone is more than enough.

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.

—

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"

CUTE OR WHAT. "IS SARAH CUTE OR WHAT–ALSO SMART,HONEST, AND FOR HUMAN RIGHTS…" – "ERIC"

FACT. "Sarah Palin is the best thing to happen to Alaska politics. Fact." – "vidsweet"

"GO SARHA!!!!!!" – "sharon"

—

AMANDA HESS: REVEALED!

DUMB AS A MUD FENCE. "you are really as dumb as a mud fence." – "Gary"

DUMB AS AN OX. "That everyone has now exposed you to be dumb as an OX? And you claim to be a journalist? Sounds as if you’re suffering from Venus envy." – "linda"

DUMB COW. "Oh, and the “back taxes”, nice try….It was Governor Palin herself who asked for the review, you dumb cow" – "Gary"

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN WILL EAT ME FOR LUNCH. "Greta van susteren will eat you for lunch." – "Thomas McMahan"

SILLY WOMAN. "And silly woman, he doesn’t race DOGS, he races snowmobiles, or as they call them in Alaska, snow machines. How can anybody believe a damned thing you say, when you are too stupid to even get THAT right! I have an idea for you. You sound like a frustrated girl. How about you go find someone to hook up with and get over it!" – "Gary"

PROB A GUY. "it is scary to see so many dumb-stupid-mean people in this country. Who raised these people-what home did they come from? who is this “Amanda”? prob a guy trying to write as a woman–mentally deranged–personality disorder–go get some serious help." – "sissy"

CONSTANTLY CONFUSING WITH WOLVES. "And Todd races ’snowmachines’ NOT dogs…Dogs are those 4 legged-furry critters that you liberals are constantly confusing with wolves (Ashley Judd anyone?)…But,hey,don’t let the truth get in way of slamming Palin right Amanda?..Good gosh! You either know you’re lying or dumber than a bag of rocks" – "KenFromAlaska"

BRAIN MUST BE ON STAND-BY. "OMG, This is not writting this is just stupidity at its best, Where did you learn to write, how do you get your FACT’s? Stop lying and try something else? I just wonder if you even care what you write, guess not brain must be on stand-By, swoopppppppppppppppzzzzz,POP (show hitting Amanda on the head)" – "Eagle eye"

SORE LOOSER. "Game over, you loose." – "jim3r"

READ BETWEEN THE LINES. "PS:I’m driving up to Denali NATIONAL Park 2 hours north of here to do some snow-machining this week-end…Will have my Remington 870 along..GREAT shotgun..Accurate and dependable..
Watch that ‘casual drinking’ problem you’ve got,eh?" – "KenfromAlaska"

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JOURNALISM: REVEALED!

SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT. "Your journalistic imagination if you want to call it that are based on lies and confusion. Maybe you should concentrate on Obama and the mess he is causing our country. I don’t know who gave your degree in journalism but I think their credentials should be checked." -alaskan10

GOOGLE. "utter ignorance on display in this post is mind boggling . mistakes galore, even about fact that can be checked with a simple google search." – sfernando

SLOOPY DONE. "Just using Governor Palin to be sensational, but offer no truth in this sloopy done you call reporting." – "Joyfulcardinal"

FAILED ATTEMPST. "Amanda needs to go read some educational material before she attempst to write." – "sissy"

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URBAN HUNTERS: REVEALED!

URBAN HUNTERS. "Obviously, urban hunters are those who live in urban areas, but hunt for their own food, like many in Alaska. Now, was that so hard to figure out?" – "Greg"

URBAN HUNTERS. "As Greg said, urban hunters are just that." – "Gary"

Photo by davekentuk