Washington Post reporter Jonathan O’Connell discussed the potential easing of the District’s limit on building height.

And Republican strategist Bob Rusbuldt talked about Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital, the call for him to release more tax returns and his selection of a running mate.

MONDAY AT 10am: Mo Elleithee and Ron “Mo” Moten discuss the controversy surrounding Mayor Vince Gray.

Watch the rest of today's show:

That no one aggregated this juicy news — not even DC Porcupine — suggests that Regnery was right.

Alas, it'll be business as usual at the Spectator. It's not like the magazine needs to reinvent its website as a Daily Caller competitor, or even should. (The last time the Spectator tried gonzo journalism was an ethical disaster.) But sometimes its articles sound like they were written by contemporaries of D.H. Lawrence.

Tyrrell, tellingly, is the principal offender. When he goes to work on his keyboard — or typewriter, or notepad, or slab of slate — the result is often incomprehensible to those of us who aren't septuagenarians. Here are a few egregious examples, and my attempts at translation.

"Foster Friess' Joke"

"There is another horripilation on the campaign trail. Someone has told a joke that has roused the virtue police. I am speaking of the virtue police, who are working for the grim forces of political correctitude. They do not find the joke very funny. The jokester is a supporter of Rick Santorum, and now he too is on the hot seat for it."

Translation: There's been another "bristling of the hair of the head or body" on the campaign trail. Some guy told a joke that the virtue police didn't like. I repeat: the virtue police! You know who they are. They fight for political correctness. They are grim, and do not like jokes — especially not one made by a Rick Santorum supporter, who's in deep shit now.

"It Is Time for Newt to Go!"

"There is a grisly pallor that has beset former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Then, too, there is a lumpiness: to his face, to his features, to his – well -- to his lump. When he walks into a room I feel rather sorry for him, but then I feel rather sorry for Bill Clinton too and for Hillary. No longer do I call her 'Bill's lovely wife, Bruno.' She looks grandmotherly rather than tough. I guess maybe her coeval from the 1960s generation of student government goody-goodies, Newt, looks grandfatherly rather than brainy."

Translation: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich looks horrifically pale. He looks lumpy, too — especially his lump. I feel sorry for him in the same way I feel sorry for Bill and Hillary Clinton. No longer do I call her ... something that makes no sense whatsoever. She looks like my grandmother, but without the horsewhip. Newt, her peer from that generation of hippie college kids, doesn't look smart (probably because of all that lumpiness). But he does look like he might have grandchildren, who will probably grow up to be pale and lumpy and somewhat dumb-looking.

"The Delousing of a Movement"

"I have been saying for some time that Liberalism is dead. I shall even be coming out with a book on the subject in a couple of months. That the hitherto respectable magazines of the left would push such nonsense is to be included in my diagnosis. There was a day when the Liberals would argue according to some standards of objectivity. They would not push a line that was absolute flapdoodle. Yet Liberalism is dead. The Occupation hysteria adopted by every single journal on the left is but another proof of it. Those who read the left-wing press ought to demand their money back. They could have been killed at McPherson Square or Zuccotti Park, or at least have been robbed or raped."

Translation: I keep telling you that liberalism is dead. Still don't believe me? Well, I've written a book about it, so there. It's coming out in a couple of months. Buy it! Please? Liberal magazines I've never respected — but I'll pretend to now, for rhetorical purposes — think the Occupy movement will spark a wave of reform. Nonsense! Such nonsense, in fact, that it will be included in my book, which you should buy. Once upon a time, liberals at least tried to be objective. They wouldn't push a line that was utter bullshit. But as I keep telling you, liberalism is dead. Need proof? Lefty magazines are writing about a lefty movement! Subscribers should demand their money back, because reading those magazines could get them robbed, raped, or murdered — none of which will happen when you read my book.

THE CLIPBOARD

The March issue of Vanity Fair includes a length story about the Post, including the revelation that the paper is stuck between national and local. Which is to say, it includes no revelations. [Beaujon, Wemple]

Listening to the all-news-all-the-time-never-stop WNEW sounds like an exhausting experience. Reading this cover story about the new WTOP competitor is not. [WCP]

Get thee to a Brooks Brothers, young journos. [Sports Bog]

The Post's Ken Babby, whose official title is "chief revenue
officer, general manager, digital," is leaving "to pursue other digital ventures." He started as intern in 1999, so yeah, maybe it's time. [Romenesko, Porcupine]

New York State's Watertown Daily Times had a Washington bureau of one. No more. [Romenesko]

Warren Buffet may or may not have dissed the Post, and he may or may not have been right. [Bercovici, Beaujon]

If the Post is going to use Scottish dialect, it should go all the way. [Beaujon]

That's one hell of an editor's note, WaPo. [Poynter]

"Times 24/7, the Washington Times’s attempt at an aggregator that launched in January, may be learning the perils of having an undiscriminating taste in web content." [Porcupine]

Post ombud Patrick Pexton eats a bucket of crow. [Omblog]

John Thompson is done talking into the microphone. [WaPo]

The Post will not be providing this digital product for free. [Sonderman]

Andrew Breitbart died, but all that mattered was whether you met him. [TBD]

DAN ZAK WATCH

Critical volume of vocal fry on this @boltbus to New York. It's the 2:30 from D.C., bus No. 0855. Send help. cc: @slatecultfest

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) March 1, 2012

HE IS GOPH

why oh why do you spend an inordinate amount of time commenting on a website if you fundamentally disagree with everything it stands for?

— say 'Eye Em G?ph' (@IMGoph) March 2, 2012

TALK STROUP

Professional tip: If you want me to vote for you for something it's a good idea to ask me to do so!

— Dave Stroup (@DaveStroup) March 2, 2012

Sen. Dick Black (R-Loudoun) talked about the stalemate that has imperiled passage of a new budget in Virginia.

And Washington Times reporter Tom Howell discussed the DC Council probe of a non-profit that has been caught up in the Harry Thomas Jr. scandal.

Watch today's interviews here:

Monday at 10am: Md. state Sen. Rob Garagiola and Prince George's Executive Rushern Baker.

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger, died at 43 today. But all that matters, apparently, is whether or not you met him.

"Last summer I was still fairly new to Washington, D.C., but it’s when I met Andrew Breitbart," recalls Eddie Scarry, the FishbowlDC contributor, in the Blaze. "It was at the book launch party for his new book 'Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World.'" The point of this post, "Brief encounter with Breitbart," seems to be merely that Breitbart signed Scarry's copy of the book with the encouraging words, "Eddie, fight the man!"

Scarry's editor at FishbowlDC, who shall remain nameless (I took a vow), writes in the lede of her remembrance, "I never wanted to write one of those stories where I relay my experiences about someone who suddenly dies." Then she disgorges more than 1,000 words about her "friendship" with him — they met at CPAC, less than a month ago — and offers such epiphanies as, "You don’t have to agree with everything a person says or does to respect and admire their success or be open to their ideas."

Quin Hillyer's "On Breitbart," over at the American Spectator's website, opens promisingly: "I won't pretend to have been good friends with Andrew Breitbart." Phew. But then he continues, "I met him just twice, in passing, and corresponded or spoke to him on the phone just a few other times." These are critical details when writing about the death of someone you barely knew.

"Memories are the way we keep people alive, and my early reaction to this grief is that my memories of Andrew will flee if I don’t immediately freeze them," writes Mediaite's Tommy Christopher. But can't he just freeze these words in a Moleskin or something? Then we'd be spared stories about how he heard the news over Gchat, and about the last time they (literally) ran into each other: "I can’t remember exactly what he said, just that he spoke my name when he recognized me. I really wish I had paid closer attention, and that empty space in my memory is a chilling reminder that you’re never guaranteed a next word."

Don't beat yourself up over it, Tommy.

Not everyone's first-person remembrances have been flimsy and unilluminating. Tucker Carlson spoke with Fox News about Breitbart's wicked sense of humor, and wrote that his friend was "utterly ballsy." And Matt Drudge, another close friend, wrote atop the Drudge Report, "I still see him in my mind's eye in Venice Beach, the sunny day I met him. He was in his mid 20's. It was all there."

Do the math: That was about two decades ago, not a few weeks or months. Maybe that's why Drudge didn't even feel the need to state that Breitbart was his friend.

Can't express how sad I am to hear about the passing of my friend Andrew Breitbart. His beautiful family is in my thoughts.

— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) March 1, 2012

I'm in shock. I can't believe Andrew Breitbart is dead. He was so full of life and dynamic. He was a friend.

— Emily Miller (@EmilyMiller) March 1, 2012

In shock over Breitbart's passing. Just saw him at CPAC. Deep condolences to his family and friends. @NolteNC @danaloesch

— AnnekeE.Green (@AnnekeEGreen) March 1, 2012

She quoted two people, the first being Phillips Media Relations president Brad Phillips, author of the Mr. Media Training blog. "While he said none of the pictures we showed him struck him as particularly 'bad' or necessarily overly 'sexually suggestive', he does see potential pitfalls," Rothstein wrote. The direct quote, which Phillips emailed to her and shared with me, was: "I don't think any of the three photos are particularly bad. I don't find them sexually suggestive or provocative, and they're pretty commonplace as avatars in the social media world.”

Even paraphrased, the quote undermines Rothstein's premise, but note how she spun it, ever so slightly, to serve her purpose. The full quote makes clear that Rothstein, were she practicing responsible journalism, should have abandoned the story altogether, or at least sought out a different expert to buttress her argument — and, while she was at it, actually found reporters with sexy, provocative avatars. It also wouldn't have hurt to get in touch with the three reporters in question: Ashley Parker, Maeve Reston, and Amie Parnes. (I sought comment from them via Twitter, but didn't get a response.)

When I spoke with Phillips, who was noticeably unsettled by his unwitting role in this controversy, he reiterated what he's already on the record as saying: that he sees nothing provocative with the reporters' Twitter pics. "It was based on seeing those photos that I said I didn’t think they were terribly provocative,” he told me. "The three avatars look pretty commonplace to me."

About his conversation with Rothstein, he says, "The issue I was speaking to was largely genderless." That's not apparent in the article. "I was surpised that the context of those comments was wrapped around 'sexpot,' which was something I couldn't have seen coming," he says. "I probably would have declined [to comment] if I'd known that was the frame that was wrapped around it.”

The other man quoted in the article — the gender of the interviewees is worth stressing here — was Harry Jaffe, the Washingtonian columnist, who's no stranger to controversy and has taken his lumps from FishbowlDC. He was notably less bothered by this whole affair. "It's Betsy," he says. "Why the shock?"

Whether Jaffe should have been quoted at all, though, is up for debate, considering he hadn't even seen the three avatars in question. "From my perspective, my mistake, if I made one, was not looking at the images on the Twitter feeds," he says. "My bad, but I still stand by what I said. You know, I think that everybody’s competing for attention, even more so in the Twitter world, and I don't see any problem with having a provocative photograph. I just don't see a problem with it. Does that mean I think it makes sense for a woman in the White House pool to be baring her breasts on her Twitter picture? No. But if she, or he, is attractive, why not use it?”

While Phillips does perceive "some accusation behind the post," he wouldn't venture a guess as to why Rothstein wrote it in the first place. "I'm uncomfortable speaking for her motives," he says. Jaffe, too, steers clear of that question: "I'm not going to impugn Betsy Rothstein motives. Betsy’s a bomb thrower. I don't know what people expect.”

This is what most perplexes me: why. From Michelle Fields to Wendy Gordon to Anqoinette Crosby, Rothstein has consistently singled out attractive women reporters and publicists for criticism over how they present themselves in public. Mediabistro, if it's bothered by this pattern, isn't saying so; Chris Ariens, the site's editorial director, declined to comment for this article.

I'd ask Rothstein myself, but considering that she's blocked me from following both her personal Twitter account and that of FishbowlDC — and tweeted about it — I think it's safe to assume she's not interested in discussing this with me. She did, however, grant an interview late last week to the Observer's Hunter Walker. Here are some highlights, with commentary.

• Rothstein insists that a photo in which she's baring her shoulders "wasn't a Twitter avatar," but, as we know, she was using that photo for her personal Twitter account until changing it to a sexy pot of roses. If you don't believe me, Google Images has cached it. (And now we know why she chose that photo, for she tells Walker, "I know I write controversial things and I know that covering the media and writing controversial things, I’m going to be attacked. I know that and I’m not going to be like some wilting flower.")

• "I think the pictures, I found them provocative, yes," she says. "I definitely stand by that. But now to take it a step further, was I scolding them? Do I think it’s inappropriate? I don’t know. I’d have to give that some thought, but that’s not what first comes to mind for me." But why didn't she give it some thought before writing the article?

• Pressed about what makes the avatars provocative, she mentioned Reston's, "where there was a lot of skin." (Reston appears to be wearing an evening dress in the photo.) Rothstein says nothing of the other two photos. She's as much as admitting that she found one pic — which, incidentally, shows about as much skin as her now-former Twitter avatar — and used it to say that the reporters are going for a "sexpot look."

• "Looking back, I think that I would have made the headline more of a question. Would I use the word again? I’m not sure," she says. But adding a single question mark and replacing "sexpot," while making the story less accusatory, would not have solved the post's fundamental problem, which is one of context. She insists she was only trying to "raise an issue," but by singling out three women reporters, she was — explicitly or by association — questioning whether their tame avatars were somehow inappropriate.

• Asked if she was surprised by the firestorm, Rothstein says, "Extremely, I never expected this in a million years." This response boggles me the most. Either Rothstein is being disingenuous, and knew she was courting controversy with the article, or she truly doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. I'm not sure which is more frightening.

As Phillips told me, "I'm not sure a controversy is inconsistent with the FishbowlDC brand.” Jaffe, meanwhile, wondered why we're still surprised when Rothstein writes such things. Against my better judgment, though, I'm going to take her at her word — that she believed she was merely raising the issue, and had no idea the post would cause a commotion. This is not a generous conclusion. For if she really were naïve, then the fault lies with her execution. To put it bluntly, she's a talented media gossip reporter, but a careless writer.

Jaffe calls journalists "the most thin-skinned people in the world,” but judging from FishbowlDC's Twitter stream, Rothstein is the most thin-skinned one in town. I don't know why she responds to critics so viscerally. Perhaps it's because she's also the biggest bomb-thrower in town. Or maybe, if she truly was surprised by this firestorm, there's a disconnect between what she thinks she's written and what she's actually written — and, consequently, she assumes all criticism is of her, as a person, rather than her writing. Take her to task for an ill-formed article, and she responds with puerile insults, perhaps not realizing that ultimately it's her journalism, not her character, that we find so offensive.

—

The Post throws another idea at the wall, hopes it will stick. Maybe ombudsman Patrick Pexton was on to something when he said the paper needs to chill out on all this innovation stuff. Its latest effort is Personal Post, which, as TechCrunch explains, is "a river of content that you can customize." Basically, it's a blog of Post stories that it thinks will you like, based on what you've read before (if you've opened an online account, allowing it to track your clicks). It's not a terrible idea, but for now the presentation is too bare. The graphics are flat, the images few. If they can find a way to personalize the homepage — and redesign it, while they're at it — then maybe I'll give it a whirl.

THE CLIPBOARD

The Defense Department wants Stars and Stripes to be cubicle buddies with military officials, and it doesn't see anything wrong with that at all. [Farhi]

WAMU news director resigned because he objected to journalists meeting with donors at a station-sponsored event. [Porcupine, Wemple] And WAMU responds. [Porcupine, Wemple]

Peyton Manning wins the Super Bowl! That's what this Washington Times cover suggests, anyway. [Sports Bog]

The Examiner's Alan Blinder probably got that "fuck you, Marion" quote because no one knows who he is. Yet. [Porcupine]

The Post's fourth-quarter earnings fell 22 percent. Daily circulation is down 6.3 percent over the year, but on the plus side, that means they spent 8 percent on newsprint in the final quarter. [WaPo]

Ted Leonsis says something nice about the Post's sports coverage. [Porcupine]

Even City Paper can't resist the dwindling profits of daily deals. [Porcupine, DCist]

The Post's editorial page is zzzzzzzzzzzz. [Porcupine]

DCist institution Ian Buckwalter says goodbye. [DCist]

Did the Post cave to China's demands? [Pexton]

Those Post buyout offers just got sweeter, which is to say, less bitter. [Beaujon]

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie throws down with WaPo columnist Jonathan Capehart. [Politico]

The Examiner redesign is "looking good." [Porcupine]

Gannett will build walls, hope money will come. [Forbes, paidContent]

Slate gets its own ad-sales force. [Ad Age]

It's hard to get riled up about the Post's theater coverage. [Porcupine]

THE MOST ABSURD TWEET OF THE WEEK

Is Your Personality Making You Fat? on.wusa9.com/AxiefF

— wusa9 (@wusa9) February 24, 2012

DAN ZAK WATCH

In lieu of a tweet, here's a line from Zak's evisceration of the Portlandia live show at the 9:30 club: "There was no encore. One needs material and enthusiasm to do an encore."

HE IS GOPH

@alexbaca your lack of fucks is noted.

— say 'Eye Em G?ph' (@IMGoph) February 22, 2012

TALK STROUP

I was somewhat annoyed when @WCP opted me into a daily news round up. I am very annoyed they have now opted me into a LivingSocial clone.

— Dave Stroup (@DaveStroup) February 23, 2012

OK, maybe just one reporter: Betsy Rothstein, editor of FishbowlDC. Yesterday, before she made international news by committing the worst act of D.C. journalism since the Daily Caller's EPA story, she was using the photo above as the avatar for her personal Twitter account. Then everyone rightly mocked the photo as being sexier and more provocative than those of the female reporters she had singled out. Rothstein has since changed her avatar to this photo of roses.

But not just any roses. These ones aren't red or even pink, but rather fuschia, which I'm pretty sure is the color of unrestrained passion (also known as "whoring"). The sexy pot in which they're planted, meanwhile, is conspicuously green, which is the color of fertility (also known as "our primal urge to have unprotected sex"). And look how this naked potted plant, with its come-hither look, refuses to make use of the tulle drapes surrounding it. Cover up, you slut!

In a post earlier today, "Females on Campaign Trail Go For Sexpot Look," Rothstein claims "an unusual trend is developing among campaign and White House reporters of the XX persuasion. They’re using provocative, sometimes sexy photographs of themselves for their Twitter accounts." Let's skip right ahead to the three photos in question, shall we? The New York Times' Ashley Parker is smiling at the camera. The LA Times Maeve Reston is smiling at the camera. And The Hill's Amie Parnes is neither looking at the camera nor smiling. I'm having trouble, as a heterosexual man, finding what is provocative or sexy, to say nothing of "XX," about any of these pics. Reston is wearing a sleeveless, single-strap dress — that's as scandalous as it gets.

At this point I would like to bring to your attention the photo atop this post. That's Rothstein's Twitter avatar.

Now let's turn to the "experts" whom Rothstein quotes. Brad Phillips, president of Phillips Media Relations, says, “I think it’s unfair that women are judged on this." And Harry Jaffe, true to his role as a professional dude-guy, says "unless it’s truly x-rated, I think it’s within bounds to strike a cute, perhaps sexy, pose." In other words, there is no story here. And yet.

—

I've storified only a few of the hundreds of tweets attacking Rothstein. You might be better off watching FishbowlDC's feed, where she's fighting back like a cornered animal.

It is heartbreaking any time a toddler gets seriously hurt or worse, but there is a special torture in knowing that a child’s injury could have been easily prevented.

One of the most common of these tragedies is when a television topples on a child. In recent months there’s been a rash of these deaths in the Chicago area. It has also occurred too many times in the D.C. region.

Go ahead and click through those links. The first one, despite its alarming language, isn't untrue (although this Sun article is more informative). But the second link takes us to a post on the WaPo blog The Crime Scene, "Baby injured by falling TV set." Note that word: injured. Not dead — and certainly no mention of deaths, plural.

Yes, it's quite possible that parents should do more to secure their TV sets, but D'Arcy needn't make this sound like an epidemic just to get her point across.

A posting for the position suggests Morrissey's responsibilities at tennis.com will be much as they were at DCist, with the possible exception of writing articles himself. He says he's starting soon, perhaps as early as next week.

"I'm really excited to be joining Think Custom Media and its dynamic team," he wrote in an email. "While it is a slight departure from my previous work at DCist, I'm really excited to stretch my legs and apply the editorial lessons I've learned to something new."

So this was the "very important phone call" Morrissey was awaiting yesterday. Congratulations to my occasional drinking buddy (yes, that's my disclosure). I know he'll have much more success at Atlantic Media than Arsenal had against AC Milan.

So I went trolling. Here's what I learned.

Penis jokes are OK

Below "Will & Kate get a puppy: Cuteness overload," a news brief about the royal couple getting a puppy — a male cocker spaniel — I posted my first comment under the username MuckWithoutTheRake:

"There's nothing cute about male cockers."

The comment stands.

Testicle jokes are OK

An article about Super Bowl marketing hype mentioned a company called TaTaToos, which "sells temporary tattoos designed for women’s breasts." So I suggested:

"TaTaToos should branch out into racy temporary tattoos for men: TesteToos."

The comment stands.

"Rectum" is OK

Emboldened, I became even more immature, trying to find a word that might sneak past the auto-delete word bot. On a much-commented-upon E.J. Dionne Jr. column about Romney winning Florida, but losing overall, I wrote:

"721 comments! So you won't possibly notice if I write 'rectum,' right?"

To which a user replied, "Wrecked 'em? Damn near killed 'em!"

Both comments stand.

Non sequiturs about urinating are OK

A Capital Weather Gang post about Punxsatawney Phil seeing his own shadow inspired me to write:

"Sometimes, when I see my shadow, I get the urge to outline it with my own urine."

The comment stands.

Making fun of clean-and-sober types is OK

The (presumably female) subject of a Carolyn Hax advice column, after recovering from years spent drinking too much, dabbling in drug use, and sleeping with married men, wonders what explanation, if any, she owes her new friends. I suggested:

"Just tell them, 'I used to be a lot of fun. Not anymore.'"

The comment stands, and inspired three replies. One user called what I wrote "horrible but funny." Another took me seriously: "How about: I used to be *fun* but ultimately the *fun* made me unhappy." And the third one-upped me with a slew of mean sentiments, including, "I know guy [sic] in relationships like this, and the kindest thing you can do is arrange a gardening accident."

Insulting other commenters' intelligence is OK

On a story about online dating, a commenter wrote, "Online worked well for me... I'm happily married and I met my wife on OkCupid," prompting some to accuse the commenter of astroturfing. But then others jumped in to defend OKCupid and other dating sites, about which I wrote:

"If these commenters are astroturfing for OkCupid, they're not doing a good job. The spelling and grammar are atrocious."

So what's not OK? That's-what-she-said jokes, apparently

The story, "D.C. yoga lovers train to become teachers," contained the following quote from a trainee: "I was shaking during downward dog for the first time in my life.” So I wrote:

“'I was shaking during downward dog...' TWSS"

The comment was gone within 24 hours.

After the jump: Slightly more mature news.

Philip Kennicott is fed up with the Post's website. The culture critic has an eponymous WordPress blog on which he posts links to his articles and embeds random videos like Queen Elizabeth's seven-and-a-half-minute Christmas greeting. It's also becoming a repository of complaints about his employer's website. On Feb. 1, he wrote, "It remains very difficult to find arts content on The Washington Post, so here are a few links." Four days later, in a post about about a new feature called "The Rant," he devoted an entire paragraph to mocking the site's labyrinthine structure:

Unfortunately, [The Rant] very hard to find online. First, go the The Washington Post website, then click on the “Lifestyle” banner on the top of the web page. Next, click on the “Style” button (it’s in gray and pretty hard to see). Now scroll down the page and look for a small arrow button that says “More Style Stories.” Then scroll down that page and look for the headline: “The Rant: Security Mania takes away Monumental View.”

Or just use this link.

Or, if you prefer, just bookmark Kennicott's blog, as the links are easier to find there anyway.

The Post is offering buyouts to which departments, exactly? Nothing gets journalists more excited than a story about fellow-journalists losing their jobs. I'm not even sure who broke the story, as it seems everyone in media criticism (except me!) was forwarded the memo. I'm just going to assume Romenesko got it up first. Erik Wemple cornered his boss, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, for few quotes. And then began the confusion over who was being offered buyouts. I won't bother linking to any of it, because it's easier just to jump ahead to analysis by Patrick Pexton, the Post ombudsman, who wrote that the Metro section could lose up to nine people and the special investigation unit up to three.

THE CLIPBOARD

"A Newspaper, and a Legacy, Reordered" [NYT]

"Nice Guy, Finishing Last: How Don Graham Fumbled the Washington Post Co." [Forbes]

"Raju Narisetti’s Departure Leads to Shifting Responsibilities at the 'Washington Post'" [Washingtonian]

"Santorum Fundraiser Bankrolls Daily Caller" [Kurtz]

"Bad Blood Between Daily Caller and Ben Smith" [Fishbowl]

"Patch's plan to reduce staff, change editorial focus" [Romenesko]

"Emily Got Her Gun, and She Wants to Make It Easier for You" [DCist]

"Glittarazzi's going vigilante on city's criminals" [TBD]

"Gannett offers early retirement package to 665 employees" [Romenesko]

"Northwest D.C. Arrogance? Sometimes It's OK to Give Preferential Treatment to the Favored Quadrant" [HuffPost]

"Post videos, turning readers into viewers" [WaPo]

"Gannett iPhone FAQ: 'What am I expected to do with this new device?" [Romenesko]

"Here's the FishbowlDC party invite we didn't receive" [TBD]

"Who is The Nose?" [Porcupine]

"Examiner Launches New Site, Still Has Trouble With Local" [Porcupine]

"WNEW all-news radio station is both boon and bane for D.C." [WaPo]

"Scoring the Daily Caller's boring dinner with Bill Ayers" [TBD]

"Washington Post Social Reader gets iPhone, Android apps" [Poynter]

"Washington Times Chairman Acted as Liaison Between US, North Korea" [Porcupine]

"Reader Meter: Throwing stones at granite story" [Omblog]

"WaPo Employees Get Cheap Love" [Fishbowl]

"Why D.C. contracting has become newsworthy" [WaPo]

"WAMU’s DJ Jerry Gray, 1933-2012" [WCP]

"That’s Hall-of-Famer Mike Allen To You" [Fishbowl]

"Post Shocked by Threesomes" [Porcupine]

HOOK, LINE & STINKER

"I have been saying for some time that Liberalism is dead. I shall even be coming out with a book on the subject in a couple of months. That the hitherto respectable magazines of the left would push such nonsense is to be included in my diagnosis. There was a day when the Liberals would argue according to some standards of objectivity. They would not push a line that was absolute flapdoodle." — "The Delousing of a Movement," by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., The American Spectator

Truth is, Tyrell could win this honor every week, so generally I eliminate him from consideration. But this passage was too unbearable to pass up. We all await the publication of this book that he shall be coming out with, and hopefully it contains countless words as antiquated as "flapdoodle."

Honorable mention: City Paper's Jonathan Fischer singles out a HuffPost DC article about the Shaw Art Walk, asking "what the shit is that lede?" about the following:

While the Walter E. Washington Convention Center has been the scene of plenty of protests since it opened in 2003, nobody should be picketing Wednesday night's "Shaw Art Walk" which starts at the massive 2.3 million square foot complex.

"Yes," Fischer writes, "because the overwhelmingly majority of events at the convention center draw uncountable waves of anarcho-punk demonstrators. How lovely we can all rally around this Art Walk!"

DAN ZAK WATCH

HE IS GOPH x2

TALK STROUP

Wait, but I've put up with Fishbowl, and shouted at them! Two of three — that should earn me an invite, right? Alas, I'm not even exclusive enough to follow Fishbowl's Twitter account; I've been blocked, I realized today. I'm not sure where things went wrong between Rothstein and me. We used to be on such good terms! I think maybe this tweet had something to do with it. Oh well. I suppose being blocked by Fishbowl is an honor in itself.

This party "is invitation only and there will be a list at the door," Rothstein writes in her email to invitees. So it's unlikely I'll be able to sneak in and overhear Rothstein calling people stupid idiot coward shithead loser jerks. Below is the purty attachment from the email, which would be more accurate if you replaced the water with blood, and the fish with sharks. And then body-shamed the sharks.

Apparently so. Dinner was served on Sunday, and today senior editor Jamie Weinstein filed this flat report, which begins:

At an extravagant penthouse apartment in downtown Chicago, The Daily Caller dined with former terrorists Sunday night.

That’s not a sentence one often has the opportunity to write, but on Super Bowl Sunday former Weather Underground leaders and Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn feted TheDC to an elaborate gourmet meal at the home of a very rich friend to fulfill the obligations of a charity auction won by Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson.

Note to Weinstein: If you have a great lead, leave it alone; drawing attention to it only lessens its greatness. Or maybe you should have gone with another lead entirely, as the story never lives up to it. Still, here's what we learned, plus a scorecard to make things nominally more exciting:

• Ayers and Dohrn had enlisted friends to serve dinner, "while the two principal hosts sporadically joined the table for conversation."

Ayers/Dohrn: 1, Daily Caller: 0

• At the table were cardboard cutouts of Dick Cheney, Gertrude Stein, Sen. John McCain, Sarah Palin, Henry David Thoreau and Rosa Parks, with stickers bearing famous quotes of their. On Cheney, for instance, were stickers reading “Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter” and “We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

Ayers/Dohrn: 2, Daily Caller: 0

• A copy of Carlson’s book, Politicians, Partisans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, sat on a coffee table in the living room.

Ayers/Dohrn: 3, Daily Caller: 0

• Ayers said he finds "some unity with Ron Paul." Figures.

Ayers/Dohrn: 3, Daily Caller: 1

• Dohrn told Carlson the U.S. is "becoming 'like Sparta': strong militarily, but weak in everything else. 'It has happened to a lot of countries, including in recent history.' Asked by Tucker Carlson to name one, Dohrn cited Nazi Germany."

Ayers/Dohrn: 3, Daily Caller: 2

• Ayers refused to talk about the bombings or "avant-garde sexual habits" during his Weather Underground days.

Ayers/Dohrn: 3, Daily Caller: 3

• Ayers was "asked how he could speak so approvingly of the current president when he, Ayers, had personally launched a terrorist bombing campaign to protest Richard Nixon’s foreign interventions."

Ayers/Dohrn: 3, Daily Caller: 4

• Ayers was asked about Christopher Anderson's Barack and Michelle: Portrait of An American Marriage, which claims that Ayers contributed to Obama’s memoir, Dreams From My Father. "Ayers said he hadn’t heard of Andersen’s claim — but that it was 'bullshit.'”

Ayers/Dohrn: 4, Daily Caller: 4

• The menu included carrot ginger soup and quinoa with tofu.

No points awarded, because no one wins with dishes like that.

And no one wins in this bout, either. Not even the reader.

*No, not really. 

The punny headline is serviceable, but, oh dear, what's that? Yes, we have a typo in the subhead. The quarterback's name is Eli Manning, so unless I missed his brother Peyton joining him on the field during that late TD drive, there shouldn't be an S before the apostrophe. (I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that, in its typographically erroneous state, the S following the apostrophe is in direct violation of the AP Stylebook's rule on possessives involving singular proper names ending in S.) 

This headline...

Sorry about that. I fell asleep at my desk. Not only is the headline boring, the active verb doesn't even match the action in the photo, which was taken just moments after the photo on the Examiner's cover. It would have made sense for the Post to use the photo in the Examiner, and vice versa. The first shows a "grab," the second an "edge."

"The Super Bowl ended after Express' deadline. For full coverage, visit washingtonpost.com." For the record, the Super Bowl ended at 9:53 p.m.

Give the Washington Times credit for knowing that no one reads the paper for its sports section.

I'm not sure why the Sun would devote so much space to a Super Bowl in which the Ravens weren't playing, unless they're just so damn happy that the team that beat them in the AFC championship has lost. But it's a better photo than those above, with a clean, succinct headline to boot.

This is how it's done, folks.

THE CLIPBOARD

"Loudoun supervisors again urge settlement in FOIA legal battle" [WaPo]

"Kyle Gustafson leaves Washingtonian" [TBD]

"Andrew Beaujon joins Poynter in February as Senior Online Reporter" [Poynter]

"WAMU Gets New Digs" [WCP]

"The Washington Post tries a new weapon to fight the trolls: humans"/"Washington Post cracks down on bad comments" [Nieman, Poynter]

"Polygamists and Scientologists in The Post" [Omblog]

"Reporter Apologizes for Barfing on the Job" [Fishbowl]

"Four Issues that Need More Coverage" [Porcupine]

"Gannett Misses Earnings Targets On Special Charges, Digital Revenue Up" [paidContent]

"Free Ben Smith!" [Wemple]

"Daily Caller Takes Another Shot at Politico" [Fishbowl]

"Why TBD and Everyone Else Still Need Editors" [Porcupine]

"Former Washington Scribe Says She 'Spiritually Imploded' Under Weighty Mormonism" [Fishbowl]

"Mark Plotkin clashed with cleaning crew, sources say" [Wemple]

"The Washington Post vs. the nine-pound cheeseburger" [WaPo]

"Why Tony Kornheiser wouldn’t chat about the Bandwagon" [Sports Bog]

"Ted Leonsis says the 'Washington Post is harboring criminals now'" [TBD]

"Battle of the Bureaus" [Capital Comment]

"Journalists reluctant stars in 2012 ads" [Politico]

"Mandy Jenkins leaves ‘young person’s job’ of social media editor" [Poynter]

"Washingtonian Bleeds Web Editors" [Fishbowl]

"Facebook and Don Graham Have Been Very Good to Each Other" [Forbes]

"Washingtonian Kills Line on Lowe’s Son" [Fishbowl]

"He Made Dan Snyder Blink" [Gelf]

"Gridlocked in the Bog" [Gelf]

"Scribe Gets Banged Up in Bike Accident" [Fishbowl]

"‘Nightline’ story on porn star rings mighty familiar to some" [Wemple]

"Social-lite: Do as we say, not as we tweet?" [Gannett Blog]

"‘Dopes’: WaPo Bloggers Continue to Feud" [Fishbowl]

"Operation ‘Butter Up FNC’ in Full Force by Politico" [Fishbowl]

DAN ZAK WATCH VS. HE IS GOPH

 

MrDanZak Dan Zak

Sigh. MT @IMGoph: @MrDanZak could you get the headline writer to add "NW" to "K St" in your article? It dings K St NE w/lack of specificity.

Feb 06 Favorite Retweet Reply

 

in reply to @MrDanZak?

@IMGoph
say 'Eye Em G?ph' @MrDanZak it's a great article. i'm left hanging by your response, though. who's the sigh directed at?
Feb 06 via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

TALK STROUP

No wonder, then, that the correction atop the story bugged Baer. It read: "An earlier version of this article incorrectly described a doctor’s specialty. Nathan Zasler is a specialist in brain-injury medicine, not a neurologist. This version has been corrected."

So Baer, a veteran of the Baltimore Sun and Washingtonian, emailed Sydney Trent, a senior editor for the Post's Style section who also works on the magazine, to see if there was any way to get that gnarly nub of journalistic hygiene off the top. "I'll understand if there's nothing to be done, but since the cx has run in the paper and the online version is correct, it seems like we've covered all the bases," she wrote.

Yesterday morning, Trent forwarded Baer's note to Amanda McGrath, the Post's innovations editor for lifestyle and entertainment who occasionally helps out with the online production of the magazine. " Hi Amanda," she wrote. "A favor: Can we take the blaring correction off the online version so the writer of this huge hit story (about the brain-injured Post journalist and his wife) can send the link without embarrassment? Or perhaps if not we can tuck it at the bottom?"

"I told her we don't functionally control where the correction strip appears," says McGrath, who says the request went no further than her.

The transaction might have ended there, but Trent also copied the request to an email list called "features" that goes out to quite a few people. It started to get forwarded around the Post newsroom not long after.

Post policy is not favorable to such requests. The paper's correction policy reads: "The change should be made within the article and the correction should also be noted at the top of the item."

That's the sort of transparency journalism geeks like me get all weak-kneed over, but I can also attest that it's not much fun to see a piece you spent a long time on kick off on a note of what can feel like a five-star piece of nitpickery.

But, and this is really important for journalists, very few of whom aren't clinically self-centered, to remember: The correction's not there to make you feel bad. Baer might not like having Nathan Zasler's correct medical specialty atop her story, but I'm willing to bet Zasler appreciates it fully.

The New York Times places its corrections at the bottom of pieces that have earned them. The Los Angeles Times plonks them two paragraphs into the story, where they almost look like text ads. Guardian? Bottom of page, plus a blog post. I don't think it matters too much where they land, although I feel like placing them up top actually adds to most stories' credibility, essentially stamping a corrected piece with a QC inspector's number. Acknowledging your errors after they've been fixed is the exact opposite of something to be embarrassed about.

Lynn Medford, who edited Baer's piece, empathizes with the writer and stresses that Baer didn't ask for the correction to be nuked altogether. "It wasn't like it was a major correction," she says. "But there's no leeway on that with us. It goes where it goes. For example, our corrections in print go on Page Two as soon as possible."

Nor does a print correction grant some sort of Internet amnesty. I'm not clear on where or when the correction ran, since the story went online on Jan. 5 and my hard copies of that week's Posts have been in the gloved hands of Alexandria, Va.'s recycling program since Jan. 12.

UPDATED 2/2/12: Trent emails: "I'm on leave and out of town. I was also confused since I know you as an arts editor, not a media writer. But I just want to make sure you know there's nothing at all nefarious here. I have never edited Susan, I just met her briefly with Lynn Medford a couple weeks ago and if I'm guilty of anything it's of overempathizing and being embarrassingly fuzzy on our Web correction policy as it relates to stories that were posted and corrected weeks prior. I also have no supervisory power in this regard. Now I regret inquiring, but I think the agenda of the person who forwarded that internal email to TBD is more concerning. My sincere apologies to Post readers and journalists for any confusion. For the sake of the clarity and transparency you refer to, please post this email in its entirety with your original post."

The correction's still up there, in all its small-bore glory. Long may it blare.

While he was editing Washingtonian.com, Gustafson, one of the area's best-known photographers, continued to shoot live concerts for the Washington Post, a situation he says was "absolutely not" a problem for Washingtonian.

"They're all wonderful people and I wish them well," he says. "It wasn't working out for either party."

He declined to elaborate further.

Gustafson took the Washingtonian gig in mid-August, replacing Sommer Mathis, who edited the site for about four months before leaving for Atlantic Cities. Mathis came in over Alyssa Rosenberg, who had served as the site's top editor and subsequently left for Think Progress.

Gustafson previously worked as a Web producer for Hanley Wood. I've called and emailed Washingtonian's editor, Garrett M. Graff, and will update when I hear back from him. 

Jeff Sonderman, then a senior community host at TBD, said the correction demonstrated TBD's "commitment to accuracy."

Knowing it would bring some mild embarrassment and also awaken the Internet trolls, Hess could have chalked up the missing 'n' as a typo, quietly changed it and moved on. But Hess wrote the correction anyway.

Well, despite that commitment to accuracy, we were not always very accurate. With a large staff that, in most cases, posted stories directly to the Web, TBD made its share of mistakes — and the Post's Dan Steinberg made sure to point them out, with great wit, on Twitter. No doubt he represented many journalists, at the Post and elsewhere, who were sick of hearing TBD beat the bongo drums of accuracy and transparency.

Steve Buttry, TBD's director of community engagement (and de facto chief of transparency), defended TBD's response to the correction, writing that "transparency can come across at times as self-absorbed and boasting," but adding, "We're OK with that." More accurately, some of us were OK with that, and some of us weren't. I worried that we were being a tad too self-congratulatory, and I wasn't alone.

Over time, even Buttry pulled back. "I had written some about transparency, and had practiced transparency for the first several months of my TBD experience. But I had eventually gone nearly silent about TBD matters," he wrote in September 2011, months after leaving TBD, in a blog post titled, "Another TBD lesson: Transparency is the best approach in good times and bad."

I won’t go into detail about what happened or why, but the approach to transparency changed this year, as TBD changed directions and cut staff. Though I didn’t like it, I pretty much shut up, except for one post linking to media coverage about what was happening and a series of posts praising staff members as they left. It was one of the most unpleasant stretches of my career.

Transparency helped TBD in its brief glory days and lack of transparency has hurt TBD since.

I'm not sure how essential transparency was during our "glory days," but I agree that our lack of it since then has not helped matters.

With that in mind, let's look at the current state of TBD. Last week, the news broke that arts editor Andrew Beaujon will be "the new Romenesko" — that is, he's filling the vacant media critic position at Poynter — and that the Examiner has hired reporter Jenny Rogers for the Yeas & Nays position left open after Katy Adams left.

The size of TBD's is staff is no secret. With the imminent departures of Beaujon and Rogers, who's left at TBD? On our editorial staff, exactly 2.5 journalists: the news editor who's writing this column, transit reporter John Hendel, and special projects reporter Rebecca Armendariz, who splits her photo-editing duties between TBD and WJLA.

Don't expect that number to go up anytime soon. I'm probably not at liberty to say whether Allbritton Communications intends to fill these newly vacated positions, but hey, you're a resourceful person. Go browse the jobs listings on mediabistro.com and journalismjobs.com. What do you see?

After the jump: WTOP's Mark Plotkin sounds very calm about his firing, which reportedly resulted from his being anything but calm in the office.

Mark Plotkin was fired over his wicked temper. Allegedly. The Post's Erik Wemple broke the news Thursday that the political analyst had been fired from WTOP, effective immediately, and later updated the post to report that "Plotkin’s behavior in the workplace is at the root of his separation from the station." More precisely, he had a reputation for blowing his top. He'd done so recently with D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown, as Fishbowl noted, and during his nearly decade-long tenure at WTOP "he engaged in at least a dozen shouting matches with colleagues, precipitating his enrollment in anger-management classes at one point...," according to the Post's Paul Farhi. (Plotkin was also a bit of a technophobe, as NewsChannel 8's Bruce DePuyt reported.) The most telling details, though, emerged at the conclusion of Wemple's post, where three of Plotkin's colleagues in the press — NBC4's Tom Sherwood, WTOP's Mark Segraves, and Harry Jaffe of the Examiner and Washingtonian — all reveal that they're not on speaking terms with Plotkin. So it's hard to believe Jim Farley, WTOP's vice president of news and programming, when he tells Washingtonian, "Mark and I are still friends."

THE CLIPBOARD

"Washington Post's Shrinking Newsroom" [Romenesko]

"Yikes! Post Botches Story, Sort of Covers It Up" [WCP]

"A Post-mortem with Raju Narisetti: 'I would have actually tried to move faster'" [Nieman]

"Narisetti: ‘I am glad I am seen as having created friction’ at the Post'" [Poynter]

"Emily Gets Her Hearing" [DCist]

WaTimes' Emily Miller vs. the Atlantic Wire's Richard Lawson [Tweetspat]

"No, this is NOT a real front page from the Washington Post" [Charles Apple]

"WaPo Magazine editor: Pat Buchanan’s book like ‘someone from the KKK had written it'" [Caller]

"Gannett Buys Big Lead Sports Owner Fantasy Sports Ventures" [All Things Digital]

"Stars and Stripes upset by order to move" [Romenesko]

"Examiner to Launch Site for Young Conservatives" [Porcupine]

"Times Launches Times247.com Aggregator" [Porcupine]

"Have you been hearing this phrase at work?" [Gannett Blog]

"Repeated Catastrophic failures" at the Post [Romenesko]

"Politico Turns 5. Let the Roasting Begin." [Fishbowl]

"Maryland newspaper resumes daily printing after 3 years without Mondays" [Poynter]

"'The Washington Post' and Polyvore Join Forces for Oscars Fashion" [Adweek]

"CBS Pro-life slideshow features only pro-choicers" [Examiner]

"Washington Post expands Foreign Policy" [WBJ]

"WaPo goes full Orwell. Never go full Orwell." [Treacher]

"New station takes on radio giant WTOP" [Examiner]

HOOK, LINE & STINKER

"Online piracy hasn’t gone away"

That was the actual headline of a story by the Post's Melissa Bell about "hundreds of plagiarized books" being sold illegally on Amazon.com. Nevermind that the headline stated the obvious; it also provided no indication of what's being pirated, and that the piracy is occurring not only through the usual channels — torrents and file-hosting sites — but legitimate vendors, too.

I'm writing in the past tense because I tweeted about the headline and the Post changed it to "Laws alone won't put a lid on piracy." This is probably the only time in my life that anything I write will have a demonstrable, albeit miniscule, impact on the paper.

 

rkearney Ryan Kearney

@MelissaBell I'm guessing this wasn't your headline: http://t.co/NMCUe0Ie

Jan 27 Favorite Retweet Reply

 

in reply to @rkearney↑

@MelissaBell
Melissa Bell @rkearney It's, um, well, technically true, right... Eek! Thank you for spotting it!
Jan 27 via HootSuite Favorite Retweet Reply

DAN ZAK WATCH

HE IS GOPH

TALK STROUP

Reached by phone shortly after the Post's Erik Wemple broke the story, Plotkin would only say, “Things happen. But I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”

The station's top news manager, Jim Farley, told Washingtonian's Carol Joynt that "personnel issues" were behind the decision to sever ties. What kind of issues? "The kind you can't comment on," he told Joynt, adding that the issue had been "brewing" for a while.

He "was doing a fine job," Farley said.

The news of Plotkin’s firing ricocheted around the Internet. “Mark Plotkin” became a trending term on Twitter, and reporters covering a heated D.C. Council hearing on iGaming momentarily lost interest in the proceedings.

Plotkin has been a fixture at WTOP for nearly a decade, mixing analysis of national and local politics with an obsessive focus on the District’s lack of representation in Congress.

This reporter bumped into Plotkin at last night’s Wizards game and was bombarded with a scathing critique of the strategy that DC Vote and the city’s elected leaders are employing to gain a vote in the House. “There’s no strategy!” he said, his voice rising in trademark fashion. “The Mayor should be on the Hill meeting with Republicans every day,” he said of college classmate Vincent Gray, who leaves for New Hampshire tomorrow to lobby state lawmakers there.

There was no indication last night that anything was amiss. He peppered me with his usual questions — “Who’d you have on today?” and “What’s going on at Channel 8?” — and a source at the station confirms that whatever led to Plotkin’s firing happened this morning.

Farleytold the Post that Plotkin’s Friday morning program has been canceled, effective immediately. It’s unclear whether tomorrow’s scheduled guests — former Congresswoman Connie Morella, political operative Craig Shirley and Peter Teeley, press secretary to then–Vice President George H. W. Bush — are aware that they’re not needed, since Plotkin operates very much within his own sphere, rarely consulting with coworkers.

Plotkin is almost as famous for his unwillingness to embrace technology as he is for his pursuit of voting rights. He can only access voice messages on a good day, can’t operate a cell phone and refuses to record interviews or take pictures, a known source of friction with management. Following a management edict that he enter the modern world of computers and the Internet, he recently took to Twitter, though it is believed someone else does the actual typing.

He told me he’ll continue to provide commentary for Fox 5 and the Canadian Broadcasting Company, joking, “I’m very big in Canada, perhaps I’ll move to Canada.” (Plotkin was briefly a paid commentator at NewsChannel 8 approximately six years ago.)

Speculation immediately surfaced that he’s being wooed by WNEW, the new CBS all-news station that launched this week at 99.1 FM. Station executives there have stressed in public comments that they want to steer clear of “process” stories, suggesting that Plotkin, a notoriously long-winded aficionado of political minutia, might not be a good fit.

Mark Plotkin first came to fame as an analyst on WAMU radio, first with Derek McGinty, then with Kojo Nnamdi. He jumped at the chance to go to WTOP, because he felt the public radio outlet was slow to react to breaking news. He has remained very close friends with Nnamdi, and the two often rib one another on the air.

Who knew I'd get to repeat that nerdy jump-for-joy today?

In what's becoming a Thursday ritual, Higgins landed his second Page One feature this morning with the news that the USDA is updating its plant-hardiness map to reflect that Washington is warmer than previously thought.

This Higgins onslaught came during an eight-day period that wasn't exactly short on news. In fact, based on a count of Post staffer bylines over that period, Higgins is tied for fourth place with Liz Sly (covering a near civil war in Syria) and tech reporter Cecilia Kang (whose week included the SOPA/PIPA protests and a big story about Google's privacy-policy changes).

"Just coincidental, and based on the appeal of the stories," says Higgins when asked about the twofer. "Might be another year or two before I enter that real estate again." I'm not sure I'd count on that: Next Thursday is Groundhog Day.

"More than 400 people gathered Sunday at a nondescript building in Richmond," wrote the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Wesley P. Hester.

"More than 400 people crowded into U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine’s new Richmond headquarters on a cold, dreary Sunday afternoon as the campaign officially opened its doors," wrote the Washington Post's Richmond reporter, Anita Kumar.

Yeesh. But neither account said exactly where these miserable proceedings took place.

Hannah Schwartz, a campaign staffer, tells me the building is at 2106 N. Hamilton St. in Richmond. That's an odd neighborhood in a city of odd  neighborhoods: I guess you'd call it Scott's Addition, or maybe East Ginter Park? And if the photo I've found on Google Maps (above) is accurate, I don't really blame any reporter for wanting to flee the bland surroundings, even if it meant leaving their notebooks behind.

Still, it's a little odd not to mention the neighborhood in a city publication, isn't it?

I've emailed and called Hester for comment and will update when I hear back.

UPDATE 4:11 p.m.: A Kaine spokesman calls to say that's not their building, no matter what Google says. TBD is working on getting to the bottom of this!

In early December, the Denver Post reported that Metromix would be suspending operations in seven markets, including D.C. You probably missed this news, for one of several reasons —

1. You don't read the Denver Post.

2. You don't read "Media Monday," which linked to the aforementioned article.

3. You don't know what Metromix is. (It's an entertainment and listings website network in 65 U.S. markets.)

4. You know what Metromix is, but couldn't possibly care less about it.

— all of which are perfectly reasonable. I do, however, care about Metromix D.C., if only because its owners, Gannett, have so thoroughly ignored my repeated requests for information that I feel compelled, either out of journalistic duty or spite (or both!), to mention these efforts.

After hitting a number of dead ends, I was told to email my questions to Laura Dalton, Gannett's director of corporate communications. I did so. She replied promptly, saying she would try to track people down, though it was late on a Friday. Having not heard from her by Monday, I emailed her again. And again on Tuesday. And again a week later. Dalton never replied. Thinking she might be on vacation (or worse?), I called Gannett's communications office and left a message. Katie Connell, communications manager, emailed me, asking how she could help. I emailed her the same list of questions, and I never heard back. This column is my last attempt to get their attention; let's hope Dalton and Connell have set up Google Alerts.

What, you might be wondering, were these questions that caused Gannett's communications staff — which must have ice water running through its veins, given its task of putting a positive spin on the slow, inexorable sinking of that corporate behemoth — to run and hide from this lowly TBD news editor? Have a look:

• How many employees worked for Metromix D.C.?
• How many of those employees are being laid off, and how many will be employed at WUSA or elsewhere at Gannett?
• I saw your quote, "The decision was made because the business model did not prove to be effective in broadcast," but, at the risk of revealing my ignorance, I'm not quite sure what that means. Can you explain it further, for a layman like me?
• Why do you think Metromix hasn't worked in these 7 markets, versus the others?
• Do you expect more Metromix sites to become "Express" versions?
• What is the "Express" version? Will it be general entertainment news with a national focus? Will there be any difference between these 7 sites? Will there be event listings?
• Matt Farley, lead producer of Denver's Metromix, reportedly told the Denver Post, "Only two or three out of the company's roughly 60 markets were doing well." Is that accurate?
• When do these changes take effect?

I now have the answer to the last question, anyway. Sometime this week, or perhaps late last week, Metromix D.C. switched to the "express" version. At first glance, the WUSA9-curated site doesn't look much different, with a carousel of photo galleries still rotating at the top of the page. But those galleries are no longer of local events — like, say, New Year's Eve parties — and instead comprise image stills of new movies, Golden Globe predictions, "Best make-out music," American Idol audition photos, and so on. Instead of local stories you'll find "The Buzz," a Facebook-like stream that updates whenever a Metromix user posts a photo, event, or comment. (Yes, you can be one too!) I'm kind of curious to know whether anyone is actually running the site, or if it's entirely automated. But I know better than to try asking someone at Gannett whose job it is — at a media company, no less — to answer questions from the press.

After the jump:

THE CLIPBOARD

"Citing Budget Reasons, City Paper Drops Comic Strips" [DCist]

"Examiner, Disowned?" [WCP]

"Chris Hughes, Facebook Co-Founder, Interested In Buying The New Republic" [Calderone]

"Washingtonians of the Year 2011: Tom Sherwood"/"Who Doesn't Love Tom Sherwood?" [Washingtonian, DCist]

"HuffPo's new top editor worked as a speechwriter for Vince Gray until April???!?!???!" [@mikedebonis]

"Wonk Bloggers and the Vanishing Voices of Workers" [In These Times]

"Why MPD Chief Cathy Lanier wasn’t part of Homicide Watch’s Year in Review" [HW]

"Politico Taps Into Facebook’s Data Gold Mine" [Mashable]

"Weather blogger Metcalfe advects from the region" [WJLA]

"Anatomy of a Drudge Hit Gone Wrong" [Fishbowl]

"Pruden sends out 'harmful' anti-gay email" [Byers]

"Too Much Innovation at the Washington Post? My Q & A with the Post’s Ombudsman""Dear WaPo: Innovating too quickly is not the problem" [Rosen, Ingram]

"Washington Post, New York Times land on same story" [Wemple]

"Washington Times Editor Is a Few Steps Closer to That Gun" [DCist]

"Ezra Has Poor Journalism Manners" [Fishbowl]

"Four good reasons to ban the Atlantic from a California prison" [Wemple]

"Tucker Calls Interviewer a ‘Moron’ and a ‘Parasite’" [Fishbowl]

"Angie Goff & FOX5′s Tony Perkins Dance Off" [FamousDC]

"‘Whatevs’:WaPo Bloggers Get Into Brawl" [Fishbowl]

"The Daily Caller celebrates second anniversary" [Caller]

"WaPo Confuses WTOP for Mexican Radio" [Fishbowl]

DAN ZAK WATCH

HE IS GOPH

TALK STROUP

Rep. Donna Edwards talked about former prosecutor Glenn Ivey's decision to seek the House seat she now occupies, redistricting, Prince George's County's pursuit of federal agencies, gridlock in Congress and more.

And in our last segment, fitness expert Josef Brandenburg offered advice on how to make your New Year's resolutions stick.

WATCH today's interviews here:

Tuesday at 10am: DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier

The arc — or flatline, or descent — of Schneider's adult years can be traced by his occasional articles for the alt-weekly. In 2005, he lamented his "life among the cubes" as a writer for a technology company in D.C., concluding, "But you need that paycheck. You need those benefits. Your only hope, then, is to live in the moment, keep at it as an animal might, with consciousness tethered securely to the present."

A year later, he had become an unapologetic womanizer. In "Your Unfinished Basement or Mine?," he describes hunting women in bars with a friend, writing, "But as we met more and more women, we realized that we couldn’t fucking stand at least 95 percent of them. Maybe 99 percent. This was fine with me." It goes without saying that he slept with some of these women, their awfulness be damned. He was heartbroken; the world owed him.

By 2008, he was jobless. "I’ve been on unemployment three times in the past six years," he writes in "Doing More With Less." "Each time was better than the last, and each time I stayed on until the last cent was exhausted. I didn’t even try to get a job; it was a paid vacation." Again, he's remorseless: "Not only do I feel no guilt whatsoever about sucking from the state’s teat, I feel that I’m absolutely entitled to it."

Now comes his latest diatribe, last week's "Against Adulthood," with its 156 comments and counting. The first two paragraphs are fairly brilliant:

I recently found out, on the very same day, that one of my friends was engaged to be married and was expecting his first child, and that another had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer.

I felt terrible. Such a tragic waste of life. So much needless suffering. As to the other friend, I’m hopeful that against long odds, chemo can reverse the cancer’s progress.

There are other choice moments, as when he decries the "fetishization" of food, "the sanctification of something that’s going to be shooting out your ass in 72 hours." Schneider is at his best when he's cracking jokes. When he's not, though, he comes across as a bitter man-child so entrenched in unemployment, in professional failure, that the only way he can justify his way of life — his very existence — is to shit on everyone else's. Most of our jobs are "either absurdly pointless (office work) or actively makes the world a worse place (marketing, advertising)." Meanwhile, he believes being "a welfare exploiter ... does no harm." Wouldn't it be nice to live on unemployment benefits, which are funded by the employers of working taxpayers, and just write a City Paper cover story every few years? (No, seriously, wouldn't it?) If we all lived like Schneider, we would be citizens of a failed state where, for starters, unemployment benefits wouldn't exist; his way of life depends on ours.

That's not the only thing Schneider doesn't quite understand. He also can't fathom why anyone would want to marry another person. "Couples who stay together over the long run don’t seem happy so much as codependent," he writes, using one friend as the lone example. "In the end, the only rationale that strikes me as remotely sensible is that marriage is essentially a partnership whose purpose is to rear children." Which, of course, he also doesn't understand. These days, he writes, "the only thing more forehead-slappingly stupid than 'accidentally' having a kid is having one on purpose." That's because we "don't need kids like we used to," he says. "If you really try to pin a breeder down, they usually give you some garbled rationale involving 'the human race' or 'passing on their genes.'" Really? Then you have some weird breeder-friends, Franklin. I think many couples have children because it's an extension of their love, and because there's something profound about giving life to, and raising, another human being.

I'm a year older than Schneider, who is 33, and have no wife, no kids. I'm employed, but was was on unemployment for a stretch last year. (Remember when?) I can relate to the essence of his argument: that American society overvalues cohabitation and procreation, not to mention careerism. The difference between us, though, is that I don't begrudge people who value those things, so long as they don't try to impose them on me. Schneider, by contrast, feels that the very existence of these values is an imposition.

Schneider joins a long line of writers who have railed against the concept of "settling down." Christian Lorentzen, now a senior editor at the London Review of Books, did this much more effectively in 2010, for n+1. In what's ostensibly a review of the movie Greenberg, he writes,

Oh, the glory of “having it all” (career, spouse, spawn), a curious mantra whereby life is conceived as a series of choices: make the proper choices in the appropriate order, and you will have it all. Failure is a matter of faulty decision making, mismanagement of options, turning down the job offer (or record contract), dumping the girlfriend you should have clung to. On this view the only adversary an individual faces (besides, implicitly, himself) is time. Years pass, and the options dwindle until only two remain: seeking and settling. Seeking for the aged means running the risk of total failure; settling brings a decorous end to risk. The dichotomy affords the settled the privilege of gloating. More important, it denies the agonistic nature of life in a market economy. Individuals don’t simply choose, they compete against practically all friends, foes, and strangers, buffeted by the tides of history, and mostly they are defeated. The lie that goes by the name of “settling” disguises this defeat as a matter of choice.

Here, in a single paragraph, is what Schneider has been trying to say in the pages of City Paper for the past six years. And I don't disagree with the sentiment. But it's one thing to feel similarly, and another to disparage anyone who earns a living, gets married, and has kids. It's good for sparking debate and drawing clicks, sure, but that doesn't make his argument any more cogent. As one commenter wrote, "I smell a troller."

And maybe that's all Schneider is. Maybe he's just having a laugh, knowing how his barbs will rile the commentariat. But the tone of his article suggests otherwise; he seems dead serious. My favorite line from Lorentzen's piece reads, "The smug self-righteousness of the young parent knows no bounds." Few statements have felt truer to my adult life. But Schneider's essay has made me realize that the smug self-righteousness of the young, single, and unemployed man knows no bounds, either.

After the jump: The Post needs to chill out on all this innovation stuff.

Is the Post too innovative? The paper's ombudsman, Patrick Pexton, points to several innovations since he came aboard 10 months ago: a website redesign, a new content management system, recent hires for Ezra Klein's blog, a new comment system, and the launches of the Facebook Social reader, @mentionmachine, The Root DC, and the She the People blog. Paxton and some readers are wondering "whether there’s just a bit too much innovation, too fast." Of course, the website is still a content jungle. Hiring more writers and launching blogs are hardly innovations. The Social Reader is a cynical, infuriating tool for boosting traffic. And the @mentionmachine is, as one reader wrote, "one more thing to clutter a Web site that already takes forever to download.” Paxton concludes "there’s a time to press on the accelerator, and a time to ease off. Substance, clarity and direction will be more important in the long run than buzz." I couldn't agree more. What the Post needs isn't more, but rather smarter, innovation. (Related: Managing Editor Raju Narisetti responds.)

THE CLIPBOARD

Weekly Standard marketing email, written by Loudoun County Republican Eugene Delgaudio, warns of "radical homosexuals in Congress" [Politico, Fishbowl]

"When Zuckerberg Met Graham: A Facebook Love Story" [WSJ]

"Dump bodies" relates to dump trucks, not dumping corpses [WBJ]

"D.C. Council chair gets into 'screaming' match with WTOP analyst" [WTOP]

"Pre-Internet Citizen Journalism" [Washingtonian]

"Wash. Post Pulls Rug From Under New Electric Cars" [Media Matters]

"Corrections: Down in 2011" [WaPo]

"What BuzzFeed’s New Politics Team Is Doing Right" [Mediaite]

"Ben Smith’s Old Politico Blog Renamed" [Fishbowl]

"Ex-WaPo K St columnist Jeffrey Birnbaum has been a lobbyist for two years and already represents four foreign entities" [@justinelliot]

"Race, Class and the District: Top Five Stories of 2011" [DCentric]

"New York Times, Washington Post, AP Found NewsRight"/"AP, 28 news orgs launch NewsRight to collect licensing fees from aggregators" [Media Alley, Poynter]

"Live Q&A: The 2012 In/Out List" [WaPo]

HOOK, LINE, AND STINKER

"Harry Thomas Sr. was a happy and humble man. There is little humility in Harry Jr. The boy had too much arrogance, and that's what did him in." – "Tale of Two Harrys," by Harry Jaffe, Washington Examiner

And to think, Jaffe nearly made it through an entire column without offending anyone. This concluding sentence about Harry Thomas Jr., however, sounds wrong to these ears. Courts have ruled that "boy" alone is not a racist term, but it does appear in the Racial Slur Database, and it's sensitive enough that white politicians have apologized for using it to refer to a black person (in this case, Obama). Jaffe should've used "son," or even just a simple pronoun.

DAN ZAK WATCH

HE IS GOPH

TALK STROUP

State Sen. C. Anthony Muse announced he is running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by fellow Democrat Ben Cardin and we previewed the upcoming session of the Maryland General Assembly.

And Lisa Mallory, head of the DC Dept. of Employment Services, talked about the agency’s efforts to locate unemployed residents – part of the District’s “One City, One Hire” initiative.

WATCH today’s interviews here:

Friday at 10am: The latest on the charges against DC Councilman Tommy Thomas. Also, Rep. Donna Edwards and Mary Cheh