Kevin Allman

Write for free!: Huffington Post's massage oasis at the Dem convention

Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post can't afford to pay the site's bloggers -- it's not part of the business model, don't you know, darling -- but somehow she can dig up the shekels for this:

[W]e've decided to demonstrate that a balanced life is possible even during the most compulsively hectic days in the political calendar. So during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, HuffPost's Living section will offer harried conventioneers -- including delegates and members of the media -- a chance to unplug and recharge at the HuffPost Oasis.

The Oasis will feature complimentary yoga classes, Thai massages, hand massages, mini-facials, healthy snacks and refreshments, music, and a comfortable seating area for lounging and unwinding.

Well, that's one way to make sure you keep getting hand-massaged press for your online company. Marshall McLuhan was right: the medium is the massage.

Anyone at the convention want to keep tabs on which poor overworked beleaguered members of the media are lining up for a free facial and hand massage from Arianna? And are bloggers eligible for Arianna's ministrations, or is it just "delegates and members of the media"?

Pubic support at the Portland Tribune

We've written before about the things that can happen when a paper like the Portland Tribune fires its copyediting staff to save a few bucks. Another example:

Automated spellcheck; it'll be the death of you yet, or at least the source of pubic humiliation.

Plagiarism puts a weekly paper out of business

I've been fascinated by Slate.com music critic Jody Rosen's story, "Dude, You Stole My Article." Rosen discovered that a "Mark Williams," a writer for a small alt-weekly in Texas (its website is now down), the Montgomery County Bulletin, had plagiarized a Jimmy Buffett feature that Rosen had written. Intrigued/pissed off, Rosen decided to dig farther:

Since 2005, the Bulletin has published dozens of stories under Williams' byline that appear to be copied, whole or in part, from other periodicals. Compare the Bulletin's Nov. 4, 2005, Franz Ferdinand piece and this NME review, published five weeks prior; the Bulletin's Steely Dan piece (July 14, 2006) and this article from the Web site All About Jazz (July 4, 2006); the Bulletin's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club featureBoston Globe piece (May 25, 2007); the Bulletin's McKay Brothers articleDallas Observer item (Oct. 19, 2006); and the Bulletin's "God and Country: More Popular Artists Are Now Singing a Spiritual Tune" (Sept. 20, 2007) and the Billie Joe Shaver concert review by Washington Post pop critic J. Freedom du Lac (Sept. 13, 2007). The Eagles piece published in the Bulletin on Dec. 13, 2007 is a nearly word-for-word recapitulation of David Fricke's Rolling Stone review (Nov. 1, 2007). Mark Williams sought inspiration from USA Today for his features on Paul Simon (USA Today version; Bulletin version) and Tom Petty (USA Today version; Bulletin version). The Evanston, Ill.-based blog Pop Matters is the apparent source of articles on Dwight Yoakam (Pop Matters version; Bulletin version) and Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (Pop Matters version; Bulletin version). And then there's "Crazy About 'Crazy' " (March 2, 2007), Williams' deconstruction of the monster 2006 pop hit by Gnarls Barkley—an article that bears a striking resemblance to "Crazy for 'Crazy'," published six months earlier in Slate.

 

Rosen spoke to the paper's editor, Mike Ladyman, but then Ladyman rabbited and went to ground. After Slate ran Rosen's feature, though, the Bulletin abruptly folded and Ladyman and WIlliams (or, as it appears, Ladyman/Williams) went on a pity-party attack, blaming Rosen for taking their/his mendacity public. From the Houston Press interview with Ladyman:

"It is a low-budget publication. Or was. It’s no longer a publication. I’m quitting. After this Slate article and this is the future of journalism in New York City [sic]. I don’t want any part of it.”

But it was "Williams"' open letter to Jody Rosen that iced this cake. It reads, in part:

It must have taken years of seasoned investigative know-how to push me off my lofty perch. It takes a dogged, intrepid journalist to expose the alleged wrongdoings of a 44-year-old college dropout who drifted from one lousy media job to another for 20 years; it takes courage to debase someone with a mouthful of cut-rate dentures who, up until 2007, lived in his parents’ home for seven years due to near-fatal bouts of clinical depression; it takes a journalist of a certain caliber to torpedo a pathetic hack who has barely squeezed out a living for nearly a decade at seven cents a word....

It is easy to make fun of our little rag, Mr. Rosen -- to call attention to the gaffes and human foibles of a couple of faceless rubes a half a nation away; but, despite your grievances with our publication, I feel that we have done some good in our corner of the world. Through our output of articles over the years, we kept a hateful rogue element of the local Republican Party from taking control of our county library system and ripping the Constitution to shreds; we have reported unblinkingly on the troubled plight of illegal aliens living in our area; we have stood face-to-face with members of the Ku Klux Klan to question their ideological inconsistencies; and we touched the heart of a killer who turned himself in after reading an article in our publication on his victim, who, for years, struggled with alcoholism and the estrangement it caused with his family. In short, we have called attention to a great number of injustices in our crappy little town, both great and small.

So there it is, Mr. Rosen -- congratulations on breaking an already fragile soul. In the end, I’m not sure what the point of all of this truly is, other than some sort of small dully colored feather in your journalistic cap. We bow to you, Mr. Rosen -- to your talent, to your humanity, to all that is you.

Hey, Jody Rosen: nice feather, man.

The newspaper and the dumb dress code

Years ago, I worked at a beleaguered big-city daily where the managers decided that the best way to address sagging morale was to restate the already-existing dress code. Such a move, of course, was a red flag in front of a bunch of badly-dressed bulls, and it was promptly ignored...except by the young woman who pushed the mail cart, who had the delightful notion of showing up the next day in a prom dress.

With elbow-length gloves.

She was sent home and the dress code was not mentioned again.

All this is prelude to the three-act play enacted last week in the newsroom of the even-more-beleaguered Los Angeles Daily News, which is reeling from layoffs and stress and downturns and all that modern newspaper wonderfulness. The story unfolds at LA Observed:

Act One, Thurs., July 31:

The rest of L.A. may be more casual than ever, but at the Daily News denim is now banned:

* Managers and professional employees should dress for business daily; never jeans or tennis shoes. If unsure, recall how you dressed when you interviewed for your position.
* Casual Friday is an option. Business casual always presents a good appearance, never jeans, running shoes, T-shirts, flip-flops or beachwear.
* Business casual is a good choice for evening work in all departments outside of production.
* Clothing should be clean, unwrinkled and in good repair.
* Denim including designer jeans is never appropriate for the workplace.

(Designer jeans? Have we teleported back to 1979 and the Age of Gloria Vanderbilt?)

Act Two, Fri., Aug. 1:

I'm told via email that "EVERYBODY is wearing jeans today in the newsroom of the DN. Heh-heh."

Act Three, Mon., Aug. 4:

Editor Carolina Garcia just put out the word:

All,

After serious review, the proposed dress code has been dropped from consideration. Let's continue to dress professionally and to use our best judgment in choosing the right attire for the task at hand - whether covering a city hall news conference, chasing a fire or working the night copy desk.

Thanks to everyone for your involvement in helping arrive at this decision.

Carolina

I wonder if anyone had the balls (or the fashion sense) to wear a prom dress.

Cuil? Not cuil.

There's been a lot of fuss in the last couple of days about Cuil, the latest Google-slayer in the search-engine business. Good luck to them, but I entered my own name and got this:

That's my biography, and my LinkedIn page, but the photo? I've never seen that guy before, and certainly not in the mirror. Sorry, Random Guy in a Tie.

The incredibly coincidental magazine cover

Magazine art directors spend a lot of time entertaining dark suspicions about cover-image plagiarism. Often the suspicious covers just end up being a) a hackneyed concept or b) something that's in the Zeitgeist, floating into heads at the same time.

But sometimes you get this:

On the left is the spring 2007 cover of T Magazine, the New York Times' flossy journal about food, travel, shopping, and people with way too much money. On the right, the current issue of Coast, a periodical out of Newport Beach, Calif. dedicated to food, travel, shopping, and people with way too much money.

Sure, two similar magazines might independently conceive of a cover consisting of a close-up of a beautiful woman (with way too much money) eating a sandwich.

But...

...the cropping on the mouth?

...the panini, complete with napkin, grill marks, lettuce, and tomato?

...the blood-red manicures?

...and the ugly rings, placed exactly on the same finger?

The people at T Magazine think Coast has some explaining to do, but they're taking a good-humored, chiding tone. And who knows if this was the work of an independently hired photographer, an art director, or even a stock photographer.

Meanwhile, what hits me is that the original was actually striking, while the copy is just an average magazine image. I think it has to do with the geometry of the original -- the oval of the face, the triangle of the sandwich, the circle of the tomato, the parallel lines of the fingers. All those elements are present in the other magazine, but they're not as well thought out. Or maybe it's just that the first one is just plain sexier -- the mouth as lubricious as a Rolling Stones album cover, the grill marks pointing inside. The girl in the second shot looks like someone told her "Hold the sandwich next to your face and open your mouth slightly."

WDSU: On your psilocybin side

Remember, kids: drugs are bad...

Another casualty of the newspaper buyout frenzy

Peter Carlson, who wrote the funny and revealing Magazine Reader column for The Washington Post for 12 years, is taking the paper's buyout. Today is his last column, and as usual, it's smart and trenchant:

For nearly 12 years, I've been paid real American money to read magazines and write about them. During those years I've pondered the glories of magazines ranging from Life to Sounds of Death, from Reason to Paranoia, from George to Jane, from Spy to Sly, from Good Dog! to Murder Dog, from New Beauty to New Witch, from Modern Maturity to Modern Ferret to Modern Drunkard. And let's not forget Wrapped in Plastic, a magazine devoted to David Lynch's long-dead TV show, Twin Peaks.

He sums up the appeal of magazines as well as I've ever read:

Human beings love stories and a magazine, at its best, is where a writer can take the time to sit down and tell a good story: I went off on an adventure and here's what I saw and heard and how it felt and what I think it means. Newspapers sometimes do this, too, of course, but not as often as they used to, alas. Most magazines don't do it very often or very well but some do -- Esquire, Harper's, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, GQ, Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly, National Geographic, and, of course, the best of them all, the New Yorker.

Thanks for sitting down and telling a good story, Peter Carlson.

Why New Orleans is the best news market

Headlines from this afternoon's news wrap:

"Science, Religion Square Off in Baton Rouge" (you know this can't be good)

"Lap Dances Saved By Senate Committee"

"Sex Predator Castration OK With House Panel"

And then there's this, in a Times-Picayune article about GOP troubles:

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said he doesn't agree with Davis' pessimistic assessment, but he does say "it's certainly true that national Republicans need to improve their brand. "Perhaps folks should actually take some cues from Republicans in Louisiana," Vitter said. "At home, we're the party of reform and positive changes versus failed past and the good ol' boys."

Who needs the Weekly World News?

Stupider TV news, part II

Why should people outside the New Orleans viewing area be deprived of the "ABC26 News Wheel of Justice" and the station's newest correspondent Tat-2 the Bounty Hunter?