Oops! TOP Did It Again!!

My God, they must have brass ones over at The Other Paper. (For my readers outside of Columbus, TOP is our leading "alternative" newsweekly.) I mean, they have got chutzpah coming out their freakin' ears.

In this week's Media Morsels column, the unnamed writer mocks the Ohio State University student paper, The Lantern, for declaring in an article: "When the temperature is below 20 degrees Celsius, that is when officials will decide if classes should be cancelled." The Media Morsels author points out that 20 Celsius is equivalent to 68 Fahrenheit, and smarmily suggests that OSU might be back in session by March, if there's a warm spell.

I do not believe that TOP would dare to ridicule another publication for a minor mistake when an average issue of their worthless rag is riddled with stupid errors. Some months ago, I cited their reference to the "Dutch" cartoons of Mohammed, when anybody who paid even cursory attention to the news twelve months ago knew that the controversial drawings appeared in a Danish newspaper. Then there's the review of The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie, in which the reviewer cited The Lizzie Maguire Movie and Recess among films made from Nickelodeon shows, when the shows that inspired those two wastes of celluloid aired on The Disney Channel. Just last week, in a pointless cover story mocking local TV station's coverage of the recent snow emergency, writer Dan Williamson reported: "Channel 4 intruded upon All My Children so Marshall McPeek could conduct an interview with Robert Crockett of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency."

Wow! That must have been some interview if Channel 4 felt the need to pre-empt another station's programming. You see, Channel 4 is an NBC affilliate, and All My Children, an ABC soap, airs locally on Channel 6.

I considered writing about that boo-boo last week right after I read it, but decided that it wasn't really that big a deal, just the latest in a seeming endless string of stupid mistakes that make it into print with alarming regularity. At least it wasn't a big deal until TOP had the temerity to take another newspaper to task for a goof that really wasn't such a big deal either. Apparently, the stone throwers at The Other Paper don't realize just what their own house is constructed of.