The Other Paper: "Journalistic Fluff"

Whenever I'm feeling tired and uninspired and don't know what to write about, I secretly thank whatever cruel and demented power created our imperfect universe for the existence of The Other Paper, for all I have to do is open this worhtless wasted of ink to any page in order to read some outrageous crime against good journalism.

Others apparently do not share my low opinion of TOP and instead have chosen to delude themselves into believing that TOP is actually a serious journalistic exercise rather than an exercise in sophomoric snarkiness unworthy of even the drunkest college frat boys. One such benighted soul, a certain Brian Carnahan, went so far as to write a letter, printed in this week's issue, criticizing their choice of subject matter for the February 22 cover story. Carnahan claims that he was "amazed that such a piece of journalistic fluff had made its way on to the cover of the The Other Paper." This statement led me to wonder if Carnahan has been reading the same Other Paper that I have. What he terms "journalistic fluff" seems to me to be all, in fact, that ever makes its way on to TOP's front page. This is, after all, the same publication that several years ago saw fit to devote that prime editorial real estate to a story about local ABC affiliate WSYX (Channel 6) choosing to air syndicated repeats of Seinfeld in prime time in place of whatever forgettable lump of excrement their network was shoveling out at the time. Not only is this not front page news, it's not worthy of even mentioning in any even halfway respectable newspaper. The story's only purpose seemed to be to allow the inexplicably Seinfeld-obscessed editors of TOP to slap a picture of the show's cast on the cover next to the "article."

This is also the same "newspaper" that just a few weeks ago gave over its lead-off spot to a snarky critique of local TV coverage of the winter weather, an article in which, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, the writer could not be bothered to fact check such simple details as what channel the soap opera All My Children airs on.

If it weren't for "journalistic fluff," Mr. Carnahan, there would be no Other Paper, which, as you can probably deduce from the tone of what I've written thus far today, would not, from my perspective, be such a bad thing after all.

"The Other Paper" Lapses Briefly into Respectability

So, after months of telling my readers how The Other Paper is not fit even for the wrapping of fish, I would be as surprised as any one to find myself writing something that could be construed in any way as a defense of TOP, but that is precisely what you're about to read.

This week's paper included a letter from one Terry Holub. Holub decries the hubbub over the recent staff walkouts at Clintonville movie theater Studio 35, questioning "why is so much time being spent and page space wasted" on the issue.

Well, needless to say, I disagree completely with that point of view, or else I wouldn't bother writing this.

I think that the Studio 35 situation is precisely the type of story that TOP should be covering. They bill themselves as "Columbus' News and Entertainment Newspaper", and, as local entertainment news stories go, this one is fairly significant. The departure of a good chunk of Studio 35's workforce in a dispute with the new management has implications for the future of one of Columbus' oldest and most beloved entertainment venues. This is a story worth reporting and following up on and one that I haven't seen any other local media outlet covering.

In this case, I actually have to commend The Other Paper for doing a good job.

I promise not to make a habit of it.

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.

"Made-Up" Holidays

I'm not sure if I should include this post under the category of "The Other Paper Sucks" since what I'm railing against is not so much the stupidity of TOP but something stupid that somebody unconnected with the rag is quoted as saying in the cover story. Then again, TOP's "reporter" did opt to use the stupid quote in the piece, and the editor apparently thought that a Valentine's Day puff piece on why whiny pathetic losers are still single was worthy of the cover spot. (Probably the same moron who thought that a lame article about Channel 6 airing Seinfeld repeats in prime time was front page material. Fortunately, TOP's obscession with Seinfeld seems to have waned, though it continued several years past the show's cancellation.)

The article in question ends thusly:

"I don't know what's wrong with the men in this city," said 25 year old hair stylist Stephanie Ernst. "But I do know Valentine's Day is a made-up holiday, so who cares?"

Of course it is! All holidays are "made-up" by someone. They do not just occur naturally, nor are they handed down by God (not even Christmas and Easter). We have holidays because somebody or a group of somebodys or a government or religious group thought that a particular person, cause or event was worthy of commemorating annually and set aside a day to do it. And frankly, Valentine's Day has more of a claim to being a "real" holiday, simply by virtue of having been around longer, than such Johnny Come Latelies as Kwanzaa, Martin Luthor King Day and President's Day.

Frankly, I don't bother with most holidays, "made-up" or not. Except Christmas, but that's only because of my nieces. Really. I do it for the kids.

More Mindless "Other Paper" Bashing

To be perfectly honest, I've got nothing earth shattering or interesting to say today, so I'll fall back on one of my favorite subjects: Bitching about The Other Paper, Columbus, Ohio's leading "alternative" weekly.

Have any of the writers at TOP ever had an original thought. It's not bad enough that Karen Graves, in her review of Taylor Hicks' eponymous CD, chooses to parrot someone else's ideas, but the least she could do is acknowledge it. At the beginning of the review, she says of Hicks, "In fact, he's more like America's embarassing uncle--the one who would cause a mortifying scene at a wedding reception." That should sound familiar to anyone who remember the last season of American Idol, because, although Graves does slightly reword it, Simon Cowell said that to Hicks himself on an episode of Idol. Did she think no one would notice her presenting someone else's thought, especially when it was originally spoken on the country's most watched television program.

Yeah...that was pointless, but maybe I'll actually have something worthwhile to write about...and even if I don't, I'll probably write about it anyway.

The Other Paper Regrets The Error (But Not So Much)

Nearly every Thursday, you can open up The Other Paper, Columbus, Ohio's leading alternative newsweekly, and find, in a little gray box at the bottom of page 3, a correction. These aren't usually trivial little boo-boos like spelling errors, either, but major omissions or misstatements of basic facts that affect the very meaning of the story, often slanting it toward the paper's official editorial viewpoint on the issue being covered.

This week, for example, The Other Paper points out that there are indeed five members of the Downtown Streetcar Working Group with previous experience in matters of public transportation, rather than, as reported in last week's front page story, none. This "error," combined with the overall tone of the piece, served to leave readers with the impression that a streetcar line in downtown Columbus is an impractical pipedream doomed to fail and waste millions of municipal dollars in the process.

It appears that The Other Paper's writers (one hesitates to call them journalists) aren't about to let little things like facts or truth interfere with their predetermined notions.

A Brief Detour Into Politics....

I'm puzzle by something I read in The Other Paper last week...

No, this is not my usual and, by now, tedious rant about how TOP is a worthless waste of paper and all of its writers are talentless, lazy hacks with the maturity level of a 13 year old boy. Actually, Dan Williamson, who wrote the column in question, is the onlyTOP writer I can read without screaming.

Except when he writes about the strange behaviors of Republicans. But it's the Republicans who make me want to scream, not Williamson's prose.

Last Thursday, Williamson related how the Democratic candidate for Ohio state Treasurer was virtually a lock to win because his Republican opponent was unknown and underfunded. It seems, according to Williamson, that Republican voters rejected the re-nomination bid of the Republican incumbent Treasurer because of her positions on abortion and gay rights.

What????

That's the thing that I don't understand...

Certainly those are core Republican wedge issues that they love to use to lord their moral superiority over us ungodly liberals, but what the bloody hell do they have to do with the Treasurer's office????

I don't want or need any office holder, Republican or Democrat or Communist or Green or whatever, telling me how to live, and I certainly don't see how it's the busines of the Treasurer. It appears that Ohio Republicans, in some twisted quest for moral purity in their candidates, have screwed their party of an important statewide office.

GOOD.

Missing The Mark

I could maintain a whole other blog, updated several times daily, devoted to the errors, stupid mistakes, and general stupidity to be found each and every week in Columbus, Ohio's so-called "alternative" newspaper (that word should most likely be in quote marks as well) The Other Paper. Yes, coming soon to an Internet near you: TheOtherPaperIsFullOfCrap.com. Watch for it.

This week's example of how just about everyone associated with this rag is out of touch with reality as you and I know it comes from the Alternaflicks column by Teena (two e's, isn't that sooo cute) Parker which leads off with an item about the annual 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon, which is taking place at the brand spanking new Drexel Gateway Theater even as I type this.

The item begins thusly:

"'Space: the final frontier....' If you know which television show those words came from, then we probably don't have to remind you that the Drexel's annual Science Fiction Film Festival kicks off this weekend."

In keeping with TOP's grand journalistic tradition of mocking those they percieve as less cool than themselves, which, given their unusually, and wholly unjustified, high opinion of themselves, is just about everyone, this lead tries to paint anyone who'd be interested in the marathon as a hopeless Sci-Fi geek, but kind of misses the mark. Parker might have made her snarky little point better if she'd picked a more obscure quote, perhaps something from one of the films actually being shown this weekend. (Though, it, of course, goes without saying that she, since she writes for TOP, is far too cool to have seen any of them, or to take the time to research them.) Furthermore, given its immense mainstream success and tremendous impact on American popular culture, it does not mean you are a geek if you recognize the first four words from the opening narration of Star Trek. It simply means that you've been alive and living in the United States of America sometime during the past four decades and have been even vaguely aware of your surroundings, instead of living with your head stuck up your own butt like most of TOP's writers.

I said the only reason I even pick this thing up is for Tom, the Dancing Bug--but that's available on-line, isn't it?

Do The Research, Morons!

Just about every damned week in The Other Paper, Columbus, Ohio's free weekly rag for people who want to think that they are "alternative", there is fresh evidence that the majority of TOP's writers have no bloody idea what the hell they're writing about, as if they somehow believe that a cynical, snarky display of "attitude" will make up for utter lack of accuracy. This week's gem of poor research and just not paying attention comes from the regular Media Morsels columns:

"If Ohio State football is a religion, the writer of the blog Tressel's World had better go hide somewhere with Salman Rushdie and those Dutch cartoonists."(emphasis added)

Interestingly, there's no byline on this column, allowing the idiot who writes this crap to go on practicing his stupidity in blessed anonymity.

Anyone who's paid even cursory attention to the firestorm in Europe and the Middle East over the cartoons lampooning the Muslim prophet knows that the cartoonists responsible, or at least the newspaper that commissioned their work, are Danish.

It is unforgivable for the writer, whoever it may be, of a MEDIA column not to know even the most rudimentary details of the biggest international story of the year so far, which dominated the news media for the better part of two months. It's like a Washington correspondent listing the address of the White House as 1700 Pennsylvania.

Honestly, there is just no damned excuse for such ignorance of current events from someone whose job is to watch the freakin' news.

Y'know, if it weren't for Tom the Dancing Bug, I wouldn't even bother with that lame waste of paper.