Seventy-year-old Washington Post features editor Henry Allen, like many of us, frequently wants to punch the writers of Washington Post articles immediately after reading them. But you can’t actually do that, Henry! Oh, wait, it was a “charticle” someone else had assigned that infuriated him so much last week. Punches are justified on anyone who writes a “charticle,” of course.
Harry Jaffe at Washingtonian reports:
According to many sources, the incident began when Style editor Ned Martel assigned a semi-political story to Monica Hesse and [Manuel] Roig-Franzia. Playing off of an inadvertent disclosure last week that many congressmen are being investigated for ethics violations, Martel asked the two Style writers to compile a list of similar disclosures in the past. They came up with a “charticle” with a dozen examples, starting with Robert E. Lee’s Civil War battle plans for Antietam showing up wrapped around cigars.
Oh God.
Allen took a look and didn’t like. He started ranting about the number of mistakes he had found.
Hesse at one point asked him to send the copy back to her. She got a bit teary at the verbal beatdown.
Allen, according to sources, said: “This is total crap. It’s the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years.”
Roig-Franzia then wandered into the newsroom. A veteran foreign correspondent, he has been turning out political features for Style. He heard Allen’s rant and stopped by his desk.
“Oh, Henry,” he supposedly said, “don’t be such a cocks—–.”
Allen lunged at Roig-Franzia, threw him to the newsroom floor, and started throwing punches. Roig-Franzia tried to fend him off. Brauchli and others pulled the two apart.
At some point during the America’s Next Great Pundit competition, the competitors will take turns facing Henry Allen and his sidekick boxing kangaree in a mudpit gauntlet fight.
Fists Fly After Post Editor Tells Writer, “It’s the Second Worst Story I Have Seen in Style in 43 Years” [Washingtonian]
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Isn’t that kid a little young to be a Virginia Corrections Officer?
I was wondering how an old coot could beat up a foreign correspondent, then I read that he was a marine. Which foreign parts was Roig-Franzia corresponding from if he can’t take a 70-year-old coot? At least now I know what it takes to break into journalism: a wicked hook.
Good for Henry Allen. Plus anyone named Roig-Francia deserves a beatdown. Glad to see Brauchli doing something useful-Maybe he can become a mall security guard since managing the POst doesn’t seem tobe wokring for him.
Dare one ask what was the worst story?
Hahaha! Bitchslapped by a 70 year old editor. This should happen every day at the post. Maybe they wouldn’t suck as hard.
“Oh, Henry, don’t be such a cocksucker” is how I’m going to respond to pretty much everything my boss says from here on out.
I wonder what the first worst story was.
Tomorrow’s edition of the Washington Post will include a “sharticle” illustrating the paper’s long and storied history of crapulence.
The first rule of the Washington Post Style section is, you don’t talk about the Washington Post Style section.
The second rule of the Washington Post Style section is, you don’t talk about the Washington Post Style section.
The third rule is, no “charticles.”
We’d all be better off if these rules were followed.
“(Allen) had come up in Style’s heady days, when writers could wax for a hundred inches on the wonder of plastic lawn furniture . . .”
Thus answering the question, “What was the worst story in the last forty-three years.
[re=448190]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: Exactly! That is now all I care about. Post reporters can beat themselves up on their own time…I demand to see the worst story Style has printed in 43 years!
So they’ll throw down over an inaccurate mention of General Lee, but they’re entirely happy to print whatever crap comes out of the mouth of Billy Kristol? Just so’s I’m clear on this -
Give that man another Pulitzer Prize for excellence in journalistic ass-kicking. Give me 25 Henry Allen’s and I’ll give you a newspaper worth reading.
WaPo has a “style” section? How many articles can one write about bowties?
At what point does Richard Cohen receive a good old fashioned cock punch, Henry Allen? AT WHAT POINT?
Can someone issue a beatdown on Chris Wallace?
What the hell’s a “charticle”, anyway; besides one of those stupid fake, cutesy words the modern media loves so much?
[re=448190]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: And this is the Style section, home to crap, irrelevant non-stories like Robin Givhan’s latest analysis of female politicians’ haircuts. The worst article ever there has got to be a total cocksucking crapfest.
Hell hath no
furryfury like an editor scorned.[re=448190]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: I sure want to know the answer to that, but I imagine it had something to do with waxing poetic about plastic lawn furniture.
Ha, ha, I get it. Washington Post, quality control? That’s a hoot.
[re=448200]snideinplainsight[/re]: Yeah, this guy needs to be the editor for Kristol, Gerson, Ponnuru and Krauthammer. It would be so much fun, especially if the writers were required to have new pictures accompanying their nonsense every week. Readers could gauge their factual accuracy by the number of facial bruises.
Did they list Obama’s plan for Af-Pak found wrapped around a BB?
[re=448206]dum librul[/re]: Yes, Richard Cohen has deserved that for FIVE AND A HALF YEARS, ALLEN!
[re=448190]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: Jimmy’s World?
My old man would approve. Calling anyone my dad’s age a cocksucker is fightin’ words.
[re=448220]TGY[/re]: That’s not funny. John McCain was imprisoned FOUR BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE.
Nerds fighting. Is there a sorrier spectacle?
[re=448193]desertwind[/re]: I found an archived version of the worst story RIGHT HERE.
Henry Allen, defender of Journalism, we salute you!
You cocks—–!!!
I, too, would like to know the worst story he’s ever seen.
“Sarah Palin, meet Henry Allen. Henry, this is Sarah Palin. What was that you were just saying, Sarah, you think Henry is a real cocksucker?”
And to think, just a few months ago, Allen was scheduled to act as the parking valet for the first of those sexy WaPo salons.
[re=448193]desertwind[/re]: [re=448190]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: I’m guessing it had something to do with J. Edgar Hoover’s fashion sensibilities.
I hear Al Davis called Henry Allan with an offer to coach the Raiders.
So, when will we see the announcement of Allen’s retirement to spend more time with his family?
ALL
TIME
GREATEST
PHOTO!!!
I am so glad I am not a finalist in the “Random Twitter Freak Columnist” sweepstakes.
It’s a good thing that Mr. Allen doesn’t work in the Editorial department; otherwise, there would have been a mass slaying of morans.
[re=448193]desertwind[/re]: That was first thought too: I wonder if it was the Robin Givhan’s dumb story on Hillary’s titties? Knowing the sensibilities of the Post, though, the worst articles would have never bothered anybody in the newsroom.
Monica Hesse is the same c*** who wrote a flattering profile of that campaign for traditional marriage guy, and then cried when everyone got pissed off at how she kept calling him ‘reasonable.’ Got all weepy and said it wasn’t her fault because she was lesbian until graduation in college. Hahaha.
Cry Hesse, cry! Cry Hesse, cry!
The second worst article? Does that count the Sally Quinn years?
“Kangaree”? Guess I’m not as hep to the jive kids talk these days as I thought I was.
America’s Next Great Pundit competition: fresh meat.
He’s been there for 43 years? Why is he not Editor and Chief? Everytime anyone writes a horrible article, he kicks the shit out of them. And instead of charging for actual articles like the WSJ is trying to do, then charge people to watch the videos of the sucky reporters beaten senseless.
“
CrashRoig-Franzia must have called the guy a cocksucker.”/fixed
[re=448190]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: Exactly what I thought!
[re=448195]Extemporanus[/re]: oh my good god – sharticle? Is this an already existing word, or did that just pop into your brain?! Becuase it just made my afternoon.
And, you know, I think this is the first time I have seen a major cultural force (here, the WaPo) dying in slow motion. We have seen big companies collapse, but this is like a slow suicide. The paper keeps getting worse, the magazine is now embarassingly bad, and the editors seem to have decided to use the paper merely as a conduit to the website. This strategy is moronic, as people who get the paper, want a PAPER. Some of us like the paper, then use the site during the day to get more news, but why is the WaPo saying F you to the few subscribers it has left?
Oh well.
Charticles?
Can’t one get a professional manicure to take care of that?
[re=448232]Extemporanus[/re]: Things happen when you wear ELEGANZA!
Yes they do, but they happen 35 years later and mostly involve humiliation.
[re=448302]havefunordie[/re]: I think USA Today consisted solely of charticles for years.
1) What were the errors; 2) What was the worst; 3) On what planet is “oh Henry, don’t be such a cocksucker” an appropriate way to engage in intra-office disagreement; Where do we contribute to the Henry Allen defense fund?
If only JJ did this to Peter Parker….
[re=448316]Doglessliberal[/re]: I think “shiticles” might be the better term.
One would think that they would assign ex-Marines to the city desk and let the CO’s edit the Style section. Otoh, I worked for Herman Kogan at the Sun-Times “Show” section, and he was an ex-WWII Marine combat correspondent and as good an editor as ever was. Word was that if he hadn’t been Jewish, he would have been the boss, but Marshall Field IV decided that Chicago (meaning “Marshall Field”) wasn’t “ready” for a Jewish editor-in-chief. Today’s hint: many editors are indeed cocksuckers, but don’t remind them.
A worse story, I don’t know for sure but I believe Richard Cohen or Bill Kristol are involved in this somewhere. Maybe they sucked Allen’s cock to avoid the beat down.
Caption: WaPo charticle submission
[re=448327]2goats[/re]: Seriously about the Allen defense fund. I cannot believe they are going to dump Allen for some idiot who called him a cocksucker. OK, I can believe it, but it is just so stupid.
Cocksmith?
A beatdown is deserved simply for using the *word* charticle, much less actually wrtiting one.
[re=448306]coolcatdaddy[/re]: I think you need valtrex to get rid of charticles.
This has to be the metaphor for the Death of the Post – the last scion of real journalism beating the shit out of some piece of shit who I imagine can’t write his way out of a paper bag – but undoubtedly knew which asses to kiss. Goodbye Washington Post.
Someone should have strolled in and said, “That’s the third-worst fight I’ve seen in the WaPo offices in 639 years.”
I hope the writer of the worst article Henry Allen has seen during his decades in the business mailed in the copy.
I wonder if Henry Allen is taking requests.
[re=448189]finallyhappy[/re]: Funny!
Hey, Henry: Can you take out a few more wayward morons on your way out in the next few weeks for us? You can start with the moran who destroyed the Sunday magazine, the moran who shrunk the comics into nothingness, the moran who destroyed the daily weather map into nothingness, the moran who recently destroyed the entire look of the paper so it looks like a high school newspaper work-in-progress or a piece of crap or both, the moran who put those stupid pictures at the top of columns for god’s sake, and the asshole who approved “Over Your Head,” “Prickly City,” Candorville,” “Baldo” and “Curtis” for the comics pages.
Anybody named Roig-Franzia deserves a sock in the nose. Now Miguel Burr–Hamilton — both a fighter and a writer.
Early on during the Iraq War, some jerk on the WaPo editorial staff lifted an entire paragraph from one of my online anti-Bush rants and incorporated it into an article on the editorial page. I have no idea who committed the theft, but that Roig-Franzia seems a likely candidate. So pound away, Mr. Allen, pound away. Then call me. I’ve got a list!
Suck a few Domenican delivery boy dicks, and suddenly you’re a “cocksucker.” No wonder he was wound a little tight.
If it will make Monica Hesse cry, I’ll call someone a cocksucker every day.
[re=448232]Extemporanus[/re]: good gravy, I would *subscribe* to the Post and frequent all their advertisers if they ran fashion features like that.
The fact remains that if Allen’s been editing the Style section for any of the last 43 years, he’s got a beatdown coming, too.
I’d beatdown someone just for inventing the word “charticle”, let alone writing one. To then write a bad one (I will not repeat such a shitty-cutesy word) would be grounds for a justified homicide, in my not so humble opinion (I refuse to write out the shitt-cutsey acronym).
WaPo should simply reincorporate as a pet supply company to make official what people have been using its product for for some time now: lining bird cages and litter boxes. Other secondary uses include using it as filler for animal feed and McDonald’s “hamburgers”. Way down the list of usages is reading it.
Worst article ever in the Post? It was a 2,500-way tie.
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