Category: style section

BREAKING: WaPo Uses Style Section to Report on Superficiality Instead of Just Propagating It

Perhaps mindful of its own coming reckoning with flat circulation figures, the WaPo juggernaut dispatches Ariana Eunjung Cha to nail the story of how these fancypants "celebrity magazines" keep raking in the readers and ad bucks. Cha delivers the goods, in a singularly rapt account of an Us Weekly photo meeting:

Around 7:15 p.m., [Peter] Grossman, 30, a music education graduate student turned photo editor, came in bringing more shots--including one that showed [Brad] Pitt's and [Pitt's adopted daughter] Zahara's faces, but extremely blurred. The room of editors erupted into a rapid-fire free-for-all.

"It's a setup!"

"Who cares?"

"He's really buff."

"But he seems to have a careless hold on said baby."

"Cute! Cute!"

Yes, fellow Americans: Nominal adults are pulling down six-figure salaries--and more; Cha reports that Us Weekly editor in chief Janice Min "earns" about $1.2 million a year--for yelling things like "Cute" and "He's really buff." Is it any wonder the apocalypse seems to be encroaching? Though then again, on the upside, Us can at least claim credit for there being one less music grad student in the world. --HOLLY MARTINS

Print Media's Hot New Stars: Celebrity Magazines [WaPo]

READ MORE: celebrity mags , signs of the apocalypse , style section , washington post

The Gentle Snorts of Our Readers Nodding Off. . .

In Installment No. 947 of the ongoing "It's Summer, and We're Officially Out of Ideas" series, editors of the WaPo Style section at least stop flogging the old heat-and-shade warhorses. Today, instead, they turn the redoubtable Linton Weeks loose on "the sounds of summer." Get out your onomonopoeia headphones, nimble readers:

As the season fades into fall, these are some sounds we have savored: The scruuussshh of a full-grown man sliding through the dust into third base. The dinka-plinka of the ice cream van skulking about the neighborhood. The rumble of coming thunder and the white-noise pleasantness of an afternoon rain. Wasps whispering, bullfrogs bellowing, the crisp flapping of the flag on the 17th green, the metronomic numbness of ocean waves and the ker-swooch ignition of charcoal on the grill.

Yes, the fulsome dinka-plinka, the lovely scruussshh; as one fond editor acquaintance once remarked: "That's not writing; that's writin'!" Still, amid all the bellowing froggies and whispering wasps--who we are almost certain are Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, by the way--this stray quote caught our, uhm, ear:

"I think I hear humidity," says Andy Rosenberg, a broadcast engineer who has worked at National Public Radio for more than 30 years. "I think it has to do with the density of the air. Things sound kind of deadened."

Dude, that's not humidity: That's Susan Stamberg. -- HOLLY MARTINS

The Sounds of Summer [WaPo]

READ MORE: please let it end , style section , summer , washington post

The Obvious Reliable Choices

After the jump: The official announcement of the new Reliable Source(s), Posties Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts. At least they will have an excuse to write in first person plural.

Note: The most excellent thing about not being named the Reliable Source ourselves will be our continued pleasure in mocking the WP Style section. Good luck, girls. We'll be gentle. At first.

RELATED: Post Goes Back to Double Byline in Reviving Reliable Source [Washingtonian]"

We're delighted to announce the appointment of the next Reliable Source, or rather Sources: Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts.  

After more than a decade chronicling the social life of Washington, Roxanne knows everyone on the Capitol Hill-Georgetown axis. Born and raised in Minneapolis, she started in the Style section in 1988 and has been an invaluable guide to state dinners and to life Out & About. Amy is a native of Alexandria and a 10-year Post veteran, who has been a reporter for both Metro and National. She is a pop culture junkie whose tour in Los Angeles has sharpened her already formidable skills at celebrity spotting.

Both Amy and Roxanne have exciting ideas for further expanding the reach and impact of The Reliable Source, one of the paper's signature columns and the first place many readers start their day. As part of that effort, we expect to increase the frequency of the column and to expand its presence on the web.

We're excited about this new era in gossip and encourage everyone to share with Amy and Roxanne those delicious tidbits that make the Source a must-read.

Deborah Heard                                                                Steve Reiss

READ MORE: amy argetsinger , reliable source , roxanne roberts , style section , washington post

Purple Reign

Names and Faces reports on a cheesy Web promotional gimmick for Wedding Crashers that's run afoul of the law--or at least a law in progress. The site's "Crasher Kit" includes a print-your-own-Purple Heart feature, so that you can print out a phony medal and use it, like the Owen Wilson character in the film, to bag unsuspecting maids of honor. But Hershel Gobel, of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, got the film's producers at New Line Cinema to take the feature down. Gobel is also campaigning for the ratification of Rep. John T. Salazar's (D-Colo.) "Stolen Valor Act" making it illegal to display phony military awards. (In addition to buying, selling, making and wearing them, which is already illegal.) That all sounds very worthy and good, but we're hoping we can build on this encouraging precedent. Let's round up the douchetards at last year's GOP convention who distributed the bandaids mocking John Kerry's war wounds (surely tasteless medal parody falls under the law's provisions). And while we're at it, can we please get something done about those irksome Steve Zissou Adidases? --HOLLY MARTINS

Cheating Hearts [Washington Post; third item]

READ MORE: congress , military , pop culture , style section

An Open Buchwald

Art Buchwald phones in a column that's half-blank. We know that's not exactly news, but here's the point: The Post "humorist" is "spoofing" the gimmicky reader-participation stunts newspapers use to boost reader interest in a sagging market. Of course the gimmick-mimicking becomes a tedious gimmick itself in no time flat. Still, we have to salute the Style section of the Post: For the first time in decades, they've printed a Buchwald column that stands at least a theoretical chance of being funny. --HOLLY MARTINS

This Just In! Now [BLANK] Can Be A Roving Reporter [Washington Post]

READ MORE: alleged humor , style section , washington post

Here's to You, Mr. Robinson

The Washingtonian's Harry Jaffe writes on the runaway success of former WaPo Style editor Gene Robinson's op-ed column. Robinson has developed a devoted following in the five-month run of his column, and 25 other papers are syndicating it. Jaffe wonders aloud what could be the secret of his success: "Robinson has no particular portfolio as a columnist other than his deep and wide reporting career."

Actually, there's no great secret here: As Style editor, Robinson made Tina Brown a weekly fixture in the Post. Next to that sort of competition, you have to try not to make an impression. Also? Once you pull a stunt like that, all your fellow editors will quake in deferential fear over whatever you might do next.--HOLLY MARTINS

Fresh Voice on Washington Post Editorial Page [Washingtonian]

READ MORE: press , style section , washington post

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