Media Bitchfest

A Shafer Alternative

May 24th, 2006 by Bitchfest

Gawker calls Slate’s senior media curmudgeon Jack Shafer the “unofficial ombudsman” of the New York Times and they are, without question, absolutely correct. In fact, Shafer’s dogged (borderline, nay, vitriolic) obsession with The Grey Lady is a testament to the critical marketplace made possible by the interwebs. Three cheers for Jack Shafer.

This morning, the old boy goes after yesterday’s piece on the Clinton marriage which splashed onto the front page of Drudge and turned out to be, well, pretty tame to the initial touch.

However, like a magic eye Shafer sees the schooner beyond the fuzz and he fucking hates schooners.

Intrigue feeds on intrigue when the article highlights Bill’s relative absence from events that showcase Hillary and asserts that she wants to position herself as her “own person,” owing to her presidential ambitions. But why make any fuss about Bill not being at Hillary’s side? Few members of Congress appear in public with their spouses, except during campaigns, and even then many campaign alone. Unless, of course, the Times intends a secret message with this piece: They spend lots of time together, he keeps a tactful distance from her career by mutual agreement, and he cheats.

As usual, Shafer makes an excellent point. The story dances around any actual issues and in the end only serves to reassure America that come election time we are going to hear a lot about the Clintons. Jack chalks up the whisky dick final product to the likely gauntlet of editorial revisions it had to face before publication and concludes the article by openly pining for initial drafts.

Then (in what we envision punctuated by a comical throwing up of hands in exasperation) he solicits reader feedback on which power of state the Slate nation would most covet. He wishes he could just subpoena newspapers until he turned blue in the face. Ours? Easy, appropriation. Let’s just say we wouldn’t mind getting city, state or federal monies for our own stadium.

• Captain Jack will keep you high tonight [Slate]

Posted in Uncategorized

TrackBack URI

Leave a Reply