The Nation's Eric Alterman spends countless hours (and upwards of 550 words) refuting Portfolio blogger (and Radar alumnus) Jeff Bercovici's charge that he's "not stupid."
Yawn.
C'mon you guys, if we wanted to read boring self-important tripe disguised as a media column, we'd be looking at everything Jon Friedman's ever written.
• Verbal grudge-match heats up between staffers at the Today show and Good Morning America, yielding doozies such as "Gay-MA" and "Today? More like 'Yesterday.'" Zing!
• Scooter Libby might actually go to prison. Fortunately for him, Paris has made it "all the rage."
• Did Departures magazine play too prominent a role in the episode leading up to The Sopranos' departure?
• 'Eric Alterman is the aging-lefty Lindsay Lohan!' proclaims Lloyd Grove in New York magazine. And here we thought Lloyd was an aging-lefty unemployed gossip gossip columnist.
• Boston Globe rips Conservapedia a new one.
• Hillary Clinton stops by Skadden Arps. Relax, it was nothing litigious—she was probably just picking up her latest truckload of campaign donations.
• Is Hugh Jackman too gay to function? Or just thin, neat and pretend-married?
• High school food fight ends with three arrests and a week of "tuna casserole hair."
• Only Nicole Richie would consider hiking with her hairstylist to be exercise.
• Natalee Holloway's mom and JonBenet Ramsey's dad are dating!
• Altercation-er Eric Alterman arrested for causing a raucous, so soon after that great Times plug.
• Finally, people stop flocking to the theaters to see Johnny Depp's "gay Keith Richards impression" after realizing that the actual Keith Richards is rather old/boring.
• The jailed Paris Hilton has been described as "polite and gracious." You know, just like the unincarcerated Paris!
• What people wore to the MTV movie awards. Admit it, you sneakily care.
• Born Rich pansy Luke Weil claimed he was in rehab when he was really "pulling a Paris" and doing time.
It turns out that when Eric Alterman isn't busy feuding with Ana Marie Cox over who's the bigger liberal, he's earning paychecks as media columnist for The Nation.
(Also, according to the bio on his website, Alterman is "a frequent lecturer and contributor to virtually every significant national publication in the US and many in Europe.")
But it's his piece in today's Nation (entitled "Potemkin Paper") that has us utterly transfixed.
It seems Mr. Alterman has had some trouble subscribing to The New York Sun. And, despite the fact that Alterman, a liberal (did we already mention that?) would doubtless only be using the conservative rag to line his hamster cage, he's nonetheless quite adamant about getting ahold of the paper on a daily basis.
And, apparently, a great guy to intern for!
Well isn't today's New York Observer just cuuuute! The salmon weekly has given both members of media power couple Ana Marie Cox (Time) and Chris Lehmann (CQ Weekly) a byline this week. And they didn't even have to share an article!
Cox and Lehmann, of course, were most recently seen in the battle with Nation scribe and Media Matters blogger Eric Alterman — with Chris coming to Ana's defense in an open letter after Alterman dared accuse his wife (to simplify things) of not being worthy of a Time staff position. (She's Time.com's political editor. And a party crasher. And innocent party in a legal matter.)
So what are Ana and Chris using their column inches for? To hatchet job Alterman? CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
