press clips, vol. 2, no. 2: they did a thing.
press clips, vol. 2, no. 2: they did a thing.
you know who you are — and aren't.
Hey -
Mind if we pick up where we left off?
I was listening to Punisher again the other week, and But You Caint Use My Phone for some reason lately, too. And I got the same thing I always get whenever an album washes over me that scratches past the surface, leaves a mark, a dent that won’t just reconstitute back to anything remotely like its original shape for days, weeks (if not longer). It’s the same thing that happens with a film, or painting, or sculpture, and sure TV, and of course, and sometimes, the right piece of writing (almost never online, though), or even a particularly great piece of radio. It’s not just a thought, or a feeling, but maybe something more akin to whatever goes through the heads of the religious when they believe they’re communing with god, or trying to: Getting a signal, but not being able to send one back.
It’s, to be totally honest, the same quiet, profound yearning that’s been fucking up my life for decades, and it’s a simple refrain, and it goes like this:
I want to make something that talks to someone the way that talked to me. I wanna make something the way that makes me. Nothing else: Just ‘makes me.’
There’s that Jenny Holzer truism: PEOPLE WHO DON’T WORK WITH THEIR HANDS ARE PARASITES. I spend a lot of time thinking about the ignobility of making media in the modern era. I can’t be the only one. I don’t think it’s all, inherently, bad. Just a lot of it; a lot of what I write, too. This might sound unduly harsh, or self-critical, but I can’t help but feel like the more I make of this, and whatever’s like it, the less I’m gonna make of anything that feels whole. Again: I can’t be the only one.
Anyway, that refrain was been louder than it’s ever been starting in March. Maybe it’s the pandemic, or Trump, or the whole being 35 of it all. I’d be lying if I omitted the fact that, since Saturday, it’s getting softer. This might sound hyperbolic.
I swear to fuckin’ god, it’s not.
Okay. Deep breath.
Let’s go.
Back on my bullshit:
POP QUIZ, HOT SHOT. ‘Got a good one for you. Ready?
What do:
Throwing Fits host James Harris
Cotton Codinha (Allure, Elle, The Atlantic)
Luckiest Girl Alive novelist and “fuck you pay me” enthusiast Jessica Knoll
ArtNet’s star Wet Paint columnist/erstwhile OVO affiliate Nate Freeman
Penguin Random House executive editor/n+1 co-founding editor Alison Lorentzen
and Alison Roman
all have in common?
Wrong. Harris isn’t white.
Wrong. Freeman lives in Manhattan, Knoll lives in LA.
I know, you’re all out of guesses. It’s this:
They all went out and did something in the last two weeks. Something good. Some of them worked at polling stations — full-day 16 or 18 hour shifts. Others went out canvassing for Biden. That’s just six. I’m sure there plenty in media like them. These were just a few I heard about. I also heard Pizzaria Beddia in Philly’s Fishtown became a sixth-borough waystation of media, art, and publishing people passing through. This is all a long way of saying: Eat shit, Marie Kondo!
No, but really: We know this election was a close one, and we know that when more people vote, broadly, the more progressive the result is. And the aforementioned people and everyone who joined them helped put this one away for, uh, Team Not-Fascism.
Off that, two things:
I was not one of those people! I didn’t do shit! I mean, yeah: I voted. But that’s it — and let’s be real, that’s not some great civic accomplishment, but the bare minimum. I don’t get to lecture anyone on what truly progressive politics or what meaningful action means for a minute, not that I ever really did (or wanted to). But, come on, you wouldn’t be here if you thought I was the one who needed to hear this.
Who does? Anyone in media who did nothing in the last two weeks but continue clocking their days building their brand by banging the drum of progressivism as loudly as they can, on Twitter, on Substack, in their Insta-stories, and (as is often the schtick) making sure to reflexively swerve contemptuously as far left of everyone else as possible, on every possible platform that they can, for their followings (for media people! the worst kind there is!). They do this despite how little sense their takes ultimately make, or how hard they have to contort themselves to sell it. All this group of people has to do is pout on power systems or, I don’t know, attribute all of society’s ills to late-stage capitalism, and pair it with a persecution complex, and their solemn-nodding microfandoms and contemporaries lap that shit up.
Don’t get me wrong: This isn’t some novel phenomenon. And the politics I just mentioned above aren’t, broadly, wrong. At all! But there’s a difference between proclaiming one’s politics and prostituting a pose. Usually, it ain’t hard to tell. But last week, it just became so, so much more evident to me who actually gives a shit, and who’s able to suction Patreon payments or Substack scratch from those naive enough to be convinced that their faves care about their causes an inch beyond their brand’s reach. The far off places they do this from pale in comparison to the distance between what they’re saying, and what goes even an inch beyond just writing it. The gall is astonishing.
And this, years ago, would be the space where I encourage those people who didn’t walk their talk to take a powder from their normal cadence for a minute, and to good and truly just fuck right off, while naming a few names.
But, eh. They don’t deserve the kleiglights today.
For one thing, I’m proud of the people who, after four years of taking shit, having the entire premise of what most of us do repeatedly undercut by a strongman, who went out and did something about it. They inspired me. Next time, I’ll join them. For another, those other people? They’ll show their whole asses, eventually. Truth’s buoyant.
[But by the way, a good litmus test to make sure this isn’t you: Can you own up to having politics you did the bare minimum for, if that? And would you admit it to your readers? Congrats: You’re not entirely full of shit. How hard was that? Now, just throw a few of the loudest, drum-banging woke contortionists you know into that calculus. Can’t see ‘em copping to it? Not a snowball’s chance in hell? Right! Now you get it.]
Meanwhile, if you know anyone else who did the good work over the last two weeks, or the previous election cycle, I’d like to know, and give them a shout out. They deserve gratitude.
This week, we’ve got the Substack Jonestown Voice, Raya songs, Tracy Chapman songs, a rundown of the Haberman/Smith piece, Brocasters, and Power Plagiarists, among others. These are your Press Clips for November 9th, 2020.
Here we go:
Can You Raniere Me Now? In a totally unrelated item, Tables for Two writer Hannah Goldfield would like to know the difference between your faves’ Substacks and Dianetics:
Funny because it’s true, my cosmos-kissed astral children and your beautiful godselves, who take pity on the unsubscribed and aura-darkened, who can be no more powerful or brilliant than you (yes: you!) when you love yourself the way we love ourselves, no more than when we work as one, to our one great goal: 100,000 subscribers and getting Zaddy my summer house in Springs so I can, uh, better divine the escape star’s passing using wider access to the Eastern sky/Nick & Toni’s. Now, share this with your family, and if they don’t smash that RT button, disown them or you’ll never hit the premium tier, you irredeemable shitbag.
But really, lol: I’m sure Hannah’s Tweet already hit its intended target. Which newsletters do you think are the cultiest? At the very least, I can tell you how she made me feel: In a word, unambitious.
And Now, a Random List of People’s Raya Profile Songs:
Lo Bosworth (The Hills): “1950” - King Princess
Melissa Villaseñor (SNL): “Be Good To Yourself” - Journey
Caroline Calloway (um…Patreon? OnlyFans?): “This Must Be The Place” - Talking Heads
Cameron Winklevoss (Guest of a Guest): Kings of Leon - “Radioactive”
Yeah, this is the kind of real diamond-grade gossip you people get when you stiff me on tips. More where this came from unless you start sending over that good-good. Hey, don’t blame me! Your ass clicked!
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Dudeitors to Brocasters. The most important thing you’ll read about podcasts for a week and half window has arrived. From the Department of Time Is a Flat Circle, the last time a Conde property labeled some straight men part of a media wave, it was John Koblin famously reporting on the Dudeditors for WWD. That was an actual trend piece, a hilarious cast of characters, and nine years later, has a foreboding air to it.
On Sunday, like manna from the heavens, as the first of many apologies personally owed to me for taking Trebek, Vogue (dot com) published “How Long Gone and the Rise of the Bro-cast.” Done. To. Death? You don’t say! First off, Vogue (dot com) Weekend Desk, please get that goddamn hyphen out of here, what’re you, Mary Norris? Just, no.
Then: The Brocast, you say? It’s the story of their lives.
I do it for my culture. Note that, hysterically, the “bro-cast[er]” “rise” is actually just, uh, How Long Gone hosts Chris Black and Jason Stewart. Somehow their cohort (Joe Rogan, et al) got lost in the mix! But really, guys, you got one of Vogue (dot com)’s finest benchwarmers to bury you in the website on the day after the election results?! Chris, I know you have an Actual Job as a “creative strategist” or whatever but it sure as shit ain’t media strategy! Just look at this copy!
It’s locker room talk through the lens of two liberal, progressive, straight guys who like to make fun of each other (and sometimes their guests) without seeming socially tone-deaf.
I mean, I guess that’s one way to describe what they do. Myself? I would’ve gone with Beavis and Butthead if they spent their afternoons huffing back issues of Garage and I-D at Casa Magazines, or The Dick Cavett Show, but exclusively for people between the ages of “did K in the booth at Cinespace on Tuesdays ten years ago” and “did coke in the bathroom at Lucien two years ago” before getting ‘Cali sober’ and being spotted by literally anyone at Erewhon, along with a growing fanbase of those who aspire to such.
And, gentlemen: You will never live this line down.
I will reluctantly link once more to this piece, if only because there’s a certain enjoyment in watching someone try to bring elegance to pull-quotes like “You kind of get the vibe.”
But, truly: Lest there be any misread here, I am a fan. They’ve gotten very good at podcasting, very quickly. Black isn’t a full-time writer, and he’s got more game than plenty of full-timers (especially when it comes to his more disarmingly sincere moments, a stock of which I wish there were more of). Few guests keep from being disarmed by Stewart, who isn’t in his first rodeo, where podcasting’s concerning. Their rise has been unsurprising. Also, occasionally, pretty fun to watch.
Alex Garcia, American Electorate: When I first saw this Tweet from Miami Herald reporter and apparent edgelord journalism sadist Lautaro Grinspan, I lost my shit:
Grinspan had somehow failed to get Alex Garcia’s IG handle or include it in his initial Tweet, which as you can see above went wild for all the right reasons: It’s a pitch-perfect quote, in part because it’s so plainly anchored with an abstract quality of truth: Of course a 28-year-old from Miami who changed his mind for Biden in the booth would say that shit. It’s perfect. Just read it again: It twinkles at you. Except for the part where it is a DEATH SPIRAL OF A BLACK HOLE OF IMPLAUSIBLY WITHHELD LINKAGE.
Did I spend an hour of Election Night looking for an “Alex Garcia” from Miami on IG who looked uh 28ish (whatever that is??!?) and, like, might’ve talked to a Herald reporter? Sure did! Josh Thomas and I also once got zooted off two entire sheets of Coricidin Cough and Cold HBP (each!) in high school, so no, in case you were wondering, doesn’t even remotely break the Top 20 Dumbest Things I’ve Ever Done On a Tuesday. But come on: You want to meet Alex Garcia, I want to meet Alex Garcia, this is nothing if not one of Top 20 Dumbest Man-on-the-Street Whiffs in recent reporting history if we don’t.
And: Not even a day later, service journalism legend Lautaro Grinspan follows up with a Tweet that improbably earns 38,048 fewer Likes, and 8,800 fewer Retweets than the original, which, by my math, makes this one of the Most Criminally Underrated Tweets, Ever, Full Stop:
I present to you the King of the American Electorate, Alex Garcia. Honestly? Would swipe. May Garcia’s TL be blessed with hard posts of his own thirst-traps for four years to come, at which point, Grinspan will have his Pulitzer-bait folo completely teed up.
Apropos of Nothing Other Than Taking a Pass On the Ruth Shalit Thing Last Week, a New 2020 Ranking of the Following Seven Power-Fabulists, Absent-Context:
Jonah Lehrer
Ruth Shalit
James Frey
Jayson Blair
Alice Goffman
Stephen Glass
Janet Cooke
A Brief Adjudication on Maggie Haberman: Per this week’s Ben Smith column, I’m always shocked at all the very, very intelligent people who so often get the Maggie Haberman thing wrong. I think they’re furious about Trump, and Haberman was so often the vector or messenger they shot, because she, a reporter for the Times, was somehow the most relatable. But, deep breath, and then: She works harder, better, faster, and gets more bang for the buck than arguably any other journalist at the Times. For the last four years, nobody was better sourced in the Trump White House. Under more careless hands, the information that went to her could’ve been processed to terrible (if not dangerous) affect somewhere else. That she got it first despite working at the one place that chapped Trump’s ass more than any other was always tickling, to say nothing of impressive. More often than not, she got the context right.
On one side, there were people who never wanted the Times to even be on the phone with Trump at all: Idiotic. On the other, surely, Trump was surrounded by aides and advisors who didn’t want him on the phone with Haberman, couldn’t stop him from getting on the phone with Haberman, and then, those same aides and advisors then got on the phone with Haberman. She played all of them against each other, to form a mosaic, a composite that resembled truth in a vortex of bullshit where everyone got high on the house supply. It’s one thing for a journalist to simply stenograph what someone is telling everyone; it’s another for a journalist to be able to get a sound out of a vacuum and also deduce reality from an entire solar system of morons and liars, to figure out not just who’s full of shit, who’s telling the truth, but most critically, who’s actually in the room when it matters. And she can, and she did.
I’m loathe to applaud Ben Smith for anything he does at the Times that has to do with the Times, or himself, the same reason I’m loathe to applaud anyone who reports on the contours of their own ass with such obvious satisfaction. But in placing himself alongside the longer story of Haberman, he’s given her career and her ouvre an excellent, aerosols-distance context that makes for a fun, overdue read. This is a great piece, and Maggie Haberman is a great reporter. If you don’t agree with me, I fully encourage you to take it up with Tom Robbins, first. (Spoiler Alert: Nobody will do this.)
Fox(xx) News: God forbid I bear children, if they one day ask me what the election during a pandemic was like, this is where I’ll leave it: People wanted to fuck a number-crunching cartoon fox. Did you know 538 has a mascot, that’s an illustration of a fox? I did not! Did you also know that people want to fuck it? I also did not! Yeah, this is how far gone we all are: Not just that 538 has a fake fox people want to fuck, because people want to fuck everything on the internet, but that its apparent fuckability is so widely agreed upon that this actually merits a couple hundred words someone was actually paid to write. Remember, we do this to ourselves.
Diet Prada Zero: I used to be a fan of Diet Prada, fashion’s enfant terrible Instagram-based gossip account, back when they were in the business of getting actual scalps. Operative term: Used to. Over the last two years, they got a little too high on their own supply, a little corny, maybe a little too woke for their own good. I’m reminded of this because writer Evan Ross Katz talked some shit on Diet Prada being corny today (deserved!) and directed me to a piece from earlier this year I missed: GQ’s Rachel Seville Tashijan’s faceplant-tripping of Diet Prada, “In Fashion, Who Will Cancel The Cancelers?” Fashion-media-on-fashion-media crit, we love to see it! Pocket it, read it, unfollow Diet Prada.
Related: I just noticed that Tashijan’s Twitter bio reads: “@gqmagazine style writer. Formerly: deputy editor of @garage_magazine, writer at Graydon Carter's @vanityfair” (emphasis mine). Elitist Radhika-era inner-Conde cattiness Twitter bio drip, godDAMN we motherfuckin’ love to see it!
[SUBSCRIBERS: DON’T FORGET TO CLICK ON THOSE DOTS TO EXPAND. THERE’S SO MUCH MORE.]
Line Edits:
ESPN continues to be the worst to work for. As I like to explain to people: In the excellent 700-page oral history of the company, the creators of ESPN get tossed from the company within the first 100 pages, never to be heard from again. And that’s before it really gets going. Anyway: They recently laid off 300. Trenchant observation: “Disney, who owns ESPN, spent $47.9bn on share buybacks from 2009 through 2018, $5.4 billion on dividends in 2018 and 2019 alone, and hundreds of millions of dollars on executive compensation.”
Gawker Media alum keep turning up in the weirdest places. We’re like Forrest Gump, with 150% more deviated septum and therapy bill debt. Anyway: Jalopnik editor and Gawker Media long-hauler Ray Wert who long ago made the inevitable jump to car industry shill was literally in the (or in the room next to the) Detroit vote-counting room where a bunch of GOP ding-dongs decided to storm the place to try and stop the counting. What I wouldn’t give to know which way former GMGers would bet on the election going if I told them one of the few things standing between democracy and the abyss were, heh, former Jalopnik editor Ray Wert. Oh, and if you’re wondering why Ray Wert might be in the ballot counting room in Detroit, SAME, but it’s worth pointing out that Ray’s wife is 34-year-old Obama-endorsed Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow, which probably had something to do with it.
Josh Barro’s going back to Business Insider. The upshot of this is that BI’s already stacked newsroom continues growing. New York loses a power player.
Jared’s been bid adieu by Scocca. This will take you approximately 26 seconds. It will be worth it.
The BBC-Bashir Princess Di Scandal is still brewing. British power-broadcaster Martin Bashir is currently being dragged all over the British press as a documentary explaining how he once scored an unsanctioned interview with Princess Di has hit the airwaves. It involves some cloak-and-dagger tradecraft, con artistry, forged documents, shit is wild. Bashir’s now the subject of an internal BBC investigation as he recovers from a bad bout of long covid, it’s a whole thing. If you want to satisfy your need for a juicy journalism scandal and Princess-Di-literal-inner-palace-intrigue, holy shit, Merry Christmas.
Whoever’s booking talent at Late Night with Seth Meyers deserves a raise. Maybe you heard, but the notoriously publicity-shy Tracy Chapman made a “rare" appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers to advocate for voting. It was beautiful. But of all those stories noting her “rare” appearance, none told you how rare it actually was, so I checked: Tracy Chapman only been on American TV, insofar as I can tell, just four times in the last decade, including the Meyers appearance. She was on Letterman in 2015, also, Tavis Smiley’s show — both spots were to promote her Greatest Hits collection. Before that, she performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, which aired on PBS. So, yeah, again: Whoever Seth Meyers’ talent booker is deserves a raise. UPDATE: A reader writes in to tell me it’s this guy, Jeremiah Silva (“Great dude, great ear, incredible relationships in the music industry”). Well, goddamn, did they pay off.
Well, enough of that for today. I may be back later this week with a teardown to the Reeves Wiedeman Times Drama Fortnightly Reckoning piece once I get some good gossip about it. And yes, we’re finally starting to get some tips. Reminder, I’m still looking for tips on:
POWER SECRET MEDIA SLACKS: I’ve already got one or two. I’m looking for more.
THE CREATIVITY CRISIS: Editors and writers alike have been having a tough time during the pandemic putting two thoughts together, moreso than usual. Or so I’m hearing. ‘Could be wrong. But if you’ve got anything to share, I’d like to hear it.
and yeah, of course:
NYT STAFFER REAX to either the Smith/Haberman piece or the Wiedeman story.
Now, all together: TIPS GO HERE.
Two more things. First:
Okay, so —
Not faux humility, I swear to god: Jesus, didn’t see that coming. I mean, yeah, of course I shamelessly promoted the shit out of it on Twitter, would not shut the fuck up about it to anyone who would listen, but none of that negates the fact that I can’t believe any of you read any of it, or even, maybe, all of it. So I just need to stop, right here, and say: Thanks. Your read was enough. The twelve of you who said them, your kind words were so much.
I’m sure this reads as insufferably self-effacing and self-aggrandizing, and possibly like total bullshit, which I get, because this kind of thing usually is. But please, please know that this has been a terrible year covered in malaise and a wholesale feeling of ass all around me where the wins, when you can find them, don’t stick.
I mean, imagine the way you’ve felt this year, and then imagine hearing nice things about the oil derrick you set up over your head on Substack out of desperation, right?
So, okay, I’ve made my point, and I’ll shut up now, but please, dear god, trust me when I tell you my gratitude is real and true, and if you all absolutely hate whatever comes after, fuck you, too late, can’t take back the nice shit you already said and the 3000 words about Toobin’s dick you already read. Actually, wait, you wanna get really self-aggrandizing? Fine, here’s the nice shit you nice motherfuckers said:
“lol i loved this” - Edith Zimmerman, Drawing Links
“A ripping read!” - Ryan Kearney, Executive Editor, The New Republic
“Christ man” - Matt Taylor, National Editor, The Daily Beast
“right
into
my
veins” - Jason Linkins
“hooray!!!!” - Maura Johnston
“So good!” - Mangesh Hattikudur, Co-founder, Mental_Floss + Part-Time Genius
“The closest I've seen us come to early Gawker….bitchy.” - Aaron Kleinman
[A point of procedure, here: People forget, but everyone hated Gawker when it was alive. As far as I’m concerned, it’s only a matter of time. I’ll enjoy this moment.]
After just one issue, FOSTERTALK counts among its subscribers: A Pulitzer winner or three, Emmy winners, some New York Times bestselling authors, star columnists from Bloomberg, the Times, the Journal, and The Atlantic, as well as staffers, regular contributors, and even brass (!) from the Daily Beast, Quartz, CJR, Buzzfeed, NPR, New York, Saturday Night Live, The New Yorker, Slate, the Boston Globe, Departures, T, Pitchfork, NBC News, Page Six, Wired, and a whole bunch of the rest of you absolutely nasty freaks. Now, after this issue, cut that list in half, and only leave the worst ones. Also, a bunch of randos: Why, dear god, are you subjecting yourselves to this? Honestly, this is actually great, I’ve never had this many people about to be disappointed all at once! It’s like having all of my past sexual relations and closest family and friends, all in one room, except way, way more obscene: You’re reading my bullshit about media! A word to the wise, in the immortal words of the Gin Blossoms: If you don’t expect too much of me, you might not be let down.
Anyway. Last thing.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a massive Jeopardy! fan. Every night, for years, I watched, I watch. Will talk about it at every available opportunity. Have a DVR I refuse to part with loaded with it. I don’t cry when famous people die, usually. I didn’t (really) this time. But yeah, I was surprised at how upset I was. I don’t really have the words to say what I want to say about what Alex Trebek meant to me, meant to the world, because I just don’t have it yet. I will. The NYT obituary was nothing if not artful, and I appreciated it as a reader, and as a fan.
But if you’re only gonna read one more thing on Trebek this week, I’d like to point you to the single best quote on Trebek you’re gonna find, from the man himself, via one of America’s most underrated interviewers, NPR’s David Greene.
This came earlier this year, when Trebek was doing some promo for his memoir. I’ve tried to do the clip justice here, but I suggest you go and just listen to it. In the clip, Greene asked Trebek a question, that, implausibly, he never got his with before…
GREENE: I have to ask this. You know, if on "Jeopardy!" - if the answer is, who is Alex Trebek? - what do you think the clue would be?
TREBEK: Oh, gosh. (Exhaling). I don't know.
He's…
….the avuncular host of a popular quiz show,
who has been around, it seems, forever.
And the host appears to be reasonably intelligent. He wants the contestants to succeed, to be all they can be.
And there are moments in television where the host and the program are a good match,
and that usually leads to a great deal of success.
GREENE: Alex Trebek, it's been wonderful talking to you. And thank you so, so much.
TREBEK: David, it was a great pleasure.
Thank you for your continued support of Press Clips. Make sure you expanded the email, subscribers, to see the entire thing. Also? Good job, America. Be safe, mask on, stay up, stay down. As ever, -f.