From Rags to Bitches

It seems like you can't open up a newspaper or magazine, or click over to your favorite online news source, without running across the increasingly popular article taking a competitor to task. This is a trend that needs to stop. Not only does it seem like so much middle school gossip, but it really does the media consumer very little to no good.

As many of you can tell, I like to read Salon.com, but last week, Salon writer Eric Boehlert felt the need to take it upon himself to critique Time magazine's front-page piece on the unholiest of unholies, Ann Coulter. Sure we all get a little fired up sometimes that a magazine like Time devotes ink to idiots like Ann Coulter, who so clearly thrive on creating hype around themselves, but blowing off that steam is what personal blogs are for -- we need to keep it out of publications like Salon.

But, of course, Salon is not the only rag guilty of such behavior. SF Weekly loves to rag on The Bay Guardian, the Bay Guardian loves to rag on the Chron, Fox News loves to rag on the New York Times, The New York Post loves to rag on the Times. The list goes on and on. Can't these publications assert their superiority to their competitors by, say, using that energy and column space to run tough, well-researched investigative pieces on corporate criminals or government malfeasance? Or maybe run an extra interview with an up-and-coming local band, playwright or author?

The writer on Time's Ann Coulter story had little troubling rebutting many of Eric Boehlert's accusations in a letter to the editor, found here. After reading both the article and the writer's response AND Eric Boehlert's lame response to the writer's response: 'I stand by my story.' I felt like I had wasted twenty minutes of my life watching some stupid playground fight. We can do better, people.

P.S. You may need to get a Salon Day Pass to access both links in this post. But come on, all you have to do is watch a quick commercial. You can pretend you're Jeff Gannon -- the King of the Day Pass.