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Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
The GOP's Little Superstar
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VoxPopuli
06/01/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
Here's an Op-Ed proposal for the Times: How sending Jon + Kate to North Korea as punishment for its nuclear testing will bring Kim Jong Il's regime to its knees.

Though, I suspect that Kim rather likes Kate's hair since he rocks the semi-bouffant himself.
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Foster Kamer
06/01/09

@VoxPopuli: We could trade them for Lisa Ling's sister +1.
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minou
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
Why are all these people complaining about grammar and pageview-whoring when what we really need to talk more about is Kate's hair? This woman's hair perhaps the most powerful and concise statement on contemporary American culture and values that I have ever seen. It's stupendous, her hair. And tragic.
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Moff
05/31/09

@minou: As usual, you are the voice of reason.
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BxgrlJeri
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
I've asked this question before and I've even tried to google it but how do these people (and others, like Little People, Big World and WorkOut etc) GET a reality show. I mean who knows them and decides, this would look good on TV. Do they submit themselves to a station. I'm not clear on who finds them and how.
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TedSez
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
If this were the '80s, you would know Andy Borowitz as a sitcom writer who wrote for "Square Pegs" and "The Facts of Life," and especially as the guy who created "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (And if you're wondering how someone can monetarily afford to spend his life as a print satirist, that's how.)

His screenplay Dinner for Schmucks is reportedly in production with Austin Powers / Meet the Parents director Jay Roach and stars Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. So, there's that, too.
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pfft
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
Speaking of "journalism", clicking on Borowitz's name reveals that his other headlines include

"Student ejected from national spelling bee for using spellcheck"

"Palin-Prejean alliance predicted in Book of Revelations"

"NBC to Produce Just One Episode of Jay Leno Show; Will Rerun It Until Someone Notices"

...and no record of any recent conference on the Minnesota Journalism school site.

[www.sjmc.umn.edu]

Looks like you should have had an extra coffee with brunch today. On the other hand, that this could have been taken seriously is a good (bad) sign of the desperate and flailing state of the media right now.
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Foster Kamer
05/31/09

@pfft: Couldn't agree more on all counts. I've updated the post to reflect my fuckup and the philosophical sadness about this.
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belltolls
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
If a satire falls in the forest and nobody hears it, is it still satire?
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Phyllis Nefler
05/31/09

@belltolls: Check out the comments in Pareene's thing. I wouldn't have pegged Vice readers to be so damn earnest.
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Moff
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
Google tracy klugian, and what comes up are a bunch of Andy Borowitz articles citing a person with that name (or "Tracy Klujian") as a source, but with a different job and location every time.

Which struck me at first as Possibly Scandalous. But then I looked closer, and he's a humor writer. Pretty sure the Jon & Kate story is satire, Foster. It's certainly not especially distinguishable as such, though -- great work, HuffPo!
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ladeedah
05/31/09

@Moff: One of the tags on the article is "Comedy News". I think that even they knew this was satire.
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Moff
05/31/09

@ladeedah: I know, but anyone with a couple weeks' experience in print or online media knows that a single tag, listed among a dozen others, doesn't stand out enough to clue a lot of readers in. It just doesn't. And it's not fair to blame the readers -- it's a responsible news outlet's job to distinguish very clearly when something is fake, and any editor worth their salt knows what a capacity readers have for failing to notice things (particularly when they're not expecting to be fooled) and compensates for it.
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Meretrix
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
Uh, isn't Borowitz a parody writer, a la "The Onion"? I assumed all his quotes in this story were deliberately faked.
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skahammer
05/31/09

@Meretrix: Yes, spending twenty seconds Googling "Davis Logsdon" will reveal who's getting punk'd here.

We should probably just move on from here.
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SarahHeartburn
05/31/09

@skahammer: En masse. For good.
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Moff
05/31/09

@Meretrix & skahammer: I think it was a reasonable mistake to make, though. The article isn't marked as comedy except in the tags, it's (sadly) not implausible, and Andy Borowitz isn't anywhere close to well known enough that one should automatically know anything under his byline is satire.
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skahammer
05/31/09

@SarahHeartburn: Although now that I think about it, perhaps it might be interesting to meditate for just a moment on what would cause someone to be so eager to miss the joke and take this patently absurd story seriously.

A Cultural-Revolution-style "self-criticism" might be just the ticket for a slow spring Sunday.
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skahammer
05/31/09

@Moff: I quote to you the article's kicker:

"Us magazine has been on top of 'Jon and Kate' from the very beginning," Mr. Logsdon said. "But they can't do it alone."

That wouldn't convince you to at least Google a name or two as backup?
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Foster Kamer
05/31/09

@skahammer and @Moff: You guys are both right. Running an update now. It came up on my feed as news! And the thing does - and actually could - read as news. Which, yeah: kinda fucked up.
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skahammer
05/31/09

@Foster Kamer: No worries. Moving on.
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Moff
05/31/09

@skahammer: Well, I did, as evidenced below. But dude, I know you've spent a fair amount of time on the Internet, so you know that my presumptions about the average intelligence of many readers are not unfair.

People don't notice shit. People fail to notice shit even when it's spelled out for them, in big block letters, with surprising frequency. And people especially fail to notice fake shit when it looks exactly the same as real shit. And people don't read to the bottom, and people immediately jump to insane conclusions, and further, every day people are quoted in real news stories saying things just as ridiculous as in this one. These are just facts of being people.

I don't think HuffPo is doing anything wrong. I just don't think this helps them gain any credibility.
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Moff
05/31/09

@Foster Kamer: I totally wouldn't have realized it was fake, because I didn't read it that closely, if I hadn't Googled Klugian because I wanted to see if he or she lived close enough to me for me to hit her with a board with a nail in it.
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Foster Kamer
05/31/09

@Moff: Assumptions make an ass out of you and me, as the obnoxious idiom goes, but it's fair to say that he probably does exist somewhere out there.
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Awesome X
05/31/09

@Foster Kamer: @Moff: I'll just throw out this related thought and then we'll pretend this never happened: Huffington Post sometimes does an awful job of writing headlines and properly noting what's satire and what's serious. I only ask that a website/blog give me an inkling of what the story's about, so I don't waste my time clicking on a piece in which I have no interest. In this way, Huffpo is like an effin' college paper, but lazier.
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El Matardillo
05/31/09

In reply to Is The 'Jon And Kate Plus Eight' Story The Future Of Journalism?
Never seen it. Never will.
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Debi Grant
03/14/09

In reply to The GOP's Little Superstar
Do I detect an air of admiration of the product,

despite detected disagreement?

Teens are not easily compelled by adults, and you know that.

Better that Jonhan Krohn is coached in conservative politics.

Liberals produced the trash talking little boys on this post.

They probably started smoking pot as young people and gotstuck there, mentally and psycological. No, just psyco. Not logical
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Mediahohoho
03/15/09

@Debi Grant: I think you should try this sober, Ashley.
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BookishLookish
03/13/09

In reply to The GOP's Little Superstar
He's just a little GO pee-er. Get it?
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TRexstasy
03/13/09

In reply to The GOP's Little Superstar
Goddamn, where are the pederasts when you need them?
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Mediahohoho
03/13/09

In reply to The GOP's Little Superstar
Actually, I'm wondering if this whole wide-eyed hero worship of simplistic conservative ideology and its propagandists isn't the perfect thing to be tried on and discarded at a young age. After all, the brain isn't finished with its own architecture until the mid-20s anyway, so let him use these as practice ideas ahead of those days when he's able to deal with real rational discourse and grown-up ideas.

Come to think of it, isn't all this Reagan, Rand, Rush and R. Cheney star fucking about having the big, bad, complicated world explained to you in terms an early adolescent can understand? It's always seemed that way to me.
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RStewie
03/13/09

In reply to The GOP's Little Superstar
Why all the hateraid to some kid that is interested in politics. Because he's Republican?

Can't we all just get along, or do Democrats have to lay down the law to some 14 year old boy because his beliefs aren't the same as theirs?

Hypocrites.
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Pareene
03/13/09

@RStewie: i think this kid probably has better reading comprehension than you! but you are obv far more skilled at the very adult practice of "purposefully missing the point."
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BadUncle
03/13/09

In reply to The GOP's Little Superstar
We were a precocious, precious, well-spoken and bright young liberal atheist ourself at that age, but our parents didn't put us in a monkey suit and send us to TV studios. We just wrote funny plays and stories...

I spent those same years smoking part, masturbating like a chimp, and hating you ambitious achievers.
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Debi Grant
03/14/09

@BadUncle: and that's why you still hate ambitious achievers, especially the young Jonathan Kohn. Just think... he's only fourteen. The California Duncan Hunters are a fine example of adult conservativism... this young man has what it takes.
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BadUncle
03/16/09

@Debi Grant: Yo, dimwit, that post was aimed at Pareene. As you may have learned as a child, reading is fundamental.
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