5.31.2006

Follow-up on My Previous Post

I'm feeling frisky today, so I thought I would continue my mockery of Laura Sessions Stepp. Stepp wrote that brilliant piece today on wingmen. Please scroll down a bit to see my long and hilarious take on her shoddy journalism.

Toby, a superior blogger and partner in crime, took the time to run Stepp through a Lexis-Nexis search. Here are her topics of choice:

MIDDLE SCHOOL ORAL SEX
July 8, 1999, A01, 2368 words:
"Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: OralSex"

FREAK DANCING
January 18, 2001, C4, 1882 words
"Just Freakin' the Night Away"

ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION (To be fair, I actually enjoyed this article.)
May 7, 2006, D01, 2383 words
"Cupid's Broken Arrow; Performance Anxiety and Substance Abuse Figure Into the Increase in Reports of Impotence on Campus"

HIGH SCHOOL ORAL SEX
September 16, 2005, A07, 785 words
"Oral Sex Prevalent Among Teens;Majority of Those 15-19 Engage in Practice, U.S. Study Finds"

So, it turns out Laura Sessions Stepp is the worst kind of journalist: The Alarmist. Also, she is really interested in oral sex.

UPDATE: A reader informs me that I missed:

MALE PROMISCUITY
6/28/04
"Fast and Loose; It's the 'Player' Who Gets The Girl (Or Girls), and a Rep That's Good and Bad."

COMEDY GOLD!

28 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    This girl loves writing about cock: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601206_pf.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    Toby and Rusty love writing about writers who love writing about cock.

    Who knew?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    Bonjour, Rusty (sorry, I hear that line from "European Vacation" every time I read your blog!)

    Laura Sessions Stepp covers adolescence for the Style section. She's written books on the topics you're complaining should not be covered in the Post. This "worst kind of journalist" also won a Pulitzer for public service reporting in 1981 while at the Charlotte Observer (as part of a team that wrote about dangerous working conditions in the textile industry).

    You can gripe about the Post for choosing to cover adolescent sex issues, and maybe the Post is being alarmist in choosing to run stories like this. But would a story about wingmen be alarmist if it appeared in a college paper like the AU Eagle? It's not like the Post ran this story in the A section.

    I think Stepp's just doing her job on her beat. I think it's unfair to criticize her reporting. My view is you're confusing the news judgment of the Post with the quality of Stepp's reporting. They're two different issues, I believe.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    stop using logic to try and counter rusty's rantings, anonymous. It's soooooo annoying.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My attacks on LSS are incredibly unfair. I know that.

    That being said, this wingman piece is incredibly unfair to people my age and to the noble idea of journalistic integrity. Wingmen are not news.

    You're right, it's mostly the WaPo's fault for thinking this is of interest. I should lay off on LSS, even if this piece is crap.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    Don't back down. I don't care if this horseshit appeared in the funny pages, it's not worthy of the fucking washington post. It's not even newsworthy. This shitstorm was written as if intended for a three man reading by an alien, Jerry Falwell and the Dali Lama. Who the fuck has never been to a bar before?

    ReplyDelete
  7. You're right, eff LSS!

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    Session-Step's son went to my high school (TJ 2002) and when we couldn't find a real graduation speaker, she spoke. I don't remember much about her speech but I do know none of us knew who she was and it was pretty awful.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    Krysal,

    What do you know about newsworthiness? You're probably not even the most "trusted man" in your own damn bedroom.

    What's the frequency, Kenneth?

    --Dan Rather

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    You didn't get a real graduation speaker because you didn't go to a real high school.

    Get a life.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    yeah... tj was just a giant hologram.

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    "Laura Sessions Stepp covers adolescence for the Style section."

    Thanks for chiming in, Laura, but your articles ring more of "reefer madness" than "adolescent sex issues".

    But at least I did learn something: wingman can be used as a verb. My wingman was wingmanning in a wingmannish fashion.

    ReplyDelete
  13. My friend was wingmannenly complimenting me.

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    What do you know about newsworthiness? You're probably not even the most "trusted man" in your own damn bedroom

    I know that a story about a trio of toolboxes guzzling miller lite from a pitcher in some shithole in the "U Street Corridor" is not worthy of the Washington Post.

    Oh, I also know that you're a dipshit.

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousMay 31, 2006

    rusty, have you found your jen waters??

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    In case you hadn't seen it, there's a mention of LSS in this post over at FishbowlDC: http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/the_revolving_door/havemannout_37752.asp.
    Hm.

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    Whoops. That FishbowlDC post is here.

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    Krystal,

    When you go to the "crap aisle," expect to find crap. Next thing you'll be complaining about the quality of "our" supermarket tabloids, you little girl.

    ReplyDelete
  19. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    Okay, you're all right.

    Expect only the very BEST crap from the crap section at the very best Crappy Corporate Owned Newspaper.

    They should be held to the highest standards.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Isn't she like 50 years old? Doesn't that make all of this even more wrong?

    ReplyDelete
  21. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    She is the featured article on MSN!!

    http://www.msn.com/

    aNonYmous

    ReplyDelete
  22. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    Please explain the Jen Waters line, anonymous. Please.

    ReplyDelete
  23. My predecessor, James F., used to spend a lot of time ripping apart Jen Waters's work for the Moonie Times. Those posts were very popular.

    ReplyDelete
  24. The problem is that it's not news. It's just repackaging the status quo to make college students look like immoral meatheads.

    ReplyDelete
  25. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    Yeah, because college males are NOT meatheads.

    ReplyDelete
  26. AnonymousJune 01, 2006

    "Krystal,

    When you go to the "crap aisle," expect to find crap. Next thing you'll be complaining about the quality of "our" supermarket tabloids, you little girl. "

    I go to the crap aisle because i live here in crap city and it costs 35 cents. The NYT, while far better, costs a dollar. Plus, when I read the editorial page of the NYT I vomit.

    ReplyDelete
  27. AnonymousJune 02, 2006

    formerly anonymous seems to have been hijacked by ALLCAPS.... LOOK AT ME, I LOVE A GOOD STEREOTYPE!!!

    ReplyDelete