INAUGURATION FAILURES DUE TO 'POOR PLANNING'. DCist points out a story about the failures at inauguration. The Washington Post article summarizes the executive summary of a report prepared for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. The rest of the report contains sensitive security information, you know, in case someone builds a time machine and attempts to attack the event.
What did they conclude? Well...
The summary recommended setting up a high-level committee to oversee planning and improve coordination for the next inauguration and opening the ticket gates earlier. It called for turning over responsibility for giving directions and prescreening ticket-holders to the congressional and presidential inaugural committees, which could provide volunteers or hire staff for such tasks.
Also, for the "next inauguration," the report suggests law enforcement monitor Twitter and Facebook for potential problems. YES CAN I PLEASE TWEET TO DC911 AND SAY OMGZ IM STUCK IN A TUNNEL! And of course, this is all irrelevant due to the fact that this event of epic historical proportions is unlikely to happen again.
Who would have guessed that an event attracting nearly 2 million people could be plagued by "poor planning." God even CNBC could have told you that, and they dropped the ball on everything else.
WASHINGTON POST TO DEDICATE MORE COVERAGE TO WEDDINGS. From the City Paper. The Post, former purveyors of quality journalism, are looking to expand their "sports page for women."
Style is seeking a reporter to help launch a new feature covering local weddings (a/k/a the Sports page for women). We’ve got some ideas on how this might work, but want to get a reporter involved from the beginning in conceiving this new part of our coverage. Of course, we want this feature to have a strong interactive component, so we’ll be asking anyone interested to write a memo outlining her or his ideas for both print and online. Our strong preference is to fill this position with an internal candidate.
It's actually painful to watch the Post slowly kill itself. For an organization surviving almost completely on their ownership of Kaplan test prep, I'm glad to see they are looking to do even more fluff pieces. Really, more wedding coverage? Between the "lets get drunk at the latest hip wine bar" Going Out Gurus to everything else that sucks about the Post, things are awesome! Until the NYT goes out of business, I guess that's one of the last vestiges of something even moderately resembling a news organization, and not yet another blog. That is, until William Safire starts writing a cupcake column.
Sports page for women? SPORTS PAGE FOR WOMEN?! What the fuck do they think this is, 1955? You know, because NO ONE covers weddings in DC (except The Knot DC, Modern Bride DC/MD/VA, Washingtonian Weddings, etc.). Hey, maybe we can get the Washington Post to plan our wedding. We can select a reading from a Kaplan LSAT prep book and the officiant can be whatever AP stringer is really writing the news.
ReplyDeleteI bet the Post's ombudsman is just crying as he pulls out his nose hairs one at a time. Jesus.
ReplyDeleteDanielle, Amen. I happen to be a woman and I happen to like sports. You know, the real kind. Imagine that. This is so very pathetic.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think the sexism is kind of funny. I just take issue w/ the focus.
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And I know the suggestion to monitor Twitter and Facebook is a bit risible but... it actually makes sense as more people move to these little electronic networks and change their electronic behavior.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to note that most teenagers today don't use email. Also, 56% of Chinese Internet users don't have an email address. They use these other stupid things.
But OMG....
monitoring twitter isn't unreasonable, especially from a quality control point of view.
ReplyDeleteSports page for women? SPORTS PAGE FOR WOMEN?! What the fuck do they think this is, 1955?
ReplyDeleteThis.
And great that they're looking to HIRE someone for the job, even though they've killed Book World and are about to do away with the Business section. And let go all their editors and many of their best writers.
Grrrr.
I guess the Washington Post believes 1.) their main readership is comprised of pre-menopausal women and 2.) pssh, women have no need for a Business Section. Or Book World. Or good writers. Women can't even read, anyways. All they want is some frilly white dresses and stock photos of cupcakes. Or maybe WP can just ripoff cuteoverload.com.
ReplyDeleteM@ and Dave invent comments to their own blog entries now. I'm going to Marissa's blog. Bye.
ReplyDeleteI like how any comment that's not "OMGZ HIPSTER TRANSPLANT SCUM WILL DIE AND BLOOD WILL RAIN FROM THE HEAVENS" or that weird MS-13 crap is assumed to be M@ or Dave.
ReplyDeleteNot my fault I sound a lot like Dave. We think alike, hence the whole marrying-each-other thing.
Thanks for proving the point, Danielle. I mean "Dave".
ReplyDeleteOh come on you can better then that can't you?
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