I discovered an “experimental column” in the L.A. Times called “Outside the Tent, in which the Times “invites outside critics to rip a Southern California newspaper whose most popular features include a weekly column on celebrity real estate transactions.”
I had to check it out! Right away I found the very funny “This One’s Waaaaay Outside the Tent” by Bob Sipchen, Sunday Opinion Editor.
A little background: KFI and the LA Times have been having an entertaining public feud. And of all the KFI terriers worrying the LA Times’s enormous derriere, John & Ken are the most energetic and have the best time slot. But John Ziegler does a good job, too.
My favorite part of Sipchen’s long explanation for rejecting Ziegler’s column.:
I spurned it because it reads more like a self-infatuated valentine to KFI than the sort of pointed, specific criticism of The Times that we demand in Outside the Tent.
Heh! He spurned it.
There’s even a poll: was it pointed, specific criticism of the L.A. Times or a self-infatuated valentine? The readers decide!
At the time of this posting, 63.5% felt “Opinion’s decision to reject this hard-hitting critique was woefully boneheaded” (2316 responses) and only 36.5% voted “Opinion showed sound judgment by not subjecting print readers to this puffery” (1329 responses).
I need to use vocabulary like this every day.