My, that was an entertaining read. I miss old (quality) newspapers.

Hmmm, a multiplatform idea triage specialist. Are they hiring more?

Where I occasionally get web-published (msnbc.com), they use Titles and Subtitles, the first for classic human attention-grabbing, the second (also with an tag) for keyword-based SEO, not to mention clarification for humans. (My only problem with that system is when the Editor's cute title is less brilliant than the cute title suggested by the writer, me) It's too bad the Washington Post with its Multiplatform Idea Triage Specialists has its collective head up its collective ass to do the same. At least the 'amateurs' writing for the web are less likely to be writing while drunk (not that it's under 50% or anything). May the fishwrappers die in peace... soon.

oh man, I rarely read comments online, and especially not on news sites, but I figured I'd pick through the "side of maggots" on his nice juicy steak as an exercise in irony or something (hey, I'm masochistic like that) and I found a real gem floating amongst the turds:

--- posted by some random dude:

The print days of old, Gene reviews,
Have been subverted by electronic news.
He misses the days,
When, in a stogie-fed haze,
Reporters were fueled by their booze.

Going fast are the editors, too;
The last will appear in a zoo.
Labeled “Almost extinct species,
Who once wrote their theses,
On Moliere’s debut at the Louvre.”

Gene nods to presses gigantic,
That ran on deadlines quite frantic.
The big machines roared,
While ad revenues soared,
With copies sailing ‘cross the Atlantic.

Those days of a journal’s wide spread,
Are, for most purposes, dead.
The flat screens of today,
Have pixeled the way,
For columns like Gene’s to be read.

Mr. W. lets fly his barbed shaft,
Toward “comments” (usually daft),
That sling cr*p at Obama,
Foment sociological trauma,
And all in unedited draft.

Whether your style is AP or Chicaga,
By electrons you will write your own saga;
Print reporting is dead,
And, Gene, here’s your Head:
“Uzbekis go Baa Baa for Gaga!”