Jezebel: media criticism

The New York Times Does BlogHer Later Than My Last Period

Megan — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:30:00 EDT

The New Yorks Times Sunday Styles Section published a long piece this weekend on the BlogHer conference that took place opposite Netroots Nation more than a week ago. While it was entitled "Blogging's Glass Ceiling" and touched on one of my favorite topics — the relative lack of prominence of female bloggers, and especially political female bloggers, in the top of the blogosphere — it might well have been titled "Blogging's Glass Ceiling At The New York Times." We explain.

The first criticism we read of the piece complained that it appeared in the paper's 'Sunday Styles' section whereas a piece about male bloggers wouldn't. I have to take issue with that, since the 'Styles' section ran a piece about male bloggers (including Crappy Hour guest Spencer Ackerman) about 5 months ago. So, it's not exactly true that the Styles section isn't the appropriate place for the piece per se.

However, it is interesting that BlogHer took place the same weekend at the DailyKos mega-conference Netroots Nation, a bit of a sore subject with some of the political bloggers at BlogHer who called the "scheduling conflict" disappointing. NetRoots Nation had guest appearances by Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi, which would've garnered headlines regardless of where they appeared. But, a cursory search of the Times' archives shows no less than 10 stories filed with the paper or its blogs during Netroots Nation, including several on panel discussions held at the conference. This weekend's story on BlogHer was the first the Times had filed about the event.

Was a panel discussion on the use of profanity in political blogging of more pressing important to Times readers than Michelle Obama's first blog post or the aforementioned discussion of how to get taken seriously as a woman political blogger (both of which were mentioned in passing amid a rundown of corporate sponsors)? Or is the Times just trying to prove the point of the BlogHer founders and users — that women just don't get taken quite as seriously as men? Maybe we should ask Julia Allison, or the 5 other pretty bloggers that ought to be on magazine covers. She, at least, seems to get plenty of press.

Blogging’s Glass Ceiling [NY Times]
Why Are All The Big Political Bloggers Men? [Glamocracy]
New York Times Thinks Women Bloggers Are a Fashion Story [the f word]
Washington Doesn’t Sleep Here [NY Times]
Easing Off Online Obscenities [NY Times]
Five Female Bloggers (Not Named Julia Allison) Who Should Be On The Cover Of A Magazine [The Frisky]

Jessica Alba Is About To Get A Lot Of Doctored Photos Sent To Her iPhone

Moe — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:30:46 EDT

Jessica Alba likes weiners and she's not afraid to look at glossy pictures of them, she apparently told some GQ writer for the August issue:

Men's magazines have nipples, so why don't women have a magazine where men show their penises? If there was a magazine like that I'd buy it. Nudity's not a big deal to me.

Um, surely Jessica Alba, who once sued Playboy, has heard of Playgirl? But more importantly, why do starlets always come away from interviews with gentlemen's magazines sounding like more culturally literate Bond Girls? At least with porn, the only personality attributes they ever try to ascribe on the jerkoff specimens begin and end with "bisexual."

We're sick of reading profiles in which Scarlett Johansson and Lindsay Lohan sound like they're these awesome empowered articulate hypersexual uberconfident dames when, um, duh, they're 21, so like, what they have going for them can pretty much be summed up as "perky tits." Sayin!

Jessica Alba Has Never Heard Of Playgirl [Fleshbot]

Jessica Simpson And John Mayer Are So Built To Last

Moe — Wed, 23 May 2007 19:19:31 EDT

From this week's US Weekly story about Jessica Simpson and John Mayer, page 70:

And so begins another perplexing chapter in their hot-and-cold romance.

We are so not perplexed! Last week, we read all about how John had found some picture of Jess from a magazine, like six months earlier or something, and said — wait for it! — "When was that?" Doh! She responded by — well, probably not by going down on him! And then, because you can never be subtle enough when it comes to reminding a guy where his vagina is coming from, she did that whole morphing-into-Jessica-Rabbit at the Costume Institute, which was clearly a direct response to that time when he bought her a thesaurus as a present and told her she should know more words.

Ok, then, they break up. And Jessica almost cancels a photo shoot for Self. But then doesn't, because, yippee, he wants her back! She is so delighted she subjects everyone at the photo shoot to listening "Your Body Is A Wonderland" nineteen thousand times in a row and they go do it at the Soho Grand. Also: she announces plans to publish a book — inspired by their affairs? — of "melancholy photographs" (Ha ha! She said "melon.") But then!Jessica hears some troubling things about stuff he said on amateur night at the Comedy Cellar! About being a single guy and a bachelor and, who knows, maybe some reference to a Will Ferrell movie! So now he is in the doghouse again. Which is why we're sorry, Us Weekly, but we're gonna have to go with InTouch's assessment this week:
JOHN JUST CAN'T MAKE UP HIS MIND
Why he's not sure:
REASON 1 She gets too much attention.
Why he loves Jessica:
REASON 1 She's hot!
Why he's not sure:
REASON 2 He's not ready to settle down.
Why he loves Jessica:
REASON 2 She's hot!
Why he's not sure:
REASON 3 He's moody
Why he loves Jessica:
REASON 3 And did we mention, she's hot!

Is there anything about this relationship that anyone did not witness, like, six hundred times over the course of four years of high school? Besides the fact that it involves, you know, a millionaire divorcee?

Related:
Why Jessica And John Can't Let Go [USWeekly]