The Mirror

Afternoon Mirror: Reporter Wants You To Pay For His Rental Car F**kup

Betsy Rothstein Gossip blogger
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Quote of the Day:

“Dear emailers, when you refer to reporters as ‘cocksucker’s’ it truly offends me. The word is plural, not possessive. There is no need to use an apostrophe.” 

David Smiley, political reporter, The Miami Herald.

BuzzFeed Ben Smith’s boorish headline: “I Helped Create Insider Political Journalism. Now It’s Time For It To Go Away.” Read here.

Most ridiculous lines in the piece: “There’s also a practical, commercial hunger on television for some kind of voice in the vanished center, a place that tactical journalism can fill. That may be why [CNN’s Chris] Cillizza is the most-read writer on CNN’s website and a constant presence on its air, a kind of token for neutrality — even if he has discovered a willingness to call Trump a liar.”

While it may be true that the there’s a hunger for the “vanished center,” Cillizza is not it. There is nothing “neutral” about Cillizza — he’s anti-Trump all the way, as is the bulk of CNN.

And just in case… you were yearning for something really wonk-ridden, geeky and boring, here comes the return of Vox Executive Editor Matthew Yglesias‘ three-day a week newsletter — The Weeds — in which he sees how he can put you to sleep. “Hey Weeds fans!” he writes cheerfully. “…The focus is going to be on the election campaign, but not so much on the gaffes and tactics and micro-controversies as on what’s really at stake,” he writes. Seriously…no gaffes? WTF?!

Yglesias wants to know what you want him to write.

So here. This. More of him going to lunch outside in Dupont Circle back in 2013. He wrote the piece for Slate. The gist: Eating lunch outside sucks. Sitting in dirt so uncomfortable. The guy complained about how he got his ass dirty while dining al fresco. And he explained that urinating outside during a group lunch is not proper etiquette.

Here’s a sneak peak at the story to refresh your memory…

Yglesias writes that a “big problem with eating outside is it’s often difficult to find tables and chairs, so you end up (as we did today) sitting in the dirt. Outside proponents like to refer to this dirt as ‘grass’ but if you look at it you’ll see that the blades of grass are mostly just resting atop dirt. If you sit on the ‘grass’ for a while and then stand up, the parts of your body that were in contact will the grass will be covered in ‘dirt.'”

CNN’s Jim Acosta addresses trusted news 

“Imagine what life would be like if the only ‘trusted’ news source is the government, mandating what’s reported and controlling what appears in internet search engine results. I’ve visited places like that. They are not the United States of America.” — Jim Acosta, CNN White House correspondent.

Samantha Bee writer tries on 50 dresses 

“I am so freaking proud to announce that I’ve tried on about 50 dresses for the Emmys and absolutely ALL of them have fit so weird and cost way too much money!!!! YAAARS KWAAANE” — Nicole Silverberg, writer, Samantha Bee’s “Full Frontal.”

WaPo food critic’s brutal review is out

“Every now and then I encounter a restaurant that’s so dismissive of diners’ senses, my initial reaction is simply not to write about it,” writes WaPo‘s Tom Seitsema of Washington’s La Vie.

But he felt the need to warn consumers away from this place.

A funny question from the waitress: “You’d like the appetizers first? And then the entrees? How about the sides?”

Read here.

NYT‘s Haberman is back on Twitter and proud of it… 

“Pretty sure Lanny Davis is a real person who exists.” — NYT‘s political reporter Maggie Haberman.

She’s responding to President Trump, who wrote, “’Anonymous Sources are really starting to BURN the media.’ @FoxNews The fact is that many anonymous sources don’t even exist. They are fiction made up by the Fake News reporters. Look at the lie that Fake CNN is now in. They got caught red handed! Enemy of the People!”

Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg then trolled her: “I thought you quit @Twitter @maggieNYT?!” She replied, “Only quit you, Sam.”

Mike Elk dings Politico on third anniversary of ‘illegal firing’

“To mark the 3rd anniversary of my illegal firing from @politico for union organizing, @PaydayReport is embarking on a 3,000 mile Southern reporting trip. Politico tried to blacklist me, but my readers had a different idea. Fund us to help us do more.” — Mike Elk, labor reporter, Payday Report and Washington Free Beacon’s “Man of the Year” for 2015.

In other Elk news… he lost the keys to his rental car in New Orleans and wants you to pay for it. “Yesterday, while I was out talking on the phone about an exciting new grant that Payday is going to be receiving, I somehow lost my rental car keys,” he wrote. He had to pay Enterprise $225 for that act of idiocy, but he wants you to cover it. No big deal.

Back in June… Elk tried to get strangers to help him move his grandparents’ dining room table back from Chattanooga.