How was your New Year’s Eve? No one cares, especially not Semafor’s founding editor-at-large Steve Clemons, who is now an official contender for the Daily Caller’s fake “Worst Paragraph of the Year Award.”
“How was your New Year’s Eve? Personally, I had a lovely time at a black-tie affair thrown by British Ambassador Karen Pierce — CIA Director Bill Burns, the ambassadors of Germany and Switzerland, and White House officials Steve Ricchetti and Neera Tanden were also there,” Clemons wrote in the first Monday morning email of the year to the mere peasants, like me, who spent NYE surrounded by our loved ones out in real America.
Some of you may never have heard of Semafor, which is understandable. It’s not the topical treatment your grandma is using for that fungus issue, it’s actually a news start-up funded by now-disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Now, I’ve only been a published writer for almost 20 years. Clearly, I don’t have as much experience as Clemons (he is some 30 years older than me) but something in my gut tells me that publishing copy like that might not be the best way to convince anyone to take you seriously, ever.
If Clemons had perhaps told us a story, say if the British Ambassador did something crazy or funny or interesting or literally anything at all, this introduction to the year from Semafor might have actually granted him an ounce of street cred. He didn’t. He just bragged about people no one cares about.
While Clemons was having his pretty unique version of fun, social climbing like a lizard in the swamp, he sent his underlings down to Florida to spend the holiday away from their families, working.
“In contrast, our [former Daily Caller White House reporter] Shelby Talcott took one for team Semafor and spent the night cordoned in the press pen outside Donald Trump’s own black-tie gala at Mar-a-Lago, where Rudy Giuliani and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell were the big guests. Check out her dispatch on the odd vibes around the former president, who spent Jan. 1 picking an unexpected fight over abortion with his party’s base,” Clemons wrote, bringing the epically bad paragraph to a close. (RELATED: A Host Of Cartoonish Bond Villains Are Deciding Your Fate From The Swiss Alps)
Next year, I’m going to send out an email that starts with, “Hey Peasants, here’s how you’re not as cool as I think I am.” Maybe then, I too can be in the running for the gorgeous pretend trophy bestowed upon the winner of the Caller’s pretend “Worst Paragraph of the Year Award.”