Morning Coffee (3/15/16)

Beware supposed friends carrying daggers.

Wow: Putin has started withdrawing from Syria

The first surrender of an American supposedly fighting for ISIS has occurred.

"But at this point, Trump's rallies aren't just unpredictable. They're out of control. And they're a threat to American democracy whether or not Trump is ultimately elected president."

The Rise of Trump Shows the Danger and Sham of Compelled Journalistic “Neutrality”

I can't be contrarian about Donald Trump anymore: he's terrifying

I think Jamelle Bouie is right that Trump happened in large part because people just couldn't cope with the idea of a black President.

Bernie Sanders’s trade problem: helping American workers would hurt the world’s poorest

This ongoing Breitbart meltdown is quite . . . something.

But who is leaking Letizia's iMessages???

I somehow hadn't realized that this Tyler Perry Passion musical airing on Palm Sunday uses existing music. Like Imagine Dragons and Hoobastank. WHAT.

Morning Coffee (3/1/16)

How is it MARCH? Anyway, happy Super Tuesday! Everything is terrible!

I think it's important that we talk about these violent rape fantasies and other disturbing things that Bernie Sanders wrote in the 1960s and 70s. Because people's views can evolve. They can. I am all for that. But a few things - this isn't a policy point evolving as research or the political climate change; I don't want a president who EVER wrote about "typical" women's fantasies involving being raped by three men (and he wrote this while running for governor AND U.S. Senate, by the way, he wasn't fifteen or something), or who just LAST YEAR dismissed reporters' concerns about this rather than disavowing it, and basically said that it's okay because women like 50 Shades. No. You do not just get a pass on this. (And also in just a practical sense - when we bring up Trump's attitudes toward women, do we want Republicans to be able to say "Well, your candidate thinks women want to be gang-raped?" I mean. COME ON.)

Yesterday at a Trump event, the Secret Service threw a reporter to the ground in a choke hold and the idea that this is okay because the reporter swore at the agent is so, so dangerous. Also: Trump's insistence on reporters staying in a pen and not mingling with crowds is terrible, and this reporter was not anywhere near the candidate the Secret Service is supposed to be protecting. So. There's that.

And at another Trump event, a group of black students were made to leave by the Secret Service, who say they were told to do so by Trump. The students were not protesting or anything. They were just standing there being black.

Also dangerous: The idea that the New York Times should release an off-the-record tape just because it might hurt Trump. No. That is not how journalism works.

In case you had any doubt: That article claiming Elizabeth Warren had endorsed Sanders was fake fake fake. (And apparently included a "quote" from Lena Dunham, who is a well-known Clinton supporter? If you're going to be terrible at least be good at it, people.)

Super Tuesday is make or break for Bernie Sanders. Here are the key states to watch.

How the Supreme Court Case Could Change Women’s Access to Abortion

CLARENCE THOMAS IS SPEAKING.

Move along, clearly nothing to see here: One of the missing Hong Kong booksellers has gone on Chinese state TV to deny being abducted and renounce his UK citizenship.

Erin Andrews: ESPN Forced Me To Go On TV And Talk About My Stalker

Here's something good: This is a different case of the government trying to make Apple unlock a phone, but a court in New York ruled for Apple and that's a somewhat encouraging sign. (Here's a PDF of the filing, if you're curious. My favorite part of the way the judge basically says "I wouldn't want to LEGISLATE from the BENCH!" Such great trolling.)

Morning Coffee (10/18/12)

I'm sick. The cat's sick. I'm working from home while we wait for test results from the vet. It's basically a barrel of laughs around here today.

Make sure you see today's Google Doodle. So cute. I really need to read that book.

Newsweek is going all-digital. It had definitely gone downhill recently, but it's still a little sad. The end of an era.

Showrunner Diary: A Day in the Life of Suburgatory Creator Emily Kapnek

Texas Monthly has amazing crime journalism. Here's The Innocent Man, Part One.

Guest Post: Another perspective on Edith Zimmerman and GQ

My cousin Elizabeth Welsh e-mailed me some interesting thoughts on Edith Zimmerman, Chris Evans, and GQ, so I asked her to turn it into a guest post for you all. I don't necessarily agree with everything she's saying here, but I think it's worth reading (obviously). You can find Liz on Tumblr and Twitter.

____

So I read the Edith Zimmerman piece in GQ, in the actual magazine.

I don't think it's the end of the world. As a piece of magazine writing, I don't think it’s very good. Like you, I do wonder what her assignment was. I also assume that she was working under a really tight deadline.

For me, the most revealing part was when she writes about Chris Evans trying to figure out if he can be the regular dude AND ALSO be the big famous actor guy. That’s the reason the most important part was at the end underneath her name, where it says that she's the editor of The Hairpin and that this is her first piece for GQ. Because I felt like she was going through that same thing, wondering if she could write witty things for smart ladies AND ALSO play the game and write the big schmancy masturbatory celebrity profile. Or even if she isn't trying to figure that out, I could picture her calling up her editor and saying, This is what happened but WTF on the planet am I ever going to write about it?? And her editor just saying, That sounds awesome, it sounds intimate and personal and real, just write what happened. And her still not really being sure how to do that, but needing to do it anyway, for the deadline, and for needing to get paid, and trying to maintain that perfect ironic po-mo distance that will (hopefully?) make it awesome but still not being sure how TF on the planet she's ever going to write about it.

But then I am not a professional writer.

I wonder why some people have just assumed they hooked up. She never says or even implies she thinks that they did. If she was drunk enough not to remember what happened (which, yes, was a MISTAKE any way you slice it), in many jurisdictions that would mean Chris Evans sexually assaulted her, since she was legally incapable of giving consent.

I think if she had been a dude the exact same things would have happened, except it would have been eye-rolling rather than outrageous, because then they would have just been stupid bros acting like stupid bros, and that I think is what's truly BS and sexist about the whole brouhaha. But then I am a huge proponent of platonic girl-guy friendships (and yes, I know she admitted to being attracted to him, but to me it still read like what people do when they hang out as friends, not go out on a date, as much as she may have loved for that to have been what happened), and it really frustrates me the way guy-girl friendships are so often misread, or greeted with skepticism.

I do think it is significant that they're both from Boston, and around the same age. Not because I believe her when she says that made it seem like they were out on a date, but because they were two people who seem to have both felt ambivalent about being on the knife's edge of needing do to things differently because they're on the cusp of something big (first big summer blockbuster, first big schmancy magazine piece), and Los Angeles is really far away from Boston. It’s easy for me to imagine them both feeling relieved to find comfort in what’s familiar. I grew up in Boston, and when I visited the West Coast it didn’t take me very long to realize the people out there are different. After spending three consecutive nights going out in Portland and Seattle, that third night in Seattle I was SO thrilled to talk to a sleazy almost-middle-aged guy from New Jersey just because I was finally interacting with someone where I felt okay about talking fast and being sarcastic.

I will be surprised if she’s ever asked to write a GQ piece again. I can see her being contacted by tabloids: Hey that Chris Evans piece was great, will you fake-befriend XYZ celebrity, get him/her to talk about his/her dirty secrets, and write about it for us?? I imagine she will say no.

So maybe the moral of the story is that still-becoming-established writers should not write profiles of still-becoming-established actors.

Mostly I just feel bad for Edith Zimmerman, because I don't think she deserves to be vilified.

And finally, since I’m also from Boston and probably around the same age as her and Chris Evans, I do have to state for the record: YES JAM'N 94.5. Baltazar & Pebbles 4-eva.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Have you heard about the Chris Evans "profile" from the July GQ? If you've been around the Internet today, you probably have, but in case you somehow missed it, here it is. It's less a profile and more an account of how the writer spent her time with the subject drunkenly flirting with him rather than, you know, interviewing him, and it should be embarrassing for everyone involved - the writer, Edith Zimmerman, the editor, the magazine, even Evans himself, although really, he comes out looking better than Zimmerman does, and I suppose that was the point all along.

It's not just mortifying for Zimmerman herself, though. Plenty of female writers have been responding with second-hand embarrassment - and some outrage. As TV journalist Laura Prudom tweeted, "It's exactly why people don't take female journos seriously. A little flirtation from a hot actor makes us drop our integrity?" She continued: "As long as it keeps happening, it just paints female writers in a terrible/lust-addled light. We're not ALL gossipy flirts!" Indeed, we are not. Alyssa Rosenberg contemplates whether it's worth it to do this sort of story if the goal is to have female writers better-represented in magazines. I don't think it is. I'm not convinced that publishing articles by women that encourage the idea that women are unprofessional is necessarily better than not publishing articles by women.

One important aspect of this story, though, remains unclear: What assignment, exactly, was Zimmerman given? In the article, she suggests that she set out to write a regular celebrity profile, but abandoned any attempt at integrity or professionalism the moment she was presented with a pretty boy and a glass of white wine. In the piece, Zimmerman writes "Since we're both single and roughly the same age, it was hard for me not to treat our interview as a sort of date." If that's true, honey, I think you're in the wrong profession. And even then, there's "acting like you're on a first date" and then there's "drinking so much he has to put you in his guest room because you can't make it home." Being friendly (and, sure, flirtatious) enough to get invited to your interview subject's house is one thing. Having to write about how you don't remember anything about the house anyway because you were drunk: not so good. Daydreaming about marrying a hot actor? Perfectly normal. Writing about it in your profile of him? Probably not what your readers are looking for. Telling a gossip reporter that you have a crush on your interview subject, and then writing about that too? I mean, COME ON.

There's an alternative, though: Alyssa and others suggest that GQ may have assigned exactly the sort of piece they wound up publishing. If that's the case . . . well, I guess I'm sort of glad that Zimmerman isn't as clueless and out-of-control as she appears. But if she made up this whole "Tee-hee, this all JUST HAPPENED because I can't control myself around liquor* and cute guys!" thing, then that doesn't exactly increase my respect for her either. Throughout the piece, she contemplates the degree to which Evans is playing her, but the reader must simultaneously evaluate the degree to which Zimmerman is playing Evans (a relative newcomer to the celebrity game, after all) and therefore manipulating her audience as well. This story of a supposedly crazy, spontaneous experience looks more and more like a carefully-constructed event engineered by Zimmerman, by Evans, by the magazine, by all of the above, which makes it no more authentic than any of the "regular" celebrity profiles that detail favorite foods and workout routines. But at least those usual profiles are up front about what they are, rather than pretending to be something scandalous or transgressive.

And if GQ did in fact assign "drunken flirtation with celebrity," and Zimmerman deliberately took that assignment, then we're back to the issue of perpetuating stereotypes about female journalists and whether literally any representation is better than no representation. Sure, it's nice to say that a woman has the GQ cover story this month. But if the cost of that is that this behavior is what people think of whenever Laura or I or another woman say she's interviewing an actor, then I don't think it's progress at all.

* Note: The "Irish pub" at which Evans and Zimmerman first meet serves only beer and wine, no liquor. Sounds super-authentic! Just like - perhaps - the rest of the story!