Love and hate in newspapers
Bensblurb # 545 5/5/10
Love and hate in the dailies’ pages...
They’ve been my two favorite daily workweek companions for over 50 years, keeping me firing on all cylinders, or rather some of them lately despite the aging process.
One of them I love to hate, the other I hate to love. Both have helped me keep scrawling my opinions here over the past 15 years of my retirement.
The one I love to hate--no secret of course--is the Washington Post. It has thrived nevertheless. I had hoped at one time that the old Washington Evening Star would overtake it, then the Washington Daily News, then the Washington Times. No way. Instead, after chalking up four new Pulitzer prizes for quality this year, the Post starts a new weekly spin-off, Capital Business, during a really bad recession. That’s gutsy.
Why do I hate WaPo? Two recent examples. A Sunday feature went on and on about the garden editor’s hatred of...azaleas! Now what could be sicker? He bewailed their flowery and showy presence nearly everywhere in the region without once explaining why. Here’s the major reason why, from me, your former long-time proprietor of Azaleas of Aquia, no less.
Many years ago a USDA researcher out at Beltsville’s Plant Industry Station started trying to develop azaleas, then typically southern grown, that would do well in the Washington area. Ben Morrison, in his so-called Glendale plots, was amazingly successful over the years. Many of his hardy varieties now grace most of our area’s gardens today.
But not once did the Post’s garden editor properly blame the federal government for the proliferation of these azaleas he obviously detested. Just what you’d expect from a liberal rag so Obamist.
Another Post burr under my saddle, nearly as egregious, is its continuing campaign to besmirch our governor, Bob McDonnell. The other day it blared the headline “Virginia is for Lovers (and two haters).” It tied an incident, where a noted black singer messaged on his Twitter that he’d been racially dissed by two Virginians, to McDonnell’s recent proclamation on Confederate History Month. That thin editorial gruel was blown into a half-page spread.
Tough toenails, WaPo: Giant Northrop Grumman has now chosen Northern Virginia over the District or Maryland for its new national headquarters, despite the paper‘s advocacy. I was hoping for Stafford, especially since we killed the new BPOL tax, but Arlington-Fairfax will be OK too, benefiting us Virginians.
Now for the paper I hate to love: The Wall Street Journal. Why? Subscribing to it costs an arm and a leg. Nevertheless, I’ve seen it rise from being a mere business and conservative opinion periodical to national dominance, overtaking the holy New York Times and even Arlington’s scrappy USA Today.
Through the years I have treasured WSJ’s editorial page’s conservative opinions. I’ve agreed with most of them, and they have consistently been enhanced by clear and clever writing. I trust some of that has rubbed off on my own writing style.
Were there ever two more contrasting newspapers so successful in occupying much of the time this retiree should be spending on the Internet...and azaleas? Nope.
--Ben Blankenship
######
Love and hate in the dailies’ pages...
They’ve been my two favorite daily workweek companions for over 50 years, keeping me firing on all cylinders, or rather some of them lately despite the aging process.
One of them I love to hate, the other I hate to love. Both have helped me keep scrawling my opinions here over the past 15 years of my retirement.
The one I love to hate--no secret of course--is the Washington Post. It has thrived nevertheless. I had hoped at one time that the old Washington Evening Star would overtake it, then the Washington Daily News, then the Washington Times. No way. Instead, after chalking up four new Pulitzer prizes for quality this year, the Post starts a new weekly spin-off, Capital Business, during a really bad recession. That’s gutsy.
Why do I hate WaPo? Two recent examples. A Sunday feature went on and on about the garden editor’s hatred of...azaleas! Now what could be sicker? He bewailed their flowery and showy presence nearly everywhere in the region without once explaining why. Here’s the major reason why, from me, your former long-time proprietor of Azaleas of Aquia, no less.
Many years ago a USDA researcher out at Beltsville’s Plant Industry Station started trying to develop azaleas, then typically southern grown, that would do well in the Washington area. Ben Morrison, in his so-called Glendale plots, was amazingly successful over the years. Many of his hardy varieties now grace most of our area’s gardens today.
But not once did the Post’s garden editor properly blame the federal government for the proliferation of these azaleas he obviously detested. Just what you’d expect from a liberal rag so Obamist.
Another Post burr under my saddle, nearly as egregious, is its continuing campaign to besmirch our governor, Bob McDonnell. The other day it blared the headline “Virginia is for Lovers (and two haters).” It tied an incident, where a noted black singer messaged on his Twitter that he’d been racially dissed by two Virginians, to McDonnell’s recent proclamation on Confederate History Month. That thin editorial gruel was blown into a half-page spread.
Tough toenails, WaPo: Giant Northrop Grumman has now chosen Northern Virginia over the District or Maryland for its new national headquarters, despite the paper‘s advocacy. I was hoping for Stafford, especially since we killed the new BPOL tax, but Arlington-Fairfax will be OK too, benefiting us Virginians.
Now for the paper I hate to love: The Wall Street Journal. Why? Subscribing to it costs an arm and a leg. Nevertheless, I’ve seen it rise from being a mere business and conservative opinion periodical to national dominance, overtaking the holy New York Times and even Arlington’s scrappy USA Today.
Through the years I have treasured WSJ’s editorial page’s conservative opinions. I’ve agreed with most of them, and they have consistently been enhanced by clear and clever writing. I trust some of that has rubbed off on my own writing style.
Were there ever two more contrasting newspapers so successful in occupying much of the time this retiree should be spending on the Internet...and azaleas? Nope.
--Ben Blankenship
######
posted by Ben Blankenship at
10:03 AM
