I’m happy for her. We have a subscription to the Atlantic and will soon not have a subscription to the Post, so I think it’s all good. By the way, did you notice that you can’t spell Post without POS?
Will do! I stopped subscribing to the Atlantic years ago when they got rid of their monthly cryptic crossword and language page (I know -- absurd!), but if they're adding Petri, I'm back.
Hazarding a guess here, as a former Post newsroom person: The products would be the various media used to distribute the news: the paper, the website, the podcast, etc. And so I guess (and I'm guessing!) that it means he understands how each of these media requires a different approach.
I wouldn't use the term "bullshit"; I'm sure they did mean to communicate some meaning. They just seemed to forget that readers outside the corporate industry don't know what these terms mean in this context. I do find it surprising that the quote is attributed to Matt Murray, the editor of the paper and a veteran newspaper journalist. Reporters usually translate corporate-speak for readers, not use it themselves. But this press release, as Gene notes, is NOT from the Post newsroom; it's from a corporate PR department.
Certainly a worthy "guess," but my cynical inner self tells me that "product" as used here may well go beyond media per se (and their unique structural characteristics), to how to catch and hold the news consumer's interest and perhaps even more importantly, get them to navigate in ways that exposes them to the most ads/promotions. And, no doubt, to avoid run-on sentences like the previous one.
I, too, am a former Post newsroom person (from the early ‘90s😂👵🏼). I appreciate your attempt to parse the gibberish and I bet your guess is correct; I’m not as charitably inclined toward the bot that spewed out such nonsense, though. Blech!😝
The press release refers to a team responsible for "editing, curating, publishing and presenting content for The Post’s website and app." I remember when only art historians arranging museum exhibits curated. Now, "curating" means "choosing," and everyone gets to curate. Excuse me, I've got go curate what to have for dinner tonight. All that "curating" means in the press release is that the team will choose the content for the website and app.
But why is "editing" before "curating"? You have to choose the content before you can edit it.
And what's with "publishing and presenting"? Don't those two words mean the same thing, except that "presenting" is a phony word?
The press release should have said that the team is responsible for "choosing, editing, and publishing" the content. That's a respectable job. No need to gussy it up.
When did news become content? And why is everything in the world suddenly curated? I was a journalist for many years and I never once curated any content.
I note from the press release on the hiring that Anders was "...deputy editor-in-chief at The Journal, he also held the senior roles of chief news editor, business editor, deputy editor of Page One, senior editor for corporate news and technology editor. He joined The Journal in 1998, serving as one of its first digital reporters." The guy is obviously the Swiss Army Knife or Marco Rubio of journalism. The new management appears good at naming things, like "News Hub" and as Dear Leader points out, at jargonizing, and by craky, has not one, not two but now with Anders, count 'em, four managing editors. Let's see if it can actually put out a newspaper. Btw, good article by Clare Malone ("Is Jeff Bezos Selling Out The Washington Post") in The New Yorker (online now and in the May 26 print edition).
2. I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't commented about the logo. It took me all of about 0.37 seconds to notice the, ahem, similarity.
3. My wife teaches college courses in Business Communication, Organizational Behavior, and Management (and Business Ethics). Thank you for providing a great exercise for her students. I've already sent her the link to the WaPo press release. On a related note, do you know about Bullshit Bingo?
Mine too, but turning verbs into nouns can be worse. An "ask" instead of a "question." A "reveal" instead of a "revelation." An "invite" instead of an "invitation." Why do people do such things? They're totally unnecessary and make teeth hurt.
"Giving a gift" is preferable, but the extra two words might explain why people have adopted "gifting." (Saving two words is no excuse for verbal ugliness, in my opinion.) But "giving" alone doesn't specify that you're giving a gift.
On second thought, "gifting" isn't verbally ugly; we're just not used to it. It's no uglier than words we're used to, such as "drifting" or "shifting." Although I'm politically liberal, maybe I'm too conservative linguistically. Language does evolve, though not necessarily for the better. "Gifting" might be better than "giving a gift" because it saves two words.
But there is no benefit to using "issue" to mean "problem." An issue is a matter that can be debated or decided. If you have a toothache, there is no benefit to saying that you have a dental issue rather than a dental problem. (Your dentist might have a dental issue in deciding on the best treatment for your dental problem.) But I'm fighting a lost cause. A young person who reads this comment may not even know that at one time "issue" did not mean "problem."
I spent much of my life working on software products. Our lawyers would never let us acknowledge that the products ever contained a bug or even a problem, we had to call everything an issue.
The guys on my local sports radio station are always "efforting to get you that information." I keep wanting to do a reverse Yoda: "There is no 'efforting' -- there is only "trying."
Thanks to the recent enshittification of GoComics, I had to actually go and log in in order to access this link. And for some reason, even though I access my new page (which refuses to call itself what I call it) daily, it won't add itself to my jump list in Edge. I much preferred the old GoComics UI.
Frequently we ‘noun a verb’ (sorry) because our mental model of a particular act or action being mundane and common enough to move it into ‘thing’ status. And then we inexplicably fail to reach for the proper word. And if there’s not a proper word, that’s likely because the action isn’t commonplace enough to qualify as a thing, so it rarely happens. It doesn’t usually happen to weird one-offs: “Last week Sam pulled a possum bedazzle. He had that critter all glittered out before it ran off.”
The Bluesky post about a match-up with The Savannah Bananas is great. And as a former MarCom head I can assure you that no one would have dared give me drekky copy like that. At least not a second time. An agency we used posted a snarky comment of mine as a warning to their writers. Wish I remembered what it was.
The loss of Alexandra Petri is HUGE...and I am sad
I’m happy for her. We have a subscription to the Atlantic and will soon not have a subscription to the Post, so I think it’s all good. By the way, did you notice that you can’t spell Post without POS?
The more writers who leave The Bezos Post, the happier I am.
Read her in The Atlantic —home of many WaPo alums, and great eriting besides!
Will do! I stopped subscribing to the Atlantic years ago when they got rid of their monthly cryptic crossword and language page (I know -- absurd!), but if they're adding Petri, I'm back.
So read The Atlantic — better writing anyway!
That is not in my budget unless they have a sale soon
I thought I recently saw stuff by Alexandra in The NY Times. Was I hallucinating?
No, just a different Alexandra Petri.
There's more than one? Surely not!
https://www.nytimes.com/by/alexandra-e-petri
Yes, there are two!
Kinda glad to hear that because it was more traditional reporting, not satire, so I was disappointed
“His keen understanding of how product and news intersect…”
What is “product” in a newspaper context?🧐
Hazarding a guess here, as a former Post newsroom person: The products would be the various media used to distribute the news: the paper, the website, the podcast, etc. And so I guess (and I'm guessing!) that it means he understands how each of these media requires a different approach.
Pat, if you, who know how the newsroom works, have to guess what the announcement means, then the announcement is bullshit.
I wouldn't use the term "bullshit"; I'm sure they did mean to communicate some meaning. They just seemed to forget that readers outside the corporate industry don't know what these terms mean in this context. I do find it surprising that the quote is attributed to Matt Murray, the editor of the paper and a veteran newspaper journalist. Reporters usually translate corporate-speak for readers, not use it themselves. But this press release, as Gene notes, is NOT from the Post newsroom; it's from a corporate PR department.
If not "bullshit, " how about "corporate doublespeak"?
Doublespeak is deliberate obfuscation. This is just jargony blather.
So many words yet such little was said.
🎯
Certainly a worthy "guess," but my cynical inner self tells me that "product" as used here may well go beyond media per se (and their unique structural characteristics), to how to catch and hold the news consumer's interest and perhaps even more importantly, get them to navigate in ways that exposes them to the most ads/promotions. And, no doubt, to avoid run-on sentences like the previous one.
You got that right.
I, too, am a former Post newsroom person (from the early ‘90s😂👵🏼). I appreciate your attempt to parse the gibberish and I bet your guess is correct; I’m not as charitably inclined toward the bot that spewed out such nonsense, though. Blech!😝
On an online newspaper? Clicks, I believe....
The subscribers.
I'm glad Jason Anders has a pulse 🤷♀️. That's an asset I'm sure he'll deftly utilize in order to optimalize and incentivize reader engagementization.
Any use of the word "curate" outside of a museum context makes my skin crawl, and I brace for a bulllshittier than usual sales pitch.
Will be glad to read Petri again.
Thanks for "bullshittier"; I'd never seen "bullshit" in the comparative form. Nor in the superlative. What's the bullshittiest sales pitch?
trump campaign, and everything since from him and his cohort is near bullshittiest.
I shudder to think.
Shutter that thought.
Alfred Jarry's Pere Ubu would say, "Shitter the thought."
That announcement seems as if it was written by an artificial stupid.
No sir, that's the genuine stupid.
The press release refers to a team responsible for "editing, curating, publishing and presenting content for The Post’s website and app." I remember when only art historians arranging museum exhibits curated. Now, "curating" means "choosing," and everyone gets to curate. Excuse me, I've got go curate what to have for dinner tonight. All that "curating" means in the press release is that the team will choose the content for the website and app.
But why is "editing" before "curating"? You have to choose the content before you can edit it.
And what's with "publishing and presenting"? Don't those two words mean the same thing, except that "presenting" is a phony word?
The press release should have said that the team is responsible for "choosing, editing, and publishing" the content. That's a respectable job. No need to gussy it up.
Wouldn'ta been bullshitty enough.
When did news become content? And why is everything in the world suddenly curated? I was a journalist for many years and I never once curated any content.
As for Karoline Leavitt, I have a hard time believing anyone who continuously misspells their name.
I note from the press release on the hiring that Anders was "...deputy editor-in-chief at The Journal, he also held the senior roles of chief news editor, business editor, deputy editor of Page One, senior editor for corporate news and technology editor. He joined The Journal in 1998, serving as one of its first digital reporters." The guy is obviously the Swiss Army Knife or Marco Rubio of journalism. The new management appears good at naming things, like "News Hub" and as Dear Leader points out, at jargonizing, and by craky, has not one, not two but now with Anders, count 'em, four managing editors. Let's see if it can actually put out a newspaper. Btw, good article by Clare Malone ("Is Jeff Bezos Selling Out The Washington Post") in The New Yorker (online now and in the May 26 print edition).
Thank you for this poll. I thought the problem was just that I have an out of control inner 12 year old.
FREEDOM!
1. Absolutely no surprise about Petri.
2. I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't commented about the logo. It took me all of about 0.37 seconds to notice the, ahem, similarity.
3. My wife teaches college courses in Business Communication, Organizational Behavior, and Management (and Business Ethics). Thank you for providing a great exercise for her students. I've already sent her the link to the WaPo press release. On a related note, do you know about Bullshit Bingo?
"Tasked" makes my teeth hurt.
Mine too, but turning verbs into nouns can be worse. An "ask" instead of a "question." A "reveal" instead of a "revelation." An "invite" instead of an "invitation." Why do people do such things? They're totally unnecessary and make teeth hurt.
I’m still hung up on “gifting” everything. Whatever happened to giving?
"Giving a gift" is preferable, but the extra two words might explain why people have adopted "gifting." (Saving two words is no excuse for verbal ugliness, in my opinion.) But "giving" alone doesn't specify that you're giving a gift.
On second thought, "gifting" isn't verbally ugly; we're just not used to it. It's no uglier than words we're used to, such as "drifting" or "shifting." Although I'm politically liberal, maybe I'm too conservative linguistically. Language does evolve, though not necessarily for the better. "Gifting" might be better than "giving a gift" because it saves two words.
But there is no benefit to using "issue" to mean "problem." An issue is a matter that can be debated or decided. If you have a toothache, there is no benefit to saying that you have a dental issue rather than a dental problem. (Your dentist might have a dental issue in deciding on the best treatment for your dental problem.) But I'm fighting a lost cause. A young person who reads this comment may not even know that at one time "issue" did not mean "problem."
I spent much of my life working on software products. Our lawyers would never let us acknowledge that the products ever contained a bug or even a problem, we had to call everything an issue.
The guys on my local sports radio station are always "efforting to get you that information." I keep wanting to do a reverse Yoda: "There is no 'efforting' -- there is only "trying."
Remember this? https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
Thanks to the recent enshittification of GoComics, I had to actually go and log in in order to access this link. And for some reason, even though I access my new page (which refuses to call itself what I call it) daily, it won't add itself to my jump list in Edge. I much preferred the old GoComics UI.
Thank you for that.
Frequently we ‘noun a verb’ (sorry) because our mental model of a particular act or action being mundane and common enough to move it into ‘thing’ status. And then we inexplicably fail to reach for the proper word. And if there’s not a proper word, that’s likely because the action isn’t commonplace enough to qualify as a thing, so it rarely happens. It doesn’t usually happen to weird one-offs: “Last week Sam pulled a possum bedazzle. He had that critter all glittered out before it ran off.”
Not sure where this comes from but, it kinda sums everything up eh wot?
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcfdcb66d-990f-401e-b9bf-be2eb00038ba_640x668.jpeg
so glad to hear ms. petri will be back at a publication I still subscribe to!
The headline writer deserves a Pulitzer.
The entire article does, IMHO.
With the exception of calling the ball glove a catcher's mitt.
That must be an Atlantic Oyster, as they are catching a lot of tasty talent this year.
The Bluesky post about a match-up with The Savannah Bananas is great. And as a former MarCom head I can assure you that no one would have dared give me drekky copy like that. At least not a second time. An agency we used posted a snarky comment of mine as a warning to their writers. Wish I remembered what it was.