Wonkette hammers WW: "the last refuge of aging grunge losers"

Yesterday, Willamette Week published their recent interview with Senator Barack Obama. Almost immediately, DC gossip blog Wonkette slammed the Willy Week:

Still, [Obama] has to keep campaigning because Hillary will never ever quit the race, so he had to do this depressing Q&A with one of the "alt-weekly" papers in Portland. If you thought alt-weeklies were the last refuge of aging grunge losers, this interview really isn't going to change your view.

The main concerns of the Willamette Week staff, obviously, are smoking marijuana and getting tattoos. This is the primary economic activity of the balding '90s "Pearl Jam" fan, other than wearing calf-length giant shorts and incorrectly describing everything as "ironic."

Read the rest.

Here's the video of the WW interview:

Discuss.

  • Ashlander (unverified)
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    Personally, I would rather be WW than Wonkette.

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    Oh good god, now my generation has become the target of youthful derision. I better stow the Nirvana tee.

    Two of my friends have teenage kids and both of them tell me that the word "hipster" is now a derisive term to describe the people Wonkette scalds. The ground moves under my feet.

  • s.gothman (unverified)
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    Uhm, Wonkette is right.

  • s.gothman (unverified)
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    "Two of my friends have teenage kids and both of them tell me that the word "hipster" is now a derisive term ..."

    Hipster was always a derisive term.

  • (Show?)

    I knew Grungers.

    Grungers were friends of mine.

    Mark Zussman is no Grunger.

    Zussman is a tweener.

    Wonkette shows her lame why are the basketbal games on so late at night east-coastieness, her sad sad I love microbrews like Michelob and Heineken, her not nearly in touchness with the masses by grabbing hotwings at TGIFridays by thinking that the tired old contrarian gadfly Mark Zussman has anything to do with Grunge.

    Too clever, by half, Wonkette.

    Here's how you can start redeeming yourself, Wonkette:

    Tell me when will Zussman, the waning Hillary to the Mercury's rising Obama of Amy Ruiz and crew finally do Portland a real favor and retire.

  • Blake C Hickman (unverified)
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    Why am I supposed to care about this blog again? Do people not realize that medical marijuana is a NATIONAL issue, and an important and overlooked one at that? This is coming from a non-smoker by the way. I'd also venture a guess that most of the Willy Week staff is much more into NW indie bands and bands like radiohead, arcade fire etc. than Pearl Jam, but I guess thats not that important.

  • mkd (unverified)
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    Wonkette = Fun Police.

  • John Mulvey (unverified)
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    Bbbut... I'm "Generation Y"! Where do we fit in all this??

    John

  • trishka (unverified)
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    whatevs, as the kids these days say.

  • mkd (unverified)
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    And I agree Blake-

    One of the big roadblocks to reforming clearly insane marijuana laws is smart people who know better treating the issue so flippantly.

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    I'm probably older than everyone who has commented so far, but Wonkette is right. WW comes across as a high school journalism major in this piece.

  • mkd (unverified)
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    Yeah, WW should have acted more mature and asked him about flag pins for 20 minutes.

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    Mike about nails it.

    Jeff, I commiserate -- I still remember when sometime in the early 1990s I figured out I am the same age as Homer Simpson (based on an episode with a flashback to his senior prom).

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    Of course, Obama is a tweener/Joneser too.

  • mkd (unverified)
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    Yeah, WW should have acted more mature and asked him about flag pins for 20 minutes.

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    reforming clearly insane marijuana laws is smart people who know better treating the issue so flippantly.

    Ain't that the truth. I only wish that pro-legalization warriors had not drunk the Med-pot line of deception. Everyone, pro and con knows that it's largely a case of misdirection and discredits the pro-legalization movement.

    As for the Week's level of maturity, it's definetely in a gray area.

    I think that Hipster is a pretty accurate jab. The paper reminds me of back in the '70s when we had three motorcycles parked in the living room and these guys used to pop up within our group in white shoes and sans-a-belt polyester slacks hoping to get in on some a that there free lovin'. Kinda icky, embarassing and sleazy at the same time.

    Cue Cheap Trick's Mama's Alright...........

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    I've attacked Willy Week a dozen times over their willingness to play fast and loose with the rules of journalism. But I've read that piece, and though necessarily short, there was nothing particularly wrong with it. As MKD so rightly points out, it was considerably more highbrow than anything coming out of beltway establishment TV "news" these days.

    And speaking of things too obvious to be irony, Wonkette, a blog so purile they make reality TV look Shakespearian, was started by someone who fits perfectly into the whole grunge age group they're ineptly mocking. So they're just projecting.

    But that's just dull, stupid, garden variety, hypocrisy. Nothing interesting at all.

  • s.gothman (unverified)
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    No, WW should act like the journalists they claim to be instead of stepping into the business of "infotainment" which has led local news coverage down the road to irrelevancy. I have not read WW in some time, due to their inane compulsion as of late to become more and more the twin to the even more embarrassingly irrelevant Portland Mercury. People complain about the mainstream media not asking important questions. Well, WW is mainstream media. It's "alternative" status comes form the true meaning of the word "alternative", as in it's an alternative to the right wing Oregonian. But it is as mainstream as in political ideology as Portland gets, and here they are, acting like "oh hey we're kooky kidz, what's up, got any tats?"

    You must hold all media, The O, WW, NBC, CNN, FOX, NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, -- all of it to the same standards when asking questions of a canidate who is running for the most important job in the land. If you take George Stephanopolis to task for asking about flag pins, you must take WW to task as well.

    And as for Wonkette, if Oregon is going to be on the national stage it is going to have to learn how to be a little more thick skinned when it comes to satirical barbs. I know a lot of people here probably do not spend a lot of time reading Wonkette, but in its postings and user comments, you will find no truer, nor wittier, political commentary bar none.

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    The WW, Mercury, and Tribune are three big reasons I feel civically obligated to keep up my subscription to the Oregonian despite it's obvious short-comings.

    This isn't a dig at any of those three papers, but political journalism, not to mention investigative journalism isn't something any of the three see as a core mission, though they all dabble in it. The Oregonian does see it as a core mission, which makes a big difference in the approach and consistency of their civic function.

    But on the WW, given the flippancy and, yes, as Wonkette observes, the self-congratulatorial irony of many of their pieces (stop winking at each other for God's sake!) I do wish the WW would either mature or get out of political journalism altogether. I still like the personals, though.

  • Dylan (unverified)
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    Wow! Wonkette is taking her self way too seriously. I thought the interview was fine. It wasn't quite as formal as a Newsweek interview would have been, but that's not WW's role. They are a different kind of newspaper and I expect different kinds of answers. Besides, what issue could Obama have been asked about that we don't already know? The tattoo question was fine. Lighten up.

  • trishka (unverified)
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    holy carp!

    i didn't realise WW asked him about wyden's healthcare plan.

    per my other boyfriend ezra klein

    as i noted in the comments, if i could have had one question answered at the albany town hall meeting last week, it would have been this one!

  • Jonathan Radmacher (unverified)
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    Wonkette doesn't "hammer" anyone, ever. Wonkette pokes fun and makes fun, and with Republican sex scandals basks in the hypocrisy of it all. But you'd have to have never read Wonkette to believe that it intends to have some journalistic credentials.

  • backbeat12 (unverified)
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    The ground moves under my feet.

    Is the sky tumbling down?

    Wonkette developed its "success" talking about ass-f** of a congressional aide.

    Nuff said.

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    I wonder how much thought Wonkette put in before lumping WW in with the Mercury. The Mercury provides exceptional -- if limited in scope and focus -- coverage of City Hall, and frequently digs into issues that don't even get a mention in the rest of the media.

    I see the Mercury's Amy Ruiz at every City Council meeting I attend, diligently tapping away.

    I've been heavily involved in the issues surrounding the Parks & Recreation bureau's central maintenance yard and nursery, and the Mercury's (now departed) Scott Moore seemed to understand the issue's importance to the entire city's future, from the beginning, while other reporters often brushed it off as a regional or neighborhood issue.

    The Mercury might only have a few pages of news and political coverage per issue, but those few pages usually reflect a more focused and inquisitive perspective on city politics than you'll find anywhere else. (Except maybe Amanda Fritz's blog or Jack Bog's Blog.)

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    WW has become pretty Weally Weak, but that doesn't excuse Wonkette from picking a couple of the questions and using them to slam the paper. that's the trouble when you become convinced of your own importance: you don't recognize when your work turns to shit. both WW & Wonkette tread that road way too much.

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    I'm with Mike! What a hoot...:-)

  • Scott Moore (unverified)
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    the Mercury's (now departed) Scott Moore

    Hey, I'm not dead, Pete.

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    Hey, I'm not dead, Pete.

    Hey, what have you done for me lately though? KIDDING ;)

    Sorry about that..typing too fast again. I should have said "the Mercury's former, onward-and-upward Scott Moore." Or something.

  • ben (unverified)
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    I'm having a hard time seeing past the likelihood of an agenda... TFA is nothing more than a troll under a masthead with some credibility.

  • Tom Civiletti (unverified)
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    This is nothing but one outlet trying to stake a claim to edginess hissing at another outlet with similar aspirations. For perspective, hang out at a shopping mall and listen to sub-teen girls dissing each other. Same difference.

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