LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold is the first food writer to win a Pulitzer and for a first, it was a remarkably uncontroversial award. Gold has been widely recognized for his sharp, funny prose and his knowledgeable and discerning approach to criticism.
(That has nothing to do with the topic of the post but I wanted to start with something nice.)
With the exception of Gold, the Weekly offers pretty much the standard free-weekly fare, specializing in starkly-lit heroes-and-villains stories with obligatory swipes at the mainstream media (particularly peevish and resentful when focusing on their competition).
One of the problems with writing this sort of story is that, if you're going to stay true to the narrative you invariably have to leave out something funny and/or interesting because it undercuts your case.
For example, if you were writing a story about a sleazy conman slandering respectable businesses, you wouldn't be able to include a quote that made one of those respectable businesses look completely street-rat crazy. That's too bad, because it must be difficult to ask a journalist to pass up anything as memorable as this (from Felix Salmon, who almost never leaves out the good stuff):
On Monday, Barry Minkow put out a press release accusing a NYSE-listed company, InterOil, of being “nothing more than hype”. InterOil has had a large short interest for some time, and it seems that Minkow touched a nerve, because InterOil’s senior manager for media relations, Susuve Laumaea, went borderline insane via email in response:How could the Weekly leave this out? It's like Beat poetry. It practically demands to be read aloud with dramatic pauses and bongo accompaniment.you are a gutless coward of the highest order, a jealous and envious SOB… You are a loser, a non-achiever and a sour-grape. Piss off you good for nothing… Do not be afraid on account of me being a descendant of cannibals … no, no, believe me, I will not cannibalise you or feed you to the swamp crocodiles…
you are known crook, conman, convicted felon, a psychopath and a pathological liar who is jealously envious… You have no sense of common decency. You are neither here nor there among the cream of decent God- fearing humanity. You are a scum of the earth, a creepy-crawlie who should have been locked away and the key thrown away too so that you rot away like the dung heap you are. You are a coward of the highest order… I can’t use you as crocodile feed because you are too poisonous … those alligators will die eating you, cooked or uncooked…
Who gave you the authority to investigate InterOil, you piece of shitty non-entity? You are nothing more than an internet pirate, a low-life manipulator who is out to profit by your dishonest, fraudulent, slanderous and cowardly methods. Up yours.
