The Solomon Scandals A Washington newspaper novel by David Rothman

Fisticuff in the Washington Post’s newsroom: And here you thought ‘Scandals’ was only a NOVEL?

Henry Allen, a Pulitzer Prize win­ner in his late 60s, punched the face of fea­ture writer Manuel Roig-Franzia—right there in the city room at the Wash­ing­ton Post.

Mar­cus Brauchli, the Post’s exec­u­tive edi­tor, is said to have sep­a­rated Allen, an ex-Marine, from Roig-Franzia. Enjoy not-quite-ringside reports from The Washingtonian’s Harry Jaffe,  FishBowlDC’s Matt Dor­nic, the Politico’s Michael Calderone, the Wash­ing­ton City Paper’s Erik Wem­ple and the Post’s own Gene Wein­garten, as well as Huff­in­g­ton Post com­men­tary.

No fist fights hap­pen in the news­room in The Solomon Scan­dals (not about the Post despite the joke in the head­line). But other crazy things do. “Fisticuffs” take place else­where between the night metro edi­tor and a 250-pound printer after the edi­tor misses a dead­line. Are the real Posties jeal­ous of the fun at the imag­i­nary Wash­ing­ton Telegram? Why are they tres­pass­ing on my ter­ri­tory as a nov­el­ist? This is com­pletely out­side the bounds of good sports­man­ship, despite the unwit­ting boost it gives Scan­dals’s cred­i­bil­ity. The good news, accord­ing to Weingarten’s write-up, is that mod­ern news­rooms may still dif­fer from insur­ance offices. Oh, the pas­sion! The dis­pute was over the qual­ity of a story about con­gres­sional ethics vio­la­tions. “Oh, Henry,” Roig-Franzia is said to have pro­voked Allen, “don’t be such a cocks—–.”

Tip: The just-given Allen link goes to a Web site where he reveals him­self to be a tal­ented water col­orist and more, and says he is “Intense. Mer­cu­r­ial. Bald. Bearded.” No doubt about the first two adjectives.

Image: Ricardo Dominguez vs. Rafael Ortiz (from Wikipedia).

Update, Novem­ber 17, 2009: I orig­i­nally didn’t think I had fisticuffs in Scan­dals, but sure enough, I do. So I’ve tweaked the above.