The D.C. newspaper novel, the media, the Washington area, tech and other surrealism: David Rothman at large
George Roper, my good friend from high school, is dead now. When alive, he was often as right-wing as they come—complete with a passionate anti-Obama blog. And yet George and I avoided hand-to-hand combat. Up to his death several years ago, we followed each other on Facebook. He even talked up my novel. Similarly my […]
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Sally Quinn-bashers have once again been at work—ridiculing an essay headlined Sally Quinn announces the end of power in Washington. Granted, Ms. Quinn has never delighted my inner Veblen. The essay among other things recalled the era when Quinn and her husband, Ben Bradlee, “might have attended five-course dinners a couple of nights a week, […]
Read MoreHow much coverage of Quinn Bradlee’s wedding is enough in the Washington Post, where his father was the Watergate-era editor and his mother’s picture still graces the On Faith Web page? I’ve noted that the actual wedding, as opposed to the fuss over the dueling weddings, received just three sentences originally and then just three […]
Read MoreWell, the Washington Post has now published more than three sentences about the Quinn Bradlee-Pary Anbaz Williamson wedding festivities this week. The police showed up at 12:30 a.m. Monday in response to a Georgetown neighbor’s noise complaint about D.C.’s wedding reception of the year. So the Post’s Reliable Source gossip column generously doubled the total […]
Read MoreWashington is full of people telling others how to live their lives or at least wishing they could. Same for the media world. I call it the Mink Stole Ladies Syndrome, based on a party scene in The Solomon Scandals from the D.C. of several decades ago. Sally Sterling Quinn, with her judgmental dissections of […]
Read MoreUpdate, 1:47 p.m.: Post rival’s local news strategy—a Poynter Institute item. – D.R. My online friend Beth Solomon, publisher of TheGeorgetownDish and absolutely no relative of the Sy Solomon in my newspaper novel, got robbed. A thief carried off Beth’s purse, checkbook, credit cards, wallet, car keys, iPhone, Blackberry, everything, after she left her car […]
Read MoreUpdate, 8:01 p.m., April 7: Gov. McDonnell has apologized for not mentioning slavery when he proclaimed CHM. – D.R. The N word and a racist zoning lawyer named Stonewall Lee show up in The Solomon Scandals. The main plot of my D.C. newspaper novel unfolds in the late 20th century, and I did not pretty […]
Read MoreThe Georgetown Dish has the details about the women of 3303 Water St., N.W. Once again Life catches up with Scandals, which the item in fact mentions. Shown is an example of the “minimalist aesthetic” amid which a plot might have unfolded against the White House social secretary.
Read MoreA new online newspaper, the TheGeorgetown Dish, is starting up right in the neighborhood of Ben Bradlee, Sally Quinn and other VIP journalists. Beth Solomon—no relationship to the fictitious government landlord in The Solomon Scandals, thank you—is the editor and publisher. She has worked at ABC News and Voice of America among other places. Robb […]
Read MoreTwo kinds of parties show up in The Solomon Scandals, my D.C. media novel: the private variety (“party-parties”) and “name-in-the-paper parties” (where the givers and the guests want publicity). For both, the location is still the Georgetown section of Washington, famous over the years as home to the liberal elite. I’ve never applied for “elite” […]
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