The D.C. newspaper novel, the media, the Washington area, tech and other surrealism: David Rothman at large
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 MoreDo Ben Bradlee and other Washington Post luminaries actually use the iPad app they touted in one hoot of a promo video? I suspect so. What’s more, since my mostly favorable review of November 9, I’ve usually read the Post via the app. I have even accustomed myself to the vertical swiping needed to see […]
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 MoreIs more on the way? Or is this it? So far I’ve spotted just three sentences in today’s online Post about D.C.’s most-talked about society wedding this year—the union of Sally Quinn’s and Ben Bradlee’s son with a yoga instructor. As a long-time Postologist—with no incredible inside connections these days, but certainly with enough words […]
Read MoreSeen the wedding announcement in the New York Times? By the time you read this, Josiah Quinn Crowninshield Bradlee and Pary Anbaz-Williamson may actually be man and wife. The wedding was set for today at the Washington National Cathedral (mentioned in The Solomon Scandals, complete with a moon-rock reference). He has worked on videos and […]
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 MoreHow closely should the world follow VIP journalists and politicians and—for that matter—celebrities in general? “Newspapers spend too much time explaining themselves.” So said Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of the Washington Post; and a media watcher even gave the pronouncement a name—the Brauchi Doctrine. Look, Marcus. Your paper is in decline for the moment despite […]
Read MoreIt should be online by 7 p.m. Eastern tonight, and, yes, it’s mostly sympathetic toward her. I’ll make my case in detail. Update, 6:45 p.m.: Here’s the promised post.
Read MoreIn The Solomon Scandals, I have a little fun with a hyperspecialized Yalie named Rexwood Garst, a reporter at a Washington Post-type newspaper. “Serbo-Croatian,” says this young resume jock who lives in a converted carriage house in Georgetown, “that’s the key. I know how to speak it.” It all jibes with my suggestion that the […]
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” […]
Read MoreThe Solomon Scandals is not about the Washington Post. I invented not just a D.C. newspaper but also a presidential administration to go along with it. Fiction, as I see it, isn’t about facts—rather, about greater truths. But for those who want a look inside the household of two Post-linked Names, Ben Bradlee and Sally […]
Read More