Breaking News: The Sun is completely awful, Part MCMXVII

Here's a screengrab from this evening's Baltimore Sun website. See that link five down, the one in red and blue that reads "Looking for Tickets? Get them here"? Well, that happens to be a link to a page to buy tickets for the upcoming Ravens at thee Tennessee Titans (Titmice) NFL Football Game Contest this weekend, through a company called TicketNetwork Direct.

Problem one: WHY IS THIS ON THE EDITORIAL SPREAD? It's not editorial. It's a bullshit ad slipped in between actual editorial stories about the Ravens. Slimy marketing people are responsible for this, and the new leadership at the Sun is garbage for OK-ing it, because they are stupid and, in the words of one former Sun staffer, "a fucking retard." They should be sent to North Korea for reeducation and other fun physical workouts.

Problem two: In the Harford Courant, there's a lengthy Sept. 30, 2008 blog posting that warns people against using companies like TicketNetwork Direct. The Harford Courant is owned by the Tribune Company, which also owns The Sun. Does anyone at the Tribune read their own papers? Answer: What do you think? Hell no.

Whatever. I give up, again.

Spot the Douchebag!

See if you can identify the douchebag from the line-up of photos below!

#1:

Done? If you chose #1, "The Suspicious-Looking Cat-Brandishing Lady," you are correct! You've identified Anne Tallent, editor of b, Baltimore's potty-mouthedest free-tabloid!

See, what she did was, is she printed the word "douchebag" on the cover of b, the Baltimore Sun's free daily* (*weekends not included) for the mentally handicapped. Wanna see it? Behold!

Even worse: Want to read it?

So it actually got printed on Tuesday, September 16, and then, oddly, many people were all like, "WTF? You can't drop that word on the cover of a real paper, no matter how insipid and crappy and designed for people who are flummoxed by Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader it is!" And some of those people are reporters at the big boy paper, and they wrote to the editor of that equally-befucked up publication. They complained. And they cc:d Tallent, because they don't respect her and her gross little free paper ("Speculation, your honor!" "Sustained!"), and knew it would piss her off. Ding!

So she wrote a retort, which used this logic: the Sun reporters weren't allowed to be offended by the word, because b's readers use it "differently." And I think she also implied that they were old and therefore prone to offense-taking from "new ideas." And also ZING she totally sniped at them for going to the big boss with their whining. Oh also, she showed those old fogies! She pointed them right to where they stole this dim-witted idea from (thanks Radar!) Which somehow validates it? Thus, douchebag.

Hmm. Looking back on it now, I guess this quiz was a little too easy.

UPDATE: And so was my joke. Former Sun staffer Dan Fesperman posted this to Poynter.org:

If that's the way Anne feels, then I guess she won't mind a bit that my reaction to her memo is: "Wow, what a douchebag."