The Washington Post courts the Younger Demographic

These are the lengths some of our "best" papers go to. And they wonder why they're losing circulation.

Three Wise Guys: Urinal Etiquette, Mystery Statues and More Potatoes

By Joe Heim, Justin Rude and Dan Zak
Sunday, March 16, 2008; N01



Dear Wise Guys:

I was recently using a urinal at a large public rest stop when the guy next to me cut the cheese in a big way. When I looked at him with disgust, he said, "Hey, if you can't do it in a bathroom, where can you do it?" Is he correct, and if so, are there other places where this would be acceptable?

Louie

Dan: First, men are supposed to ignore each other at urinals. Second, it's not like this guy tackled and forced you into a Dutch oven. Third, I argue that audible flatulence is acceptable everywhere because it brings immediate and sometimes sustaining levity to any situation. Except for funerals. I learned that one the hard way.

 

Was this in the printed version or a Web site special feature?

Woodward and Bernstein would be spinning in their graves if they were dead.

 

If they were alive in graves, wouldn't they be spinning anyway -- and clawing, but not related to the Q & A?

 

A question I have long pondered. How comforting that the acceptable response to this could be found in the Washington Post.

News, for the readers, by the readers (burrrrrrrrp)

 

This is how newspapers are going to take the hill again.....

 

"Three Wise Guys" runs on the front page of the Post's Sunday Source section, a kind of grab bag section that defies description. The feature ought to be retitled "Three Not So Funny Guys Who Think They Are" or "Three Hopeless Losers Who Will Write Almost Anything To Call Attention To Themselves." It's the Post's pathetic attempt to bring talk radio's no-words-unspoken mentality to the printed page. Really cool/hip hop/edgy or whatever the hell it is they're aiming for, huh? (Certainly not wisdom.)

 

The Three Wise Guys is a regular Q&A column in the Sunday Source section, so I imagine it's in the print version. I believe that when that section was launched a few years ago, its stated target audience was 20-somethings.

 

Wasn't that story posted here a couple of years ago?

 

Well, I remember this one guy who told a tale of someone at a neighboring urinal checking out his unit.

 

Isn't this really courting the all-important moran demographic?

 

Fun times at the .com part of the WaPo: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/03/06/washingtonpostcoms-white-hand-under-siege/