Step Aside Times And Post; Make Way For Teen Vogue And Vanity Fair

There's some honest journalism going on out there, and the temporizers and weaselworders in the news divisions of the New York Effing Times and once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle could stand to learn a few things about reporting, say, on the fact that our new emperor is wearing no clothes.

On Teen Vogue:

When Lauren Duca’s excellent Teen Vogue op-ed on Donald Trump’s psychological manipulation of America went viral last Saturday, social media exploded with praise—and with baffled reactions. The piece, one Twitter user noted, had “big words for a magazine about hairstyles and celebrity gossip.” Another user expressed pure astonishment: “Who would have guessed @TeenVogue might be the future of political news. Unreal coverage of the election.” Others were less kind, and a lot less subtle: “Go back to acne treatments,” one man snapped. 

Teen Vogue deserves credit not just for Duca’s op-ed but for the entirety of its political coverage, which has provided sharp, impassioned coverage of everything from gun control to Black Lives Matter in 2016. Much of this is due to Teen Vogue’s editor, Elaine Welteroth, who graduated to the position last May, and Phil Picardi, the magazine’s digital editorial director...

Vanity Fair's Abigail Tracy reporting on neo- fascist bag o' wind Donald "Rump" Trump's latest manipulative interaction with the largely supine press:

Six months after Donald Trump last held a formal press conference, during which he called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton, the president-elect finally spoke with reporters Wednesday during two impromptu, largely fact-free press conferences outside his gilded Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. In his signature stream-of-consciousness style, the president-elect—at one point flanked by boxing promoter Don King—offered up a series of misleading, disjointed responses, during which he falsely claimed to have created thousands of new jobs, dismissed alleged Russian interference in the presidential election, whitewashed his sprawling financial conflicts of interest, and offered up word salad in a rambling defense of Israel. 

It has not escaped our notice (and likely not yours) that women journalists (and bloggers!) are front- and- center in standing up to the "firehose of falsehoods" being sprayed into your lives every day by Rump, his minions and large segments of the media.  Normalizing a misogynist monster like Rump fits the business model of the amoral establishment media, which hungers for access to this Russo- Republican train wreck of an incoming administration. Others with courage, a conscience and a moral compass will honestly report facts and let the facts form the truth.

Ms. Duca and Ms. Tracy are just two more examples of honorable people doing their jobs as reporters and journalists. We're happy to support them, and hope you do too.

BONUS:  See additional worthies noted by Pinku-Sensei in the comments.

The Wonderful World of Winky

Todd Purdum has a lengthy, hard-hitting article on Alaska Gov. Winky You Betcha in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, which is reproduced on their website. It's a great read, full of very revealing inside views and opinions by McSame's campaign officials on Winky and her obvious limitations. Some of McSame's advisors were convinced by mid-October that Winky was not prepared for the office of Vice President, let alone prepared to assume the highest office. McSame's choice of her was seen by many of them as reckless and ill-advised, as she petulantly refused to take advice and coaching for her media interviews, and played the prima donna to McSame's disadvantage as her wingnut fans cheered. Purdum writes,

"One longtime McCain friend and frequent companion on the trail was heard to refer to Palin as 'Little Shop of Horrors.'"

Toward the end, when it appeared that Obama's victory was near, Winky was more interested in getting a head start on the next Presidential campaign than in being McSame's running mate. As one Rethuglican political critic in Alaska put it, there's a reason her nickname was "barracuda" in high school.