popular thinking

GEE WHIZ: Amazing but true. The sad story of another former colleague, the now exiled sportswriter Michael Gee, is given the full treatment online via the Washington Post. Not surprised that the Globe mentioned Gee's double downfall on Wednesday. But very surprised that Mark Jurkowitz, the city's only current full-time media critic (at least in print, since there are many of us willing to take on the fourth estate online), failed to weigh in on his site. Even more curious is his excuse: Jurkowitz claims that he didn't want to write about Gee publicly ogling his first j-school students because he's "not a big schadenfreude guy," then reveals the real reason he failed to fulfill his media criticism duties -- Jurkowitz vouched for Gee to get the BU job that he has now lost. So schadenfruede has nothing to do with it, unless you're talking about the rest of us reveling in the fact that a media critic got burned. In the interest of my own disclosure, let me say that I didn't know Gee very well before he left the Herald. If I had known him, I would've told him to keep his sexual impulses to himself. And I'm not just saying that because I attended a "libel lunch." It was as appetizing as it sounds, people. Although in the interest of full disclosure, once again, I must acknowledge this: The roast beef sandwiches, quite good!

Related: Weekly Dig's thoughts; Editor and Publisher gives the industry a reason to make this a national alert!