PressEthic

It's kind of like how Boldface seems completely out of place in The New York Times.

What Angelina and Brad had for dinner and who J. Lo was wearing at some overpriced, overhyped Hollywood party seem fitting in Star or US Weekly. But to see a gossip column in the most prestigious (and arguably most pretentious) newspaper in the land just doesn't seem right.

Maybe it's to branch out, or just to have an answer to Page Six. But none of it seems to belong in newspapers at all.

There's more in the "why is this here?" section. In the odds news corner of Romensko, there's this snippet about public urination offenders writing letters of apology in the local paper.

And in theory it may not even be that bad an idea - maybe humiliating enough to work. But still. If newspapers want to get involved in this, why stop at some drunks who couldn't hold it until they got home? Why not rapists or armed robbers?

Or, why not a story on why there's enough people peeing on the streets of Wisconsin to warrant a special section of the newspaper?