hacks

Frank Bruni Column Based Entirely on Things that Flickered Across His Laptop Screen One Lazy Afternoon

Hamilton Nolan · 02/11/13 09:28AM

Well-meaning but inept New York Times columnist Frank Bruni is living proof that being a newspaper columnist is harder than it looks. As a normal newspaper writer and food critic, he seemed like a smart, erudite guy; as a columnist, he has proven to be remarkably free of insight or interesting ideas of any sort. Say, did you catch Frank Bruni's column Sunday entitle "The Land of the Binge?" If not, allow us to sum it up for you.

Thomas Friedman: Hyperconnected

Hamilton Nolan · 01/30/13 10:22AM

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a mustachioed humanoid robot with a limited vocabulary, was programmed by his creators to do whatever it takes to get his simple, cartoonish message across, even if that means repeating that message over and over and over without end in the nation's premier news outlet until all of us bow down and accept it, just to get him to stop saying it.

A Cloying Tale of Small Town Americana, by Dan Barry

Hamilton Nolan · 10/15/12 11:15AM

In Murgatroid, Ohio—a perfectly average small American town, in a perfectly average American state, where perfectly average Americans do not so average things—the day begins, as it does elsewhere, with alarm clocks, the cries of cuckoo birds, and the collective "Thshhh" sound of apple pies being thrust onto windowsills from North Snooker Street all the way down to South Shoobadoop Avenue. The sun's rays, golden in that way that rays are, peek over the horizon. It is morning in Murgatroid. Once again, a small town full of Americans bestirs itself for the unexpectedly inspiring day ahead.

Thomas Friedman's Gut Feeling Explains The World

Hamilton Nolan · 10/01/12 08:53AM

Imagine what it must be like to be the editor of globalism's Rain Man, Thomas Friedman. Your job, ostensibly, is to hammer this man's prose into some semblance of logical readability, and yet he has built a fabulously lucrative career on his total lack of logic, readability, or, really, variety of any kind. Clearly, his editors have now made the only sensible choice: "Eh, just put that shit right in the paper exactly how he typed it on his Blackberry." (*Big shot of heroin*)

Anonymous' Big FBI Hack Was a Big Lie

Adrian Chen · 09/10/12 12:32PM

Anonymous leaked 1 million Apple device IDs last week, claiming they were found on an FBI laptop. This had the unexpected result of me wearing a tutu and putting a shoe on my head in order to elicit more information from the hacktivist group. But an NBC report has revealed the leak actually came from a boring app developer. Anonymous is full of shit—but at least everyone on the internet got to see my legs.

My Work Here Is Done

Hamilton Nolan · 08/30/12 12:48PM

Goodbye, Tampa. I'm leaving you. When I think back on our time together, I will always remember the immortal words of ODB:

A Handy Test for Journalists to Find How Much They've Sold Out

Hamilton Nolan · 08/07/12 12:44PM

Barry Eisler, a former CIA agent turned novelist, has put forth a handy checklist that journalists can use to determine just how co-opted they have become by the very powers over which they are supposed to be serving as a watchdog. It can help any reporter decide just how far down the road to hackdom they've traveled so far. It's like one of those online personality tests, but it tells you exclusively how much of a sellout you are.

Mary Elizabeth Williams Has Written Down Some Thoughts and Feelings About Our National Tragedy

Hamilton Nolan · 07/24/12 04:03PM

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams is America's least necessary cultural critic. Reading a Mary Elizabeth Williams column on any topic in the news is like sticking a needle full of SUPER SWEET SUGAR WATER in your veins and pushing the plunger until you say "Blaaaauuurrrrgghhhhpablumpablum." Does Mary Elizabeth Williams have something unnecessary—so unnecessary that it would have been a net gain to humanity to say nothing at all—to say on the topic of our recent Very Sad Aurora Movie Theater Shooting Tragedy? Yes of course she does. If you had hoped to avoid it, you lose.

Thomas Friedman Writes His Only Column Again

Hamilton Nolan · 06/25/12 09:55AM

Fabulously wealthy CEO whisperer and newspaper columnist Thomas Friedman is little more than a human-shaped random word generator programmed with the "Computers and Internet" section of a fourth-grade vocabulary textbook and fitted with a mustache. He writes one single column, sometimes using different proper nouns or cycling through slightly new platitudes, in order to allow a new headline to be written. The Only Thomas Friedman Column That Exists—which ran right on schedule yesterday—opens like this:

Einstein Would Have Been a Great Ad Guy, Says Ad Guy

Hamilton Nolan · 06/11/12 10:30AM

I don't know about you, but when I think "People who made the wrong career choice," I think "Albert Einstein." Talk about wasting your smarts! Instead of writing papers on math things that the average consumer doesn't even understand, he could have been writing slogans, for Kit Kats™. Missed opportunities.

The Pap Problem; or, How to Not Write Like Mary Elizabeth Williams

Hamilton Nolan · 05/24/12 11:48AM

The thing that every "Life" or "Style" or "Pop culture" columnist must keep in mind at all times is that the things they write about are not important. (I include much of Gawker.com's content in this sweeping generalization.) These types of columnists do not write about economic policy, or international relations, or genocide or poverty or war. They just write about the latest bit of eye-catching news-lite distraction, like everybody else on the internet. Because of this, there is absolutely no excuse for these pap columnists not to take a firm stand on the "issues." Because it doesn't matter!

How to Write an Opinion Column That Takes No Position Whatsoever

Hamilton Nolan · 05/15/12 09:56AM

Richard Cohen is (for some reason) employed as a professional opinion columnist by the Washington Post. He is paid to write columns—featuring his own opinions—about the issues of the day. This is the entirety of his job. Yet Richard Cohen has a wondrous talent possessed by few in his rarefied sphere: he can write an entire opinion column with zero actual opinion.

Jonah Goldberg Is a Bitch, and Other Observations on Armchair Threats

Hamilton Nolan · 05/11/12 09:12AM

Yesterday, former Gawkerer and current Salon writer Alex Pareene wrote a completely accurate and well-deserved knife-twisting takedown of Jonah Goldberg, the National Review's most youthful self-impressed hack. If you are unsure as to whether or not Jonah Goldberg is a hack, I encourage you to read Pareene's piece in full. Besides being a hack, we'd like to point out that Jonah Goldberg is also the most sniveling sort of armchair warrior bitch.

The Path of Thomas Friedman Is Beset on All Sides by the Inequities of the Selfish

Hamilton Nolan · 04/18/12 09:53AM

Hirsute-lipped Sesame Street character Thomas Friedman, America's most respected newspaper columnist, does not "have it easy," just because he lives in a sprawling mansion and holds a job that consists of rewriting the same exact column over and over again every week, merely substituting different—but equally trivial—anecdotes gleaned while looking out of the window of a car, train, or airplane in which Thomas Friedman rode on his way to meet some business person.