Enter
derachiever,” accurately describes
what Morgan had hoped to convey. Had Morgan astutely decided
to use the actual words “fameseeking underachiever” in conversation with Walker, this story
would not be nearly as newsworthy as it is. This decision to make
Morgan sound more professional
actually lessens the impact of the
story. (The Times does include a
link to Talking Points Memo so its
readers can go and get the actual
story, which is nice.)
Elsewhere, news organizations
were even more pearl-clutchy.
NBC News tells its readers that
Morgan went on “an expletivelaced tirade,” containing “several
disparaging names for the female
anatomy.” They offer up “f------”
at one point, but refrain from using “slutbag” entirely.
The Wall Street Journal describes “a series of harsh expletives,” but only quotes Morgan
as having said: “Man, see if you
ever get a job in this town again.”
The Wall Street Journal says that
this is “one of Ms. Morgan’s more
tame quotations,” but that’s giving it too much credit. The “you’ll
never ___________ in this town
again” is so cliched that it’s more
euthanized than tame.
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
Fox News, for reasons I cannot fathom, decided that the
word “slutbag” was an important
part of the story but nevertheless
felt it needed minor censoring.
It has presented its readers with
“sl**bag” as an alternative.
Lord only knows what Daily Mail
readers were thinking as they read
last night that Morgan used the
word “s*****g” in its copy. What’s
that supposed to be? “Sagging?”
“Salting?” “Sapling?” The Mail
really sandbagged its readers. Hey,
“sandbag” would work as well.
The Mail has since lessened
the confusion by updating this
to “s***bag,” so now their readers might merely think that that
Morgan called Nuzzi a “shitbag,”
which is ironically a more vulgar
choice of expletive.
At any rate, the one unknown
here is whether Morgan meant to
suggest that Nuzzi was a “slut”
of such magnitude that she can
gather and contain objects, much
like a bag, or if she was an anthropomorphic sack, in which sluts
might be conveniently discovered
within. This is a question that
shall probably be left unanswered, if not unasked.
Ryan J. Reilly contributed reporting.
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13