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• Monday, March 6, 2006 10:50 AM

  Mailing It In?

  When this article was first posted, as another commenter has pointed out, it had a dateline of March 3, which was Friday. The date has since been changed to March 6 (today), without a word from Salon. Why was the original date wrong?

  Given how badly the article misses the target and speaks only in obvious generalities, I think we have plenty of reason to suspect a mailed-in-advance job. Notice that the only particular award winner that Ms. Wilson mentions is Reese Witherspoon, who (most will agree) was by far the easiest slam-dunk in any of the major categories. (She mentions “Crash,” but never actually refers to it as the winner for Best Picture.) She also insists that Jon Stewart bombed, but can never point to any of his particular jokes as an example. Which lines bombed, Ms. Wilson?

  The closest she can get to actually talking about the awards is this:

  All in all, good people got good awards ... and that's good, I guess. There were some solidly good movies (although I wouldn't have listed "Crash" among them). Philip Seymour Hoffman is a hugely talented guy, as is Ang Lee and George Clooney and Rachel Weisz and etc.

  These performers all happened to be winners, sure, but they are never specifically mentioned as such. Ms. Wilson (or an editor) easily could have plugged names into this paragraph before the article was posted.

  She also gets some key facts wrong. For example, she writes that “the entertainment industrial complex … disallowed the winning song, ‘It's Hard Out There for a Pimp,’ from using the word ‘bitches’ in the broadcast.” But the article to which she links implies that the decision to censor the lyrics was that of Three 6 Mafia, not the Academy.

  Lastly, it is also somewhat curious how someone so busy doing a podcast would have time to write a complete article and have it posted by 9:00 AM Eastern time the next morning. Ms. Wilson must never sleep.

  Salon owes its readers an explanation. I certainly hope I'm wrong.

  —Neil Serven
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