Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

We should have commented on this yesterday: recalling how Terry Teachout got agitated by some mendacious TWXSTER flack it seems Richard "Can't Anyone Here Play This Game?" Stengel does said flack one better -- LOTS better:

September 14, 2006

To: Time Inc. Employees

From: Richard Stengel

Re: Staff Announcement

TIME.com has experienced a renaissance under the editorial leadership of Steve Koepp. Within the last year, the site has doubled its unique users and increased the time spent per user by more than 50%. TIME.com has launched blogs (with more on the way), harnessed the fine work of TIME's correspondents, created a powerful partnership with CNN.com, and is rapidly evolving into a 24/7 news organization. Now that we are changing our publication date and rethinking how we put out the magazine, I have asked Steve to come back to the magazine to help think through those changes. During Steve's tenure at TIME, he has excelled in all the important roles he has undertaken, and few know the DNA of TIME better than he does. We will also take advantage of his great experience and sharp insight by having him oversee our most important franchise, "Person of the Year," and some of our other annuities.

I am delighted to announce that Josh Tyrangiel will be taking over as the new editor of TIME.com and will become an assistant managing editor at TIME. Josh will be charged with taking TIME.com to still greater heights, further integrating it with the magazine, and making it a must-visit daily news site for our unique blend of breaking news and fresh analysis. In addition to writing and editing national and international cover stories, Josh has been TIME's music critic for the past five years and has proven himself a high-energy journalist who brings tremendous intelligence to his coverage of the arts and culture. Before coming to TIME, Josh worked at Vibe and Rolling Stone magazines, produced the news at MTV and received a master’s degree in American Studies from Yale University.

Please join me in congratulating both of these talented editors on their important new assignments.

R. S.

We understand why Casey's namesake (we suspect Casey did a lot better job running a baseball team than his namesake does running a newsrag) might refer to pieces of dog leavings like "The PEOPLE NEWSRAG 100" as annuities -- the better to shake the readers down by the ankles. Alas, the news that this rag might cut its circ by a quarter makes one wonder if a fly-by-night insurance salesman sold them something. As for ER, he has already shown himself a FIRST-RATE ASS -- ER, SALESMAN himself. I guess this means while writing still more cover ads ER is going to turn PEOPLE NEWSRAG's Web site into a Stale.com imitation (though he could hardly touch MR. MELLERDRAMMER, already one of the Web's greatest self-parodies).

Good luck guys! Ha ha ha!

OR:

The new kind of spin that enrages me is a different proposition altogether. It’s not unconscious: it’s wholly knowing, a deliberate attempt to use speech not for the purposes of communication but for the purposes of manipulation, to corrupt the whole process of human interaction by making no statement that is not agenda-driven. It’s as if our culture had been taken over by lawyers—which, of course, it has. For modern spin is not so much pol-speak as lawyer-speak, with a dollop of Madison Avenue stirred in for bad measure. It’s half Safety First (never admit anything, however insignificant, that could possibly be used against you in court) and half salesmanship (never pass up a chance, however gratuitous, to plug the product). When I hear official spokesmen emitting phrases like the ones I quoted above, I feel not as if I were watching a marionette, but as if they were trying to make me a marionette.