A couple weeks ago I quipped:
What do Judy Miller and Stefan Sharkansky have in common? They’ve both been booted from their respective papers.
Truth is, I hadn’t bothered to look into the circumstances surrounding Stefan’s departure from The Stranger… my unsupported insinuation was just a little friendly dig, mostly intended to serve as a springboard for linking to the Judy Miller story.
But a couple of “the Shark’s” sycophants expressed displeasure in my comment thread, so in the interest of fairness, I thought I’d point you towards BlatherWatch, where Michael has the inside scoop on the sudden end to Stefan’s strange tenure at The Stranger.
This came to a halt, we’re told by someone inside The Stranger, when Sharkansky attended a pair of press conferences wearing a different hat to each.
…
According to our source, Sharkansky attended the Republicans’ press conference first, where he was hailed as a hero; invited to stand up in front, got the “googly eyes from Kathy Lambert” (not that hard to get, actually, if you’re of the male species) and perhaps even spoke to them. Then shoving his Republican political operative hat back in his pocket, he donned his journalist hat, (made with duct tape and Superglue on PhotoShop, no doubt) and as a Stranger reporter, went to the Elections Department presser, where he presumably asked searing questions ala Mike Wallace.That a reporter would stand as a party operative, and then be a reporter on the same afternoon would embarrass any news organization. Feit was not amused to say the least, according to our source. He decided then and there to kick him off the paper after the election.
So, apparently Stefan was dumped by The Stranger. Lucky guess.
But gee… I sure hope I had something to do with it when I wrote about his fake press conference back on 10/13.
But perhaps the most embarrassing detail for Irons and his GOP comrades is that they seemed unembarrassed to stand there side by side with WA state’s most famous conspiracy theorist, our friend Stefan of (un)Sound Politics, whose tireless efforts to find patterns of fraud in KC’s voter databases borders on numerology, and whose aluminum-hat-analyses have earned him every last drop of incredulity he enjoys. Stefan actually had the temerity to stand before the assembled media throng and claim he was one of them, ignoring the fact that real journalists cover press conferences… they don’t conduct them.
Whatever.
It was bound to end sometime. Stefan was never a very good fit at The Stranger, not so much for his politics, but because he’s such an extraordinarily godawful boring writer. The Stranger’s hip cultural coverage is totally lost on me (I’m hip-challenged), and I occasionally find their political analysis a tad annoying, but Dan Savage has certainly populated the staff with gifted and entertaining writers… and, well… Stefan… not so much.
So am I happy to see Stefan lose his weekly soapbox? Hell yeah. And is it unprofessional of me to rub salt in his wounds this way? Yeah, sure… I suppose. But then, unlike Stefan, I’ve never pretended to be a professional journalist.
UPDATE:
In the comment thread, Dan Savage (or at least, somebody claiming to be Dan Savage… how should I know?) claims that Stefan was not in fact dumped for the “two hats” incident. I suppose Dan (if it is Dan) would know.
Whatever. The Stranger is still better off without him.