Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

I've always had a healthy disrespect for tabloids. In fact, throughout my college years, when I was ensconced in my studies of media and journalism, I considered the term "tabloid journalism" an oxymoron. Boy, is my face red. But, not so red as is the Gray Lady's, I should think. She's now playing catch up on news her editors did not think "fit to print."

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post. A copy of this was mailed as a letter to the editor Thursday morning.

My parents always subscribed to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, so I grew up around newspapers; they were as regular a part of our household as our cats. As a kid I'd look at the Sunday comics, and later on the 1980 Browns would prompt me to grab the newspaper every day. I first started reading "real" news in 1984, when the front page of the second section had a columnist slot called "Focal Point". Mike Royko was featured three times a week, and when that year's Olympics rolled around he touched off a huge controversy with a series of columns about how he and his buddies decided which of the women's teams to cheer for based on which ones had the nicest butts. (Memorable headline from a column he wrote at the conclusion: "The Bottom Line") When his column moved inside to the Op-Ed pages I moved with him. So yes, I first started going to the most high-minded section of the paper when my teen eyes were lured there by T&A.