by kleinbl00

This link:

Reminded me that this article made me cancel my subscription to the New York Times. Had I been looking more closely I would have realized that it was the New York Times Style section which has never not sucked. There are certain aspects of New York City that I loathe with the undying fire of a thousand suns and the New Yorker, the New York Times Style section and the WSJ Magazine emblemize them all. Nonetheless in searching I rediscovered this article, which is less awful (but which wasn't emailed to me three straight times by the New York Times) and linked to this awesome piece of New York Times Style section pwnage.

Thomas Frank of The Baffler, a magazine that bills itself as “The Journal That Blunts the Cutting Edge,” was incredulous. He was the first reporter to track down Jasper after the publication of Marin’s story. Right away he asked about the fake glossary. Here’s how Jasper remembered the conversation unfolding:

Frank: “There’s no way this is real, right?”

Jasper: “Of course it’s not real.”

Frank: “Are you on record saying that?”

Jasper: “Well, of course I am.”

Frank’s myth-busting, Times-publisher-tweaking article “Harsh Realm, Mr. Sulzberger!” ran in early 1993. “The Times went looking for some colorful argot from the Seattle rock scene,” wrote Frank, now an author and political commentator who through a publicist declined an interview, “and Ms. Jasper was only too happy to oblige them with some of the most inspired fake slang outside of Monty Python.”

After an item in the New Republic cited Frank’s story in The Baffler as proof that the lexicon was fake, The Times finally snapped to attention. According to a story by Jim Windolf in the New York Observer, Marin and Styles editor Penelope Green called Jasper, who said that she’d never spoken to The Baffler and that the words she gave Marin were real slang. (Jasper later explained to Windolf that she lied to the Times again only because Marin told her that if her glossary were made up, Green might lose her job.) Green then rang the small magazine to determine whether it was the hoaxer. In response, The Baffler faxed over a letter in which it stood by its reporting. The note read, in part, “When The Newspaper of Record goes searching for the Next Big Thing and the Next Big Thing piddles on its leg, we think that’s funny.”