John Kessler No Longer Allowed To Eat Food
Decatur Metro | April 15, 2009
Thoughtfully opinionated journalists and bloggers everywhere continue to scowl and salivate over their keyboards with news from the “fallout” of what’s become known among journalistic inner circles as “The AJC’s List of the Damned 74.”
The list was leaked earlier this week by a recent journalist turned blogger, and since then everyone who thinks they have a voice online is pissed about something. Art critics gone. Beat reporters reassigned to cover baby panda chewing. Caged monkeys forced to write fake classified ads to fill space and save face. Talk of moving the AJC back to its old abandoned location/eye sore, which once every couple years spontaneously bursts into flames.
And now this morning, the shocking news no one ever even dreamed of getting the opportunity to post/tweet outrage about:
The AJC has instructed food writer John Kessler to stop eating.
In a suspicious “leaked” note, the AJC writes “To Whom It May Concern, Food Writer John Kessler is no longer allowed to consume food or drink. If you see Kessler eating ANYTHING or he asks you for food, please call the AJC’s “John Kessler is Eating Again” Hotline at 1-866-THIN-JOHN. He knows what he did. Sincerely, The AJC”
Already the sphere of blogs and tweets are puking up posts about the move, calling it “remarkably stupid” and “gut-kicking“. “Doesn’t the AJC realize that humans need to eat to live?!” wrote one angry, yet still curiously alt & hip writer from Creative Loafing. “If Kessler doesn’t eat, he will most likely die!”
Faced with these accusations, the AJC responded with the same five words that ended their first letter, “He knows what he did.”
As for Kessler himself, no one has seen or heard from him since word got out yesterday. There were reports he was seen trolling Broad Street during lunch time Tuesday, but was chased off by a flock of angry, one-eyed pigeons. Others say he’s appealing to Facebook friends to send him flat foods like pita bread and Fruit Roll-Ups via his mandated, daily hardcopy of the AJC.
Only time will tell whether Kessler can survive this forced fast. But don’t fret gentle readers. You can be sure that both citizen and qualified opinionators alike will keep you abreast of Kessler’s future movements and impending weight-loss. Even the AJC is getting into the act. The paper has promised a new reoccuring front page feature, directly below the maddeningly cute 4-word front-page weather forcast called:
“Food No More with John Kessler”
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OK, I’ve had my fun for the morning.
But seriously, the AJC has taken Kessler off of food writing and moved him to “Sunday personality profiles.” How Kessler feels about the move is still unknown, beyond the “Yowza” he reportedly wrote on his Facebook page. (Seriously, I’m not making that up)
In my opinion, Kessler is one of the paper’s best writers, and THE best blog writer they have. He gets the medium better than most at Marietta St. Hopefully this new gig will open new creative doors for him and bring his witty, smart writing to an even larger audience. Best to ya John.
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Dang. For a second I thought the Blur was back.
I’ve lost any lingering shred of respect I had for the AJC. They’re proving that they have no idea what the hell they’re doing, unless perhaps it’s trying to make us all feel not so bad about the paper’s inevitable failure. If that’s the case, they’re doing a bang up job.
What is going to be left at the AJC? They should just call it “The UGA Football News Bulletin”.
If you’re in the mood to take the AJC to the mat… check out this entry by Certain Speculation (a “recovering broadcast and print journalist”).
h/t: GriftDrift
Are there any daily newspapers making a profit in this country anymore?
Jack Schafer at Slate.com recently wrote about the financial problems facing newspapers. He quoted a recent article in AdAge.com, which made the point that the problem with most newspaper has to do with parent company, not the paper itself. The parent companies (and stop me if you have heard this before) were able to obtain ridiculous loans (using the newspapers as collateral) to purchase assets that have tanked in value as the economy began to go south. The parent companies are now unable to service the debt on the loans and unable to unload the declining assets. This has forced them to try and cut costs to the bone in a desparate effort to service their debt.
As Schafer writes:
The financial pressures on the Times Co., McClatchy, and other overbuyers [parent companies] are gruesome, but as Nat Ives argues in a recent AdAge.com piece (paid content), the owners who overburdened themselves with debt are more vulnerable than the medium itself. “[T]here’s no reason for newspapers themselves, whoever owns them, to stop the presses. Most operations are plenty profitable,” Ives writes. In other words, most struggling newspapers will survive at lower but handsome profit margins after these sick corporations get their financial acts together or (more probably) are forced to surrender their titles.
Me want food. Thanks a lot for the nice words and the laugh. I’m actually looking forward to the new gig but just trying to figure out what to do with that hand that was perpetually clutching a fork. Hey…
Update: http://bit.ly/3Oy9zz
Oh my God, oh my God…a follow up! OK, hold on…just let me find my snark pen…
Obviously, my insanity takes many forms.
They’re going to start hiring their deeply disturbed commenters to write the stories.
And here’s a link to Shafer’s column:
http://www.slate.com/id/2216028/
My suggestion would be to use it to clutch someone by the throat, but that might lead to a whole different sort of column…
Cheers John! The whole post was spawned from trying to think of a slightly more amusing title than the ones already out there. Then it just wrote itself. Not sure if that’s a good thing.
Again, best of luck! And remember, nothing lends itself to “Sunday personality profiles” than Decatur!!
Oh lump…that’s your suggestion for everything.
John – I love your columns & your blog. Will you continue writing your “food and more” blog?
Your profile of Sipo at Pambili was terrific, so I look forward to more. Maybe you could limit your profiles to folks who eat.