I'm breathless.
From Washintonian.com's Capital Comment blog: Details are sketchy, but numerous witnesses report that veteran feature editor Henry Allen punched out feature writer Manuel Roig-Franzia on Friday....
According to many sources, the incident began when Style editor Ned Martel assigned a semi-political story to Monica Hesse and Roig-Franzia. Playing off of an inadvertent disclosure last week that many congressmen are being investigated for ethics violations, Martel asked the two Style writers to compile a list of similar disclosures in the past. They came up with a “charticle” with a dozen examples, starting with Robert E. Lee’s Civil War battle plans for Antietam showing up wrapped around cigars.
Allen (you might recognize his name from Gangrey's Thank God It's Henry Allen Friday series) allegedly pointed out some mistakes. And he flipped, they say.
Allen, according to sources, said: “This is total crap. It’s the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years.”
Makes you wonder: what's the first?
Anyways, Roig-Franzia wanders in, tells Allen (a VietVet and pulitzer winner, btw) not to be such a "cocksucker" and the old man comes undone. They had to pull him off.
Continuing, Veteran Style writers said they knew Allen wasn’t happy. He had come up in Style’s heady days, when writers could wax for a hundred inches on the wonder of plastic lawn furniture or the true meaning of the Vietnam War Memorial. No more. Working part time on contract, Allen seethed over the lost art of long-form journalism.
After the brawl, Brauchli called Allen into his office and closed the door. Allen’s contract is up later this month.
Few Style writers expect to see him again.
When they do, let's hope it's in bronze.
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