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I basically agree with it, although I think we’re well past the point of crisis and that newspapers have given up on even trying to be funny (Maureen Dowd winning the Pulitzer was the flag of surrender). Even when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s it seemed we had a dearth of newspaper humor. I remember enjoying James Lileks, who was syndicated in my local paper, and of course Dave Barry during his prime, but the funniest stuff was in the comics pages–Doonesbury, Calvin & Hobbes, and my favorite, the inestimably great Bloom County, which was probably more topical than you remember (the series about Reagan’s Star Wars initiative and the giant laser space frisbees is a classic). Now, reading newspapers is, to borrow a phrase, like watching old people eat. That goes double for Richard Roeper’s column, which reads like that color you get when you mix all the paints together.
Newspapers also tend to promote columnists, who have the most consistent opportunities to be funny, from the news-reporting ranks, and reporters aren’t supposed to be funny. Since humor is a craft, and a difficult one, I suspect that reporters fall out of practice over the years.
Achewood. Achewood is the best thing. I know that may be obvious at this point but it bears repeating. Achewood is another thing you have to read for awhile before it clicks.
Alicublog. Even when it’s shooting fish in a barrel the prose is so wonderful that it’s worth it. “Follow that paragraph around the block and you’ll see that it’s trying to shake you.” “You could try to explain that these cows are very small, while those cows are far away.” I started watching Father Ted because of that post.
