"Every high school has its nerdy soft kid who brings his cello to class, and that would have been me," the L.A. Weekly food critic tells This American Life's Ira Glass. He talks about one particular bully who picked on him quite a bit: "In my most notable instance, I was walking down the hall to history class, and he hip-checked me ... I went sailing down the stairs with my cello," Gold says. "He was laughing about it with his friends. I suspect he forgot about it five minutes later. I didn't." Years later, Gold says he felt vindicated when that same bully -- Jack Abramoff -- became a criminal felon, his corruption case splashed on front pages across the country. "It's just beautiful; it's more than I could have wished for," he says. "Who wouldn't feel satisfied that he was getting his comeuppance?" An Abramoff spokesman denies the incident: "Mr. Abramhoff does not know Mr. Gold and he has no idea why Mr. Gold would fabricate such a story."

Continue ReadingJonathan Gold: Pulitzer-Winner … and High-School Bully Victim

"In the next six months, the Dig will look a lot different, and sound a lot different," Jeff Lawrence tells Boston magazine in the second of a two-part interview (the first part is here). Last week, after the Dig and editor Michael Brodeur parted ways, managing editor Shaula Clark and staff writer Julia Reischel both gave the paper notice. For now, Lawrence will take over as editor of the paper, but says he has no plans for making that a permanent position. He's also aware of the implications of such a move. "This publication is not going to turn into some advertorial piece of shit," Lawrence says. "Quite the contrary."

Continue ReadingWeekly Dig Publisher on What Follows Editorial Shake-Up

"Steroids Confidential," penned by newbie Weekly writers Nic Foit and Ira Tes (anagrams of "fiction" and "satire"), promises to tell the "deepest secrets of the trainer behind baseball's new home run king," and it certainly delivers. Among the story's anecdotes: In 2002, Bonds "injected human growth hormone directly into his genitals;" in 2003, he "suddenly began lactating, forcing doctors to excise his mammary glands;" and he "now supplements his diet with 'Barry's brew,' a homemade high-energy drink made of elk semen." SFist sniffed out the fake story last week: "The anecdote about Bonds lactating from his steroid-enhanced breasts in the dugout is where we were like, 'heeeeey, wait a minute!'" But famed blogger Josh Wolf didn't take the Weekly's joke so lightly. "Satire is an integral part of the press, but it is of critical importance that readers are able to recognize where the 'real news' ends and the fiction begins," Wolf writes at CNET. "While 'Steroids Confidential' starts out in left-field and expands into the absurd, there's no 'gotcha' to reveal to the reader that it's all just a ruse."

Continue ReadingSF Weekly’s Fake Story on Barry Bonds Causes a Stir