Boehlert dissects The Note

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The first thing you notice about The Note is that it sounds like it's written by high school students. Smart high school students--really smart students, even--but nevertheless teenagers who crack themselves up with their wit, rely on hard-to-decipher references to up their hip insider quotient, and have a penchant for words like "ginormous" and multiple exclamation points. Cutesy, creepy, and relentlessly effusive towards the media elite, The Note confirms the old adage that life really is like high school, with The Note filling the role of cheerleader-meets-yearbook editor, keeping tabs on where the cool kids are eating lunch, what they're wearing, and who's having the big party this weekend. In The Note's eyes, Beltway reporters are wonderfully talented, and everyone deserves a raise (e.g., "Will New York Times management recognize how great [reporter] Anne Kornblut is and act accordingly?")...

...All of this backslapping and cheerleading might just be a particularly cloying incarnation of the Beltway media bubble. But The Note doesn't just comment on the goings-on of politics; it also helps set the coverage. For at least the past year, The Note's judgment of what constitutes a major story and what doesn't has been alarmingly off...