Via Notions Capital, a weeks-old Politico story we missed contains a tidbit about a funny exchange said to have taken place between perennial fringe presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader and the Washington Post editorial board.Nader recounted a recent meeting with editors at The Washington Post, who he said told him the paper wasn’t covering his campaign because he had no chance of winning. According to Nader, he replied: “Then why are you covering......

Yesterday Creative Loafing, the owner of the Washington City Paper, announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In a post on City Desk, City Paper editor Erik Wemple quoted Loaf CEO Ben Eason playing the filing off as not as bad as it sounds, since bankruptcy will give the company the breathing room it needs to finish a structural reorganization directed toward the internet. TambaBay.com's The Feed blog dug into the Loaf's financials,......

Early last week Fishbowl DC had more about the coming changes to the Washington City Paper we first reported at the end of August. Now the Georgetown Voice has the full story in its latest edition, which confirms that the alt weekly is undergoing a massive transition away from long-form features and investigative pieces and toward a larger online presence. Within a few weeks, the paper will cease to run its trademark lengthy cover story,......

We already knew the Capital Weather Gang was our wonderwall, but today they've unveiled a new 'weather wall' feature that makes us heart them even more. Check out the Weather Wall for yourself; it's got a live webcam view of D.C. from Arlington, a radar loop of the mid-Atlantic region, an interactive map with clickable temperatures and wind information, two different satellite loops, and a standard weather map of the United States. For local weather......

The Washington City Paper launched a new "sex & gender" blog on its web site this week, called The Sexist, penned by staffer Amanda Hess. Hess will leave behind her old Show & Tell column to helm the new feature. The blog is just getting rolling, but mercifully it looks nothing at all like the weekly's now defunct, dreadful confessional sex and dating diary, Melanie Boyer's About Last Night. Hess tells us she intends this......

Former GOP presidential candidate and governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee surprised practically all of the country a few months back when he ably and deftly spoofed himself on an episode of Saturday Night Live, proving that he was not only a good sport about his candidacy and didn’t take himself too seriously, but that there were some discernible comedic chops there. Last night at the DC Improv, Huckabee proved his SNL appearance was no fluke,......

D.C.'s primary elections are less than a week away, this coming Tuesday, Sept. 9. By now you should have received your sample primary ballot, and, if you're a registered Democrat, are likely still trying to determine exactly what all those Democratic Party slates are -- stay tuned to DCist for plenty more primary election countdown posts to help you sift through it all in the coming days. The big news on the local primaries front......

Last week we brought you extensive coverage of the D.C. delegation's activities at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Now that the Republican National Convention is underway in St. Paul, can you expect the same kind of reporting? No, but it's not for lack of trying. DCist submitted a request to be credentialed for the RNC several months ago. On July 7, we received a reply from the RNC Special Press Credentials Office with the......

Regular D.C. area Morning Edition listeners will soon have a new local host at WAMU. Bill Redlin, who has hosted the program for WAMU since 1985, announced today on the air (through a scratchy voice that sounded like he has a cold) that he will move to middays, while regular substitute Matt McCleskey will take the reins of the morning slot. According to a release from WAMU, Redlin will also assume a mentorship role for......

WTOP's Mark Plotkin was kind enough to invite DCist's Sommer Mathis to appear on the Politics Program this morning to discuss the D.C. delegation's role at the Democratic National Convention. Washington City Paper's Mike DeBonis is also appearing on the show, and Sommer will join in at 10:30 a.m.......

Word came down today that more staff cuts are coming for Washington City Paper. According to a newsroom insider, Creative Loafing—which acquired the City Paper along with the Chicago Reader alternative weekly in summer 2007, and proceeded to lay off many production and editorial staffers by the end of that year—told City Paper staff that they would need to cut the publication's budget by $170,000. City Paper ran a profit for 2007, apparently, but with......

DCist is participating in a first of its kind credential program at this year's Democratic National Convention. We're serving as the selected blogger representing the District of Columbia in the DNC State Blogger Corps. Here's how The New York Times described the desirability of our credential: For bloggers attending the Democratic convention at the Pepsi Center in Denver, two types of credentials are offered. The first is a national credential, which offers the same access......

We're here in Denver for the Democratic National Convention, which kicks off tomorrow. We were too wiped out to attend last night's big Media Welcome Party at Elitch Gardens (though there's some evidence we may not have gotten in anyway), but we can tell you that the city of Denver set off an impressive fireworks display over the big bash at around 9:30 p.m. Apart from the actual work of adopting a platform and......

A commenter forwarded this story to the DCist tipline, and we also got a press release from ABC News announcing the same program: a "50 States, 50 Days” election coverage project co-produced by ABC News and USA Today. ABC News and USA TODAY will launch an unprecedented news project on Monday, September 15, to report from every state in the nation during the 50 days leading up to the presidential election. ABC News’ anchors and......

Ever been frustrated trying to locate the local news stories on the Examiner web site? OK, maybe that's just us, since it's our job to read them. But if you had ever tried it, you would have discovered that you have to first go to the "News" section, and then make sure to select "Local News" in the drop down menu, as opposed to the tauntingly named "District of Columbia" section, which contained national politics......

David Nakamura caught Slate XX Factor blogger Melinda Henneberger making a lame, nearly inscrutable joke at the expense of D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi. The context, of all things, is the John Edwards affair scandal. Apparently Rielle Hunter made some comment to a reporter once that she thought Edwards has the potential to be a "transformational leader" on par with Martin Luther King and that other Gandhi. So Henneberger drops in a dreadful joke her husband......

Two DCist writers will be on the Kojo Nnamdi Show today at noon, discussing the local restaurant scene on this first day of Restaurant Week. Our new Food and Drink Editor, Jamie Liu, and Assistant Arts Editor Missy Frederick (representing the Washington Business Journal, where she's a reporter) will join Washingtonian Magazine's Food and Wine Editor Todd Kliman. They'll talk about how the current economy is affecting business, as people decide to eat out less,......

The Washington Post has their lengthy report up on the evidence released by the FBI this afternoon against Bruce Ivins, the bioweapons researcher who killed himself last week after he had become the government's main suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Some of the evidence the FBI shared with the public today included that Ivins sent emails with wording that was sometimes identical to the language used in the anthrax-laced letters, that he kept odd,......

Fishbowl DC released its annual Hottest D.C. Media Types list today. Angela Valdez thinks there are an awful lot of white guys in there. It's definitely true, but it's also true that are also an awful lot of white guys who work in media in D.C. and who are vain enough to nominate themselves. We too would like to see more diversity in newsrooms and on silly online hott-or-not contests, but our main concern at......

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/politics/Funny_Sad_Typo_on_Robert_Novak_Retirement_Story_on_NYTimes'; They've already fixed it, but the error above in the Associated Press story about Robert Novak's immediate retirement was live on The New York Times web site for a short time earlier this afternoon. Yikes! The conservative columnist may be widely known as the "Prince of Darkness," but brain tumors are certainly no laughing matter. Except, it turns out, when they lead to mistakes like this. Too soon?......

If it's the end of July, then it's time for The Hill's annual 50 Most Beautiful People issue. If you've lived here for any amount of time, you know the drill: it's when the paper sends out a small army of normally serious minded Capitol Hill reporters to track down crucial information such as whether an intern working for some no-name congressman enjoys horseback riding or not. It's also when we get to spend an......

Not normally the kind of thing we'd choose for Photo of the Day, but Lilliang's capture of aging exercise guru/talk show guest Richard Simmons on Capitol Hill today deserves a post of its own. Simmons was here to testify before Congress about childhood obesity, and to promote legislation that would mandate more recess and physical education in public schools. Good for him. Somewhat more embarrassing is this video of Simmons's visit to the Fox......

WMATA issued a strongly worded response today to an Examiner editorial that the agency said falsely accuses Metro employees of being involved in the farecard scam that resulted in the arrests of six individuals on Friday. Here's what the Examiner editorial board wrote: Metro personnel in the police, technology and financial offices — who are supposed to be monitoring such transactions — may have been involved, since counterfeiting magnetized farecards is a bit more complicated......

Could you please buy Mike DeBonis a little video camera? Nothing fancy, just a small handheld job that will produce web-quality moving images and sound? He's got this really funny partycrashing post up that I'm totally envious of, but I want to see the actual dance moves of D.C. Council members, not just blurry, underexposed stills. Also, is that Vincent Gray wearing white jeans in the background there? That's a pretty bold fashion choice for......

What we love about this one is imagining the police department meeting that led to this sting. Surely it went something like this: "Dude, I am so totally bored. I haven't arrested anyone in like, three days. Who can we arrest?" "Uhh. Well hey, you know who really likes doing drugs? Jam band fans!" "Perfect. This will be easier than busting a high school party for underage drinking. Let's roll."......

On Monday Express re-launched its web site, dubbing it anew as ExpressNightOut, which will focus exclusively on D.C. area arts and events coverage. The old Read Express url now points to the new site. The Express folks also put up a post formally announcing the end of Free Ride, the local news-focused blog that had been dying a slow, painful death since the departure of former DCist editor and Free Ride founder Mike Grass, who......

The new August issue of Outside magazine ranks the "20 Best Towns in America," and this year, Washington, D.C. was given top honors, coming in as #1 on the list. The District was honored for the turnaround neighborhoods like Adams Morgan, Chinatown and U Street have seen in the last decade -- indeed, the list focuses on communities that have seen "revivals," and also includes places like Chattanooga, TN, Ithaca, NY, and Crested Butte, CO.......

You may have read Eric Weiss's story in Sunday's Washington Post, which described the District's attempts to improve pedestrian safety and encourage walking and mass transit use as a "war against workers who drive into the city." There's not much more to say about it that David Alpert and Ryan Avent haven't already said. This sums it up nicely (from Avent):Essentially, Eric Weiss went around the suburbs asking folks to bitch about the District’s efforts......

At the beginning of June, the Washington Times launched a fancy redesign of their web site to incorporate a lot of overdue Web 2.0 features, like 400,000 specialized news feeds by topic (neat) and a bunch of new video and audio features (sure, OK). They also moved their nearly nonexistent local coverage into the A section, which we hoped might mean a new emphasis on local news, but so far that hasn't been the case.......

The Politico's Michael Calderone says that Leonard Downie, Jr. announced today that he is stepping down as executive editor of the Washington Post. The move had largely been expected, as reports that a search for his replacement was already underway had been circulating through town for several weeks. City Desk rightfully calls the announcement hardly news, but points out that the quick timeframe for his departure is something of a bit of a surprise: Downie......