Chip Rowe on the Playboy Blog:

Two quick points: (1) I didn’t tell her to make her letter “gushing.” In fact, she wrote a smart response and we were glad to have it. I try to include a variety of views in the letters pages because I know from experience that people who agree with something are less likely to write–and this is born out by the fact we have since gotten letters from K.O. lovers who can’t believe all the K.O. haters who wrote. (2) Anyone who actually reads Playboy–rather than just posting snide comments about it (that “for the articles” joke is so clever! More, please)–can’t be too surprised. We have invited experts who might not otherwise see the magazine to comment, in whatever way they see fit, in our letters pages since the 1960s. It makes for a more spirited debate.

There you have it.

Boy, these past two days have made me weary. I mentioned to Stef that it might fall under “Be careful what you wish for,” but she thought “OH GOD WTF NO SRSLY EVERYONE, WTF” suited the situation better. I think she’s right.

Well that was fun, wasn’t it? I’m not exactly sure what the point of it all was except, of course, to once again paint Our Mr. Olbermann with the brush of negativity. As I mentioned earlier, it also accomplished some nice things for our little blog here including some attention from big media blogs and a fourfold increase in site traffic for the day. And it was certainly more pleasant all the way around than the last time his name was linked to a blogger!

If you’re scoring at home, here’s where we appeared: Jossip, TVNewser (who put up my reaction), Gawker, Inside Cable News, The Huffington Post (who merely reproduced the blog post, but under a lurid headline), Chickaboomer (who think I’m Miss Katy), and the pièce de résistance, this morning’s Page Six!

(Oh, and we were Stumble Uponed, too!)

Thank you all who stopped, commented, and said kind things about my letter. I hope some of you will stick around.

Now let’s get back to the business of blogging, shall we? Our new recapper, Arrow, does her first of hopefully many Tuesday night gigs tonight. For you late-nighters and West Coasters, Gilbert is on for the post-debate, Michigan primary political coverage. And with any luck, I’ll have the time and energy to actually do some tumblelogging today!

ETA: And Huffington Post readers and Stumblers! This has been an interesting afternoon!

ETA2: And readers of Gawker and Inside Cable News…

Welcome to our humble fan blog. For those of you too lazy to read the comments on the Playboy post: When I inquired about disclosing my dealings with Mr. Rowe he replied, “You are welcome to mention that you were asked to respond, sure. I enjoyed reading the blog and was interested in your take on the Interview.” I doubt if this was a lynching offense he’d be so cavalier about it.

As for where the aforementioned blogs picked up on this relatively obscure little fan site, I assure you their editors aren’t regular readers of Either Relevant or True. If you compare their pieces to what’s published on OlbermannWatch (no link, look it up yourself) you’ll find amazing similarities. So much for TVN’s emailer being “anonymous.”

My own anonymity is a non-issue. This is not my job, this is my hobby. I don’t need a small handful of anti-Olbermann jihadists making my life hell. (And sorry, no, I am not Katy Tur. I’ve been doing this blog since she was still in diapers college.)

I’m sure you all remember the Playboy interview back in September. Shortly after the release of the magazine (and after a couple of discussions of it here on ERT) I was contacted by Playboy editor Chip Rowe via the site’s contact form.

He said that they were getting overwhelmingly negative response on the interview* - mostly for the Fox Noise remarks, though some were just general anti-KO sentiment - and that he’d like to balance that with something positive from someone with my “expertise.” (No, really, that’s the word he used. I quickly denied being an expert on a man I’d never met.) After exchanging several emails, I wrote up a couple of hundred words for him to use on the “Letters to Playboy” page. The letter appears in the January issue, along with this blog’s address.

A page scan of my inconveniently separated letter and the text thereof after the jump!

*I’ve made a game of counting the factual and logical errors in the other letters!

(more…)