File this one under “Adventures in Regret,” apparently. Yesterday we examined the somewhat sordid tale of Ink editor Laurie Mansfield’s rash and disproportionate dig at The Pitch’s Peter Rugg, who wrote a perfectly decent undercover piece about volunteering with the McCain campaign. Well, the story got picked up by Bottomline (who had nice things to say about our verbosity) and by Tony, in addition to our humble writing. This must have been too much for Miss Mansfield, because I just dropped by her corner of Ink and, like an incriminating document crossing the desk of Winston Smith, the blog entry in question is simply gone. Vanished. Her topics go right from Obama’s press conference to the new issue of O — both hard-hitting topics in their own right, of course.
So what gives? Did Miss Mansfield opt for well-advised discretion in this case? Was she increasingly wary of the danger inherent in crticizing another publication’s standards when hers is so obviously knee-deep in gritty, old-school journalism? Either way, we’ll see how this one plays out. But remember, Ink: in an age of instant information and easily captured screenshots, it’s hard to simply make things disappear.
