Shortest Book Ever Written

The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Out on a Limb
“Smartphones Are Taking Over People’s Lives as Users ‘Obsessively’ Check Their Devices, Scientists Warn”–headline, Daily Mail (London), July 26

Because They All Look Alike
“Facebook Facial Recognition Feature Won’t Be Available to Canadians”–headline, Globe and Mail (Toronto), July 27

Shortest Book Ever Written
“Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Monkfish (but Were Afraid to Ask)”–headline, Asbury Park (N.J.), Press, July 25

All the Juche That’s Fit to Print
In a new twist on “accountability journalism,” the Associated Press features a slide show of North Korea. The photos are attractive and well composed, but they paint a false picture of the communist hellhole as a pleasant, modern land. In the accompanying text, reporter Jean Lee explains their background:

Since becoming the Seoul bureau chief for The Associated Press in 2008, I have made five eye-opening visits to North Korea. The chief Asia photographer, David Guttenfelder, has traveled to the country numerous times over the past 12 years.

This year, David and I have been granted unprecedented access. We traveled into the countryside, accompanied by North Korean journalists, not government minders.

So the AP thinks there’s a difference between North Korean “journalists” and government minders? Lee, who is American, might have revealed more than she intended about her employer’s attitude toward the government in the Obama era.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below ”Today’s Columnists.

(NOTE:  James Taranto is on vacation.  The excerpt above is from the 7/27/11 BOTW Archives.)