Oh apologies.

I would say WaPo seems to be acting like an irresponsible youth, but it's too old. Can I say maybe it's having a senior moment...or would I have to apologize over a beer?

Two of the Washington Post's journalists are apologizing today (following publisher Weymouth's snafu last month) for a crack which was effectively about serving our Lady Secretary a drink called "Mad B---- Beer."

And now they're in trou-ble, I relate in a singsong, as executive editor Marcus Baruchli cancels the entire Mouthpiece Theater series, a comedic - well, a comedic mouthpiece, hosted on the WaPo site and described as "Political commentary from two of the biggest maws in Washington."

To visit the "who does it hurt" bar, apparently it hurts women in action in the media. Or so one would conclude from the letter sent by the organization Women, Action, and the Media, which called the joke "sexist" and "tasteless."

What is the interplay between ethics and comedy? Comedians are the negotiators of the entertainment world, expected to push past the limit - and yet there is hell to pay when they push too far. (This problematizes the issue of a "limit," but that's the subject for another line of philosophical inquiry altogether. Or a calc class.) Or should this instead be considered an issue of the relationship between journalists - especially when venerable news organizations are their, er, mouthpieces - and comedy?

I am going to venture into dangerous territory, the territory called Speculation (you know, where all your oxen die on the Oregon Trail) and say that I think WAM (what an acronym! Wait, do I need to apologize for that?) would call the crack against H. Clinton sexist and tasteless whether it involved a mouthpiece, codpiece, any other kind of piece (especially given the implied links to prostitution and gun violence) or the lack of any piece at all.

And I would be inclined to agree. First of all, there's just so much more to make fun of when it comes to Clinton and beer. Am I the only one who remembers Clinton's shot-of-whiskey-with-a-beer-chaser photo op (warning: link is actually a video) while on spring 2008's campaign trail? Or that Obama responded, "Around election time, the candidates, they just can't do enough. They'll promise you anything, they’ll give you a long list of proposals. They'll even come around with TV crews in tow and throw back a shot and a beer."

But secondly, and more seriously, while I don't curl up with a political correctness blankie at night, nor do I think serious media organizations can or should ignore social movements still working to correct centuries-or-millenia-old inequalities. A responsible media recognizes that it's not just about the political backlash, but the social backsliding possible and implicit in jokes about gender, sexual orientation, and race.

Though I must admit it's a tough line to draw. After all, I did briefly consider how AA must have felt. Our president issues a public invitation to drink beer? What's next, swatting flies?

"The media needs to find its place in the new-media world. It will be needed. There were already concerns that the Iranian government was sending out disinformation on Twitter in Iran. Just as Twitter becomes an effective medium, it will surely be co-opted by evildoers and hucksters who can take advantage of its lack of filtering. There will be a need to curate the growing tsunami of information." -Larry Kramer

Whose motto is "Nothing sacred but the truth?" I read a reference to that the other day. Perhaps the truth is sacred, but like many sacred things, it wears many faces and is invariably interpreted on a thoroughly subjective basis.

And we can't say "Nothing but the facts," because the facts are out there. People don't read lists of data, and are often incapable of doing so due to time constraints or lack of ability to understand the format. What people need is collation, analysis, and fact-checking, compiled into readable narrative.

We need people who will do that, and we need a way to pay them. Is there a viable subscription model? I have a hunch that the subscription model that works will be related to a form of technology that has not yet caught on, either hardware or software based. It's not just that people won't pay for content (although there's truth to that); it's that they can't do it easily.

People are afraid of their financial information being stolen, or of being charged multiple times for the same service if they forget to cancel or if a mistake is made. They don't want to bother pulling out the credit card when they're comfy in their desk chairs, and typing in 16 digits plus expiration date. They don't want to deposit money in a special debit account; what if they need that money for something else?

We need a way for people to pay for content directly and securely from their credit and debit accounts. Micropayment needs to be a part of the model. We also need tiers of pay models that don't require consumers to pay five, ten, fifteen, fifty different sources for information. I don't want to give up surfing from NYTimes to WaPo. Aggregate services won't necessarily be the end result of this information transformation, but I do believe they will play a major role in the next wave.