Not bad, Rosie.

Rosie DiManno. Her new article on Virtue Moir doesn't suck.

pretty good there, Rosie.

Right off the bat describes Carmen as revolutionary, exquisitely beautiful, and technically demanding, but she's not soap-opera-ing it up; she's not padding this one with histrionics and cheesy asides. She only refers to Davis White as Virtue and Moir's perennial rivals. She also says Carmen never got the scores it deserved in international competition.

What I like about this article is it's direct. There's none of the consciousness of "oh, I'm writing for figure skating fans, so better lard this thing with sentimental shit about their personalities or looks." (That's how most writers distance themselves from this sport and its fans, by trivializing everything or making it melodramatic. God forbid they're caught writing like it's a sport. They want us to know the fans only care about personalities.) She hasn't included any asides about fans whatsoever. A little from Virtue and Moir about their Vancouver experience, what's different this time, how they feel about their new free dance, over and out. No back door shit either. Basically, this article comes off almost as if she's writing in her own, newfound figure skating voice, and not just regurgitating skater spin dressed up with her (formerly) signature purple prose. I actually have to give her more credit than that, since Tessa is going on a bit emotively about how starry-eyed a whirlwind Vancouver was, and Scott, I think, mentions how they chafed about at the emphasis on their inexperience, and she lets those remarks stand alone and drives on by. She didn't get sucked in and succumb to writing about them like it was a personality profile.

Rosie, good job.

Who would have thought Rosie-freaking-DiManno would be the Canadian figure skating beat reporter to set the bar? (I don't count Beverly Smith - who is always strong -  because figure skating is her metier, and she's not heard from enough.) Please maintain this self-discipline Rosie, and please please let the reason you were able to produce this piece be that you've bothered to learn a little bit about figure skating. The sport needs all the help it can get, and the fans need a break.

I love how Charlie and Scott can be friends and Meryl and Tessa can't

How does that work?

According to an interview P.J. Kwong IMO pointlessly agreed to grant, "let's face it, Meryl and Tessa aren't going to lunch together." says the interviewer. Because they're COMPETITORS.

IMO it's fine to be interviewed by absolutely anybody - a kid, a blogger, a fan, your mother. Any of it can produce interesting content. However don't ask questions with your high-handed, but wrong assumptions built in, especially not to P.J., who doesn't exactly have the best focus or the most logic. Or let's call the assumptions what they are - low rent dramatic fantasies based on absolutely no actual information except the lowest common denominator stereotypes held by the interviewer. I'm sure the interviewer thinks Charlie and Scott can share a beer, no problem.

At least she confirmed what was already apparent - she never asks questions that aren't approved in advance. I'll take that further - she asks questions at times that the skaters themselves would like to be asked. Such as the time she asked Scott and Tessa what romance means to them.

P.J. also told twitter she'd ask Scott and Tessa more specifically about where they got the idea there was an internet backlash against Carmen from the fandom. She never did. And now we know why.

She has a role and does it well, but that role is publicist. It's not reporter.