Our resident freelancing troublemaker, Evan Gahr, whose website is aptly-named Washingtongadfly.com, is up to no good again. And by no good, I mean he’s hilariously harassing bigwig journalists around town like WaPo Executive Editor Marty Baron.
Gahr, among the few journalists in Washington who actually picks up a telephone and makes a call, tends to get irked that Baron won’t chat with him. Instead, Baron typically gets rid of him tells Gahr to “send an email.”
Just to jog your memory, Gahr recently played quite the prank on WaPo‘s Erik Wemple, the editor who ran the Allbritton-owned TBD into the ground. He mailed Wemple a copy of a blog post, asking if he’d sign them. Because who doesn’t want a priceless autographed copy of an Erik Wemple blog post on your living room wall? Wemple took his sweet time because he had to check with someone (he says, his wife) to see if it was okay to autograph the post that was to be directed to David DeJesus, a WaPo sales employee who sued the newspaper. Permission granted, Wemple sent the signed post back to Gahr, who went by the name Bertram Braunstein (no alarm bells with that name, right?). Gahr had already phoned Wemple a number of times and Wemple had hung up on him. Wemple fell for it, really believing that someone wanted an autographed copy of his work.
Today Gahr strikes again. This time, in a Chicken Soup for the Soul-type confessional he shared EXCLUSIVELY with The Mirror. The lawsuit he’s referring to is one in which DeJesus,the sales employee, sued WaPo for age discrimination.
In Gahr’s own words:
Context: I asked Marty Baron why he would not cover the lawsuit and his response was “I don’t know what you’re talking about”–most likely a lie. Then he said I don’t know who you are, send me an email.
The other month my mother caught me off guard and asked me about something in my life that I didn’t think she knew about and didn’t want her to know about.
I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ugh. I was so disgusted with myself that I told her six hours later I knew what she was referring to and we discussed it.
Almost every time I call someone about wrongdoing I’ve uncovered they say “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” At first I believe them. I think “he didn’t understand what I just said? Was I mumbling? Do I talk with a stutter and not realize it?” Then I realize they are lying and re-state the question. After which they hang up on me.
The only way this could have been any worse would be if I told my mother “I don’t know who you are. Send me an email.”