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Sex Steals: NY Press Sex Columnist Ousted After Debut
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 24, 2008
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 24, 2008
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Today the alternative weekly New York Press announced the resignation of their new sex columnist, Claudia Lonow, after her debut column – and the cover story, no less – was found to have used some questions from old Dan Savage advice columns. The answers were her own, but, as Jezebel discovered, not questions like the one seeking advice about [paraphrasing] ‘what to do when you walk in on your girlfriend canoodling with her noticeably erect brother?’
See how we just paraphrased the actual question? Lonow really couldn’t be bothered, and basically pasted the question sent to Savage into her column, keeping the exact scenario with minor edits. As former Press dating columnist Judy McGuire observed, it’s probably not the best approach to steal from the nation’s most widely syndicated sex advice columnist.
In announcing the resignation, NY Press Editor in Chief David Blum identifies Lonow – who appeared on Knots Landing as a teen – as “a television writer based in Los Angeles who had not previously written for a newspaper… [and] was unaware that using questions from Savage's column was a breach of journalism ethics.” If Lonow was that desperate for sex questions, would it have been so difficult to just make up her own? And lost in all this is the more important question: what should the poor guy with the incestuous girlfriend should do?
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ny press
resigned
sex advice
sex columnist
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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