Golden Half Globes

As a Washington Post subscriber way out in the hinterland sticks of Howard County, I'm used to not having sports scores for any game that ends after the sun sets. So I was very surprised to see a Style Section feature about the Golden Globes by top entertainment writer Hank Stuever (whom I occasionally love to hate).

Fizz is gone at the Globes
By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 18, 2010

If you click on the link, the 'Fizz' headline is not the version used for the SEO-friendly online version of the article. But more than just the headline was changed. As I read the article at the breakfast table, I noticed that it mentioned some of the winners but not all of them. So I went to the online version and a few paragraphs in it was an entirely different article. You could almost stopwatch when the article had to go to press. Note the differences:

Dead Trees Edition

Online Article

If not packed with zingers, the evening did come through with a few nice moments in the acceptance speeches. For movies and movie stars, some top awards went to James Cameron (for directing "Avatar" - he gave some of his speech in the alien Na'vi language). Mo'Nique (for her role as an abusive mother in "Precious"), Meryl Steep (for playing Julia Child in "Julie and Julia") and "Up" (for best animated feature).

If not packed with zingers, the evening did come through with a few nice moments in the acceptance speeches. There was a humbled and grizzled Jeff Bridges on a comeback high with a best actor award (in dramatic film) for "Crazy Heart." ("You're really screwing up my underappreciated status," Bridges told the audience during a long, sweet ovation, and then thanked his wife of 33 years, Susan.) There was a heartfelt Meryl Streep holding her seventh Golden Globe (for "Julie & Julia") and reconciling her "happy movie self" with a world in trouble. And there was the inspiring gratitude of Mo'Nique.

The internet edition also had an entirely new section refuting the thesis of the article that the ceremony is devoid of interesting speeches.

Robert Downey Jr. saved the Globes broadcast late in the game, accepting the award for best actor in a musical or comedy film for the lead in "Sherlock Holmes" and turning the idea of an acceptance speech on its head:

"I don't have anybody to thank, I'm sorry it's all so gratuitous," Downey said. "They needed me. 'Avatar' was going to take us to the cleaners." He then went on to comically "not thank" the studio, producers and managers (who have "only restarted my career 12 times since I began") and his wife ("because I could be busing tables at the Daily Grill right now.")

So the subscriber that pays good money to have a baggie tossed on his lawn gets the version of the Golden Globes that ended at 10:15 whereas the online reader gets the benefit of a writer that actually saw the whole show.

Explain to me again why I need to write that check for home delivery every month.