Seth Stevenson

Since Jan 20, Sean Spicer’s press briefings have become must-see TV for 4.3 million Americans, many of whom tune in desperately hoping for the thrill of a confrontational moment. All the liberals I know are now press critics, screaming into their laptops, suggesting cleverly phrased questions the reporters should be asking instead of the apparently toothless ones they’re asking instead. My boss thinks the press should take off the gloves and attack! My colleagues want to ban multipart questions! And my friends seem to know exactly how they’d break Spicer, if only they could get inside the room. Well, I got inside the room. I spent several weeks attending White House press briefings at the start of the new administration, camping out in the back, jammed against the wall, at one point with a Daily Mail reporter sitting on my feet. I wondered: Are we doing these all wrong?

[Commentary] A great deal of the bafflement over Amazon’s purchase of Twitch comes from people who, like me, are too old to understand gaming on a deep-down, emotional level.

It’s a gaping generational chasm: For the younger cohort that populates Twitch, there’s nothing weird at all about passing an evening watching, learning, and chatting about the pastime they adore.