City Pages Takes a Pounding Over Meth Joke
By AAN Staff
april 27, 2006 12:42 pm
When the Minneapolis alt-weekly selected crystal meth as the "Best Cheap Thrill" in its
annual "Best of the Twin Cities" issue, the usual suspects lined up to express their outrage, including talk-radio hosts, local TV reporters,
health officials,
politicians, and irate readers. Editor Steve Perry's first instinct was to stand by the blurb, explaining in an
editor's note that it was a joke that was intended to make the point "that it's possible to make entirely too much of the drug hype of the hour--unless you're in radio or television, of course." But after being pounded for twelve hours, Perry issued
an apology, saying that he was chastened by "a lot of comments and e-mails ... from readers who've seen the lives of loved ones wrecked or ended by meth."