Low-tech journalism

The Times is getting credit from Defamer and elsewhere for today's story on Scarlett Johansson’s 911 call, placed after she had a fender-bender near Disneyland perhaps trying to elude paparazzi. That's cool, but here's the rest of the story. The Times got the tape from the CHP but couldn't find a working player in the Orange County newsroom. A reporter took it out to his car and slapped it in the cassette player, and still couldn't hear anything. After while, two reporters hunkered down in another car, listened to the tape and copied down the "transcript" by hand. The story, by the way, makes the point that Johansson remained calm during the call. She looks mildly agitated in the pics, but if anyone should have been crazed it was the operator. He should have chewed her out for bothering 911 about a minor road scrape where no one got hurt. There's a reason they call it the emergency line.