Exhibit 17 Why Newspaper are Failing – The New York Times Has a Story on Mitt Romney’s Hair

Interview with Mr. Romney’s Hair Breaks New Ground in Journalism

No one knows who Leon de Magistris is, and it turns out no one needs to know who he is.  But if you insist, it turns out Mr. Magistris is Mitt Romney’s barber.  And it turns out that for the former impeccable source of new that is called the New York Times, Mr. Magistris is news.

Nobody has a more complicated and intimate relationship with Mr. Romney’s hair than the man who has styled it for more than two decades, a barrel-chested, bald Italian immigrant named Leon de Magistris.

See Mr. Romney’s hair has become a campaign issue.  Really, it has, you can’t make stuff like that up and the NYT is certainly not known for it sense of humor or whimsy.  This is a serious story.  Here is the issue

Mr. Romney’s advisers have been known to fret about the shiny strands, and his rivals have sought to turn them against him. Asked by the late-night-television host Jimmy Fallon on Monday what word she associated with Mr. Romney, a businessman, Olympics executive and governor, Representative Michele Bachmann replied, “Hair.”

enabling Ms. Bachmann with a single sentence to trivialize both her own campaign and that of Mr. Romney’s. 

Of course, like any good journalism, the story reveals previously unknown facts.

Mr. de Magistris, who gave Mr. Romney a $70 trim three weeks ago, agreed to share some of the secrets behind his most famous client’s coiffure in between haircuts the other day.

No, he said, Mr. Romney does not color his hair. Any such artificial enhancement, Mr. de Magistris said, “is not — what do you call it? — in his DNA.”

Despite holding its shape under all but the most extreme conditions, it is gel and mousse-free. “I don’t put any product in there,” he avowed.

So there you have it, Pulitzer material all the way.

Now The Dismal Political Economist will admit he has problems with Mr. Romney.  But he will also concede that Mr. Romney’s hair is indeed Presidential and his hair is fully qualified to assume its rightful place in the White House.  The problem is that is the only part of Mr. Romney so qualified.  The rest of him, well follow the news; it won’t take long to come to that conclusion.  It's not in his, what do you call it, DNA.