Girls Gone Wild... Gone Wild

I would have written a note about how Claire Hoffman's L.A. Times story on Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis is one of the most riveting, shocking, unexpected, and utterly damning pieces of journalism you're likely to read all year, but Ezra Klein beat me to it.

If I tell you that Claire Hoffman's profile of Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis is one of the most chilling and explosive pieces of journalism I've ever read, will you believe me? Would I have to also say that the article begins with Francis literally assaulting Hoffman, to the degree that his bodyguard pulls him off and a sheriff advises that she press charges? Or that the piece recounts, through a first person interview, what sounds like Francis raping a loaded 18-year-old? Or that to get Francis off of her, the reporter wheels and delivers a close-fisted punch to his jaw? Or that Francis calls her editor and tries to argue that Hoffman was hitting on him, and he was worried she'd be unable to retain a respectful, professional distance?

So read the whole thing, not just for the sociological, what-is-our-civilization-coming-to angle (though you shouldn't ignore that either), but for the fact that it's that increasingly rare journalistic treasure: a damn fine, emminently readable story.