Back when Betsy Rothstein ran FishbowlDC, a blog once closely read by virtually everyone in Washington political media, she would post a recurring feature called “How Can I Make It About Me?” In those pieces, she ruthlessly and gleefully mocked high-profile journalists and political figures who could take a moment of significance — it was often the death of some notable figure in the city — and tweet or write about how directly important it was to themselves.
The point was to ridicule and, yes, embarrass the D.C. writers, pundits, and reporters for their bottomless capacity to insert themselves into any important moment. That’s why I’m not sure what to say about Betsy, who was once my editor and who, even after we parted professionally, remained a good friend. She died on Sunday. I know that sharing my thoughts about her and our relationship would jolt her ghost into immediately banging out a blistering 300-word item on my overt narcissism.
I’ll have to live with the would-be ridicule.
Betsy and I first met in 2011 on Twitter, as seemingly all journalists do now. At the time, I was working in book publishing but wanting to move into political writing. When I landed my first job doing that later in the year, she asked to meet for coffee. But as all meetings in Washington go, it was more than just that. She was also looking for someone to join FishbowlDC (which, under her tenure, became a must-read news and gossip site) as a freelancer. When I told her I could probably do it as a side gig, she instantly said yes.
In the two and a half years that Betsy was my editor, I learned more from her than anyone else in my career to date. I’ve had and have some great editors. But she got me at my beginning, and there is no one more responsible for shaping me as a journalist than she is — something many veteran reporters in D.C. would say is to my detriment, but they’re wrong.
The only thing truly respected in Washington, even if it’s just as resented, is fearlessness. And there isn’t a single person in the political media here who embodied that more than Betsy, who stood at barely 5’4″, and weighed no more than 130 pounds.
There was no question she was afraid to ask, no subject she was afraid to broach, no adjective she was afraid to write, and no fight she was afraid to engage — and that goes for Twitter and in-person.
At a pre-party we were both covering for the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner one year, she wanted to take a photo of special guest Psy, the guy who sang that weird “Gangnam Style” song popular in 2013. We had explicitly been told that photos at the party were not allowed, even as it crawled with important people of D.C. media and politics and this odd celebrity, who preferred not to be seen smoking.
Betsy didn’t care. She thought the rule was ridiculous and so, without any discretion, began taking photos. When a handler for Psy asked that she not, Betsy replied, “This is a party, I’m invited, he’s a celebrity, and I can take a photo if I want to.”
When the handler asked, “What’s your name?”, presumably to check with the event coordinators about Betsy’s attendance, she replied, “No, what’s your name?”
We left and laughed about it for the rest of the night.
Betsy was a fantastic journalist and mischievous as hell. She was sincere, though rarely serious. She was sternly focused on her job, even it meant describing a cable news anchor’s bad hair day or capturing the angst among “respectable” journalists about the young, inexperienced, hot one getting more TV time than they were. Everything she wrote was worth reading because it was unpredictable, fun, and unsparingly true to what it’s like being in Washington’s political media corner.
Like the “How Can I Make It About Me?” feature, a lot of her posts were recurring themes, and our personal relationship was the same. Jokes we made went on for years (which was great, because making Betsy laugh was immensely rewarding).
She routinely described me as “white Hispanic,” after the New York Times coined the term in 2012 for George Zimmerman. She would never let me forget that I once gorged a massive plate of nachos at lunch that probably could have fed a starving horse.
In turn, I would never let her off the hook for the time she spilled hot tea on my work computer, ruining it, even as she denied that it was her fault literally to her dying day. All of it made us laugh.
It was surreal being close to someone who had created her own mystique in the minds of others who obsessively read her pieces, yet never got to know her themselves.
My most intimate moment with Betsy was in 2016, when we both went to the pool at the village complex where her parents lived in Ohio. After we sat down in recliners, she removed the hat she had been wearing that morning, and for the first time, I saw the hair that had been slowly growing back on her head. Given what an intensely private person she was — she wanted few people to know about what she had spent the last half-year going through — I had a strange sense of pride in being trusted to see her this way.
I really liked Betsy, and fortunately for me, she liked me, too. I got to meet her mother. When Betsy traveled, I took care of her dog, Whiskey. Sometimes, she just gave him to me because I wanted what I called “dog therapy.”
I’m lucky to have known her, as was everyone in her life. I’ll miss her, but if I had the chance to see her again, I know we’d both laugh at length while she tells me how I made this about me.
