How Can I Make This About Me?

We have a few candidates for this feature today. We'll begin with tried and true me-hound Howard Kurtz, Washington Bureau Chief of The Daily Beast and host of CNN's Reliable Sources. Over the weekend as Mike Wallace's family no doubt began mourning his death, Kurtz wrote on Twitter, "As I write, Mike Wallace once cursed me out over an unflattering story -- but in a good natured way. What an incredible life and career." In a subsequent lengthier piece, he wrote more about his interactions with Wallace. "In 1994 I reported that he had secretly taped a conversation with a reporter, Karon Hall, who thought she was just providing background information to the program and did not want to go on the air. CBS wound up reprimanding Wallace for 'a violation of journalistic ethics.' The next time I spoke to him on the phone, he greeted me with thusly: 'Hello, you prick.' But he said it good-naturedly, having realized he was wrong." Really...can Howie be absolutely certain that Wallace really didn't think he was a prick? In another zinger, as Kurtz puts it on the close of the piece, he writes of Wallace once again insulting/complimenting him during an interview: “This wasn’t work. This was a joy to come to this office every day and see people buzzing up and down the halls doing stories and reading a Kurtz column and saying he’s full of —.” Meanwhile, Josh Gerstein over at Politico has a mildly interesting piece of grief porn about how he once got scooped by Wallace and watched him jump over a fence. Apparently old people can jump over fences. Read here. A much better example of getting scooped by Wallace comes from Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker. Read that here. This grief porn by Patch Editor Todd Richissin is also well worth a read. Far better than Kurtz's incessant patting himself on the back, this one speaks more brashly of how the author once made Wallace cry. Well, his eyes welled up. That counts. In the not so egregiously annoying category, Mitt Romney advisor Kevin Madden recalls his Wallace experience on Twitter: "I was fortunate enough to work w/ Mike Wallace & his team on a 60 Minutes profile of Gov. Romney during the '08 race."

Fishbowl

How Can I Make This About Me?

Betsy Rothstein

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Betsy Rothstein