Morning Reading List 02.09.09
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It’s day 21 covering the new Obama administration. And week 2 for us.
FishbowlDC wishes a Happy Birthday to Politico’s Paige Connor, Beth Frerking and Manu Raju (h/t Playbook), Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA).
Send us your birthday and we’ll celebrate it here too.
Congratulations to former McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds and his fiance Alexia dePottere-Smith, who got engaged this weekend (h/t Playbook).
More congratulations to MPAA Chair Dan Glickman and his wife Rhoda Glickman, who celebrated the wedding of their daughter Amy Glickman to Stefan Friedman (Caroline Kennedy spokesman) this weekend in NY. From Politico’s Shenanigans: Wedding guests included Wolf Blitzer, Bob Barnett, Rita Braver, Hilary Rosen, Gordon Peterson and Margaret Carlson.
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REVOLVING DOOR | NEWSPAPERS | TV | ONLINE MEDIA | MAGAZINES | NEWS NOTES | JOBS
Former MSNBC Hardball producer Jeremy Bronson joins “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” as a writer. He was previously with Comedy Central’s “Chocolate News.”
NEWPAPERS
Ex-USA Today editor Ken Paulson at the National Press Club: “Imagine if Gutenberg had invented a digital modem rather than a printing press, and that for centuries all of our information had come to us online. Further, imagine if we held a press conference announcing the invention of an intriguing new product called the ‘newspaper.'”
Rupert Murdoch tells reporters he’s not interested in buying the NYTimes, saying, “I’ve got no desire to be an even bigger public enemy.”
With news of layoffs at The Wall Street Journal, FishbowlNY asks, who’s helping WSJ reporters research stories? Um, no one. Interesting…
At least someone at Chicago Sun-Times thinks Oprah should bailout the paper. Hey Oprah, if you’re reading we’ll take a bailout or stimulus too.
Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes today “Obama Meets The Press, But Cautiously,” cover WaPo Style section: “Despite early speculation that the new administration would use newfangled technology to bypass the mainstream media, the president has been strikingly accessible, sitting for interviews or fielding reporters’ questions virtually every weekday. But Obama has picked his spots, minimizing his media exposure when the hot Washington topic is one he would rather avoid.”
TV
The big three will carry the president’s first primetime news conference at 8 p.m. tonight in the East Room. Katie Couric will anchor live from New York, joined by Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schiffer in DC and on ABC, Charlie Gibson will anchor from New York, joined by George Stephanopoulos and Jake Tapper in DC.
Z on TV has the winners- Charlie Gibson- and the sinners- Brian Williams- of Pres. Obama’s network interviews last week. Also, “John King wasn’t part of the network rotation that had interviews with Obama on Tuesday, but no one has in TV news has pushed harder and more consistently than CNN’s John King. The veteran correspondent and now Sunday-morning anchorman and host has been pressing Obama on the huge gap between campaign rhetoric and the reality of nominating someone like Geithner when almost everyone else on network and cable TV who didn’t work for Fox was swooning.”
Did Saddam Hussein bug Dan Rather before the Iraq war? Washington Whispers’ Paul Bedard finds out here.
Many TV stations still plan to drop analog broadcasts on the original February 17th deadline. Congress just recently delayed the mandatory transition to digital until June. Read more here about what stations may be affected.
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ONLINE MEDIA
Bloggers vs. Mainstream Media, who covered what last week? From the Pew Research Center: “Outrage over economic troubles, President Barack Obama’s comments about a radio talk host, and a Texas-sized practical joke captured the attention of bloggers, user news sites and other social media last week. On YouTube, the top news video was Obama’s weekly address, focused on his economic stimulus plan… While traditional press concentrated overwhelmingly on the economic crisis and the stimulus plan, the new media’s attention was equally divided among three diverse subjects—the villains of the financial meltdown, Obama’s decision to criticize Rush Limbaugh, and jokesters who changed a road sign to warn of a “zombie attack.” The two politically oriented stories gave rise to often intense discussions, with ideological finger pointing on all sides.”
MAGAZINES
From NYTimes “Newsweek Plans Makeover to Fit Smaller Audience”: ‘Newsweek is about to begin a major change in its identity, with a new design, a much smaller and, it hopes, more affluent readership, and some shifts in content. The venerable newsweekly’s ingrained role of obligatory coverage of the week’s big events will be abandoned once and for all, executives say. ‘There’s a phrase in the culture, ‘we need to take note of,’ ‘we need to weigh in on,” said Newsweek’s editor, Jon Meacham. ‘That’s going away. If we don’t have something original to say, we won’t. The drill of chasing the week’s news to add a couple of hard-fought new details is not sustainable.'”
NEWS NOTES
AP: “Pentagon ups public relations spending”: “An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That’s almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.”
The Daily News reports Connecticut’s Election Enforcement Commission is thoroughly investigating whether Ann Coulter broke the law by voting in Connecticut while living in New York City. The complaint was filed by Coulterwatch.com blogger Dan Borchers, who told the paper, “For over 10 years, Ann Coulter has gotten away with illegal, immortal and unethical behavior, ranging from plagiarism to defamation, perjury to voter fraud.”
From Playbook: “When a staffer told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by email that he had been spoofed in the opening segment of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ the boss typed back, ‘Did Robert Redford play me?'”
NPR: “Journalism Students Uneasy about Job Prospects”.
JOBS
Voice of America is looking for an editor and a news writer position
CongressDaily is looking for an assistant production editor
HAT TIPS: Romanesko, Mediabistro, Playbook, Calderone
