Morning Reading List, 11.06.07

Good morning Washington. Eventually, you want to have kids. News University is hosting, The Electronic Election: Covering the 2008 Vote: A NewsU/Poynter Webinar on November 14. Register here. Poynter Online reports, "NewAssignment.Net, the professional-amateur (pro-am) journalism effort spearheaded by NYU prof Jay Rosen, has a new project underway -- and they need beat reporters to help" TVNewser reports, "A cable insider tells TVNewser HOT (the largest cable operator in Israel) took CNN off the air from both their digital and analog platforms at 11:30am local time (5:30amET) this morning. It was replaced with FOX News Channel." Inside Cable News looks into the "Anatomy of a misquote..." The Huffington Post reports, "Mariane Pearl, the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, spoke out against the media establishment Thursday evening at a party hosted by Glamour to toast the book debut of her collected reporting for the magazine, In Search of Hope." Wonkette points out the latest snafu from MSNBC. Check out the latest Washington Social Diary. Check out NPR Music, 'a new, free, comprehensive multimedia music discovery Web site. Featuring on-air and online content aggregated from NPR and the participating stations as well as original-to-NPR Music materials such as interviews, reviews, blogs and live performances." It launched yesterday. Politico's Mike Allen writes, "MSNBC's Chris Matthews, coming off a textbook interview with Michael Gerson, introduces a new feature exclusive to the show's 7 p.m. edition: 'The Hardball Power Rankings,' showing who's winning at that moment." TVNewser reports, "Bob and Lee Woodruff, both now working for ABC News, are, it turns out, the namesakes for two new characters on ABC's Desperate Housewives. Marc Cherry, the program's creator, says in a USA Today interview that the characters, gay partners Bob and Lee, were named for the Woodruffs after Cherry met them at a dinner" B&C reports, "As executive vice president of Fox Business Network, Kevin Magee oversees the channel's day-to-day operations. Like many people at the just-launched channel, Magee is a veteran of CNBC, cable's business-news leader in distribution, ratings and revenue. But Magee was not daunted by his former employers' competitive advantage. 'Everyone loves a good fistfight," he said.'" Howard Kurtz reports, "It sounded like a great gotcha story: the Hill newspaper accusing Hillary Rodham Clinton of failing to show up for a Senate hearing on nuclear waste disposal that she herself had requested. And Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) was quoted as criticizing the Democratic presidential candidate. But it turned out that Clinton was there -- and Inhofe's quotes were taken from a July press release -- prompting an embarrassing correction. 'Any mistake is regrettable,' says Hugo Gurdon, the Hill's editor, 'but it's more painful when it negates the story entirely.'" The New York Times reports, "Journalists often call publicists 'flacks' and publicists call journalists 'hacks,' though rarely in earshot of one another. But the gloves came off last week after Chris Anderson, the executive editor of Wired magazine, chided 'lazy flacks' who deluge him with news releases 'because they canâ€™t be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they're pitching.'" National Journal hosted a panel discussion featuring National Journal's Ronald Brownstein and Linda Douglass, The Hotline's Amy Walter, and moderated by XM's Rebecca Roberts. Click here to hear the broadcast of the event. What are your favorite political reporters doing for New Year's Eve? Top of the Ticket takes His Extreme-ness' story one step further. A reader writes in, "Someone needs to note somewhere that that '60 Minutes' piece last night, Sunday, Nov. 4, on the revelation of the con man known as 'Curve Ball' who duped the entire United States government, military and 16 intelligence agencies into forging ahead into an unnecessary war that has cost the U.S. about 3,800 lives, was one of the best investigative pieces aired on the show in many, many years. The piece was well-researched and well-produced, and the story produced actual, revelatory, groundbreaking real news on a real, relevant story. The scoop, with worldwide implications, was the type of piece that the show used to do all of the time. Then, two pieces later, the show aired a completely inane, juvenile, non-relevant dog-and-pony show by a flustered, somewhat confused Lesley Stahl about some billionaire who decided to buy a yacht. The piece was worse than some of the newsbreaking pieces in the current issue of 'National Enquirer.' In an odd juxtaposition, '60 Minutes' revealed a flash of what used to make the show great and displayed a waste of time that showed why the show has tanked for many people." E&P has "some of the top daily gainers for the six-month period ending September 2007, based on today's FAS-FAX. The daily average is based on Monday-Friday." Riehl World View reports, "A few dots to connect here, but it looks like a journalist, John Cheeves of the Lexington-Herald-Leader, with current and previous ties to McClatchy and Knight-Ridder respectively, has been involved in one dubious scheme that at least suggested pay for play journalism. And given where his name also turns up, he might not be the most objective journalist to be leading a witch hunt against current Minority Leader Mitch McConnell." The Associated Press reports, "The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles, digital video recorders with terabytes of memory." The Los Angeles Times launched, "The Strike Zone: The Latest on WGA Strike" The Associated Press reports, "An influential advisory firm for institutional shareholders recommended its clients vote in favor of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s planned acquisition of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc." The New York Times reports, "The broadcast networks are clearly adopting more of an 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' philosophy toward the Internet. Harnessing a natural human inclination toward gossip, complaint, prediction and obsession, they are using TV show Web sites to offer clips, outtakes, interviews, games, message boards and blogs -- not to mention entire episodes." Don Surber reports, "Blaming the media for victory" A release announced, "Gibraltar Associates, LLC, a consultancy specializing in risk and reputation management, public affairs and business development, today announced that Tarah Donoghue has joined the company as an Associate in the Washington, DC office. Ms. Donoghue will focus on client communications strategy, policy and strategic messaging. Ms. Donoghue joins Gibraltar Associates from the White House, where she served as Deputy Press Secretary to First Lady Laura Bush from May 2006 to August 2007." William Powers writes, "To truly understand high-end political journalism requires a secret decoder ring. The actual message of a story is often embedded between the lines or in a passing descriptive detail far down in the text. In this case, the operative moment came well after the jump, at paragraph 18: 'In a 53-minute interview over a breakfast of boiled eggs (he ate only the egg whites), aboard a chartered jet that brought him here from Chicago, Mr. Obama said Mrs. Clinton had been untruthful or misleading in describing her positions on problems facing the nation.'" AdAge.com reports, "Newsweek's new management plans to chop its guaranteed paid circulation by 500,000 copies, dropping its promise to advertisers down to 2.6 million paying readers from 3.1 million, those with knowledge of the move said today." PR People: Are you on this list? Beltway Blogroll reports, "A weekend journalism discussion at the Phillips Foundation has sparked a mini-debate about whether 'backpack journalism,' where reporters carry more than pen and pad, is a good development." Associated Press reports, "Tom Curley, CEO of The Associated Press, called on news executives Thursday to "stop pining" for the past and adapt to the new ways that news is being distributed and consumed." New York Times reports, "Copyrighted work like a news article or a picture can hop between Web sites as easily as a cut-and-paste command. But more than ever, as that material finds new audiences, the original sources might not get the direct financial benefit -- in fact, they might have little idea where their work has spread." The Deal reports, "And now for something completely different: 'The long-term outlook for the [newspaper] industry appears to be healthier than that implied by current share prices.' So Joe Arns of Banc of America Securities LLC reports on initiating coverage of the newspaper sector. Although he may be new to the beat, that doesn't mean he's Pollyannaish. In fact, Arns' forecast for a 5% decline in newspaper ad revenues next year is more bearish than the Street consensus of a 3% decline." Reuters reports, "The Wall Street Journal said on Sunday that its Web site now has 1 million subscribers, a milestone for a site that charges for access even as other sites are throwing themselves open for free." "Daily News TV critic David Bianculli says 'So long & thanks'" FT.com reports, "Tribune Company and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission are locking horns over the proposed $8.2bn buy-out of the media group by Sam Zell, the real estate entrepreneur, in a stand-off that threatens to derail the deal." Heard On The Hill reports, "Sen. Patrick Leahy tried out the time-honored strategy of turning the tables in an effort to fend off an aggressive press corps on Wednesday. Cornered by a pack of scribes anxious to query the Vermont Democrat about the troubled nomination of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general, Leahy was attempting to exit the Capitol through a second-floor exit." Media Matters reports, "In a November 5 post on his campaign news website The Page, Time magazine editor-at-large and senior political analyst Mark Halperin claimed that a Chicago Sun-Times column raising questions about the transparency of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) presidential bid was the product of opposition research provided by the campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)." MarketWatch's Jon Friedman writes, "The digital revolution has given journalists some fantastic tools. Web sites like Google and Wikipedia give us instant access to voluminous research on virtually any subject. Cell phones enable us to become news photographers. Sparked by blogs and YouTube, the Citizen Journalism boom has taken shape." The Guardian reports, "Rupert Murdoch plans to install Times editor Robert Thomson as publisher of the Wall Street Journal next year, according to a senior US media executive." CJR reports, "The Rhetoric Beat: Why journalism needs one" Whoops. CNBC should know by now how to spell Karl Rove. Jobs Politico is hiring a Special Projects Assistant. The Hill is seeking a Political Journalist. USATODAY.com is looking for a Producer, Design Dept. and a digital storyteller. SmartBrief, Inc. is looking for a freelance travel writer, a Health Editor and a Copy Editor. Publishing Services LLC is looking for an Associate Publisher. The Montgomery County Sentinel is looking for an Entry Level Reporter. Patuxent Publishing Co. is looking for a General Assignment Reporter. Elsevier is looking for a Reporter. Hat Tips: DCRTV, TVNewser, IWantMedia, Romenesko, MediaBistro, JournalismJobs, JournalismNext

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Morning Reading List, 11.06.07

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