Good morning Washington. Was that Howard Kurtz admitting that he’s a fan of “Sex and the City” on “Reliable Sources” this weekend?!? Can you guess the above airport? Drop us a line. And can you guess who said, “I am the original Sex in the City fan“?
Good luck, Ted!
Over the weekend, Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign distributed a press release entitled, “Barack Obama Vs. The Washington Post.” Stephen Fehr says goodbye to WaPo readers.
122 years ago, Grover Cleveland got hitched at the White House. 75 years ago, FDR authoritzed the White House swimming pool. 67 years ago, Lou Gehrig died. 21 years ago, Ronald Reagan announced Alan Greenspan’s nomination to succeed Paul Volcker on the Federal Reserve Board. It’s George H.W. Bush Dana Carvey’s birthday, as well as Justin Long’s and Wayne Brady’s. Playbook tells us that Kim Kingsley and Tony Snow celebrated a birthday over the weekend and that the LA Times’ Andrew Malcolm is a first time granddaddy.
What journo spent some time this weekend thinking about this James Agee quote: “The very blood and semen of journalism is a broad and successful form of lying”?
Just over half you have been to a Nationals game. And, try though you might, you can’t predict Drudge.
Today’s “Angry Journalist” rant of the day: “I’m angry because scientists haven’t created a teleporter yet that will put me in three different locations simultaneously for photo assignments. The reporters at my paper must know about one because three assignments at 11:00 a.m aren’t going to be easy without it.”
We’ve got your morning mix of media Muesli after the jump…
Quickly navigate Morning Reading List:
REVOLVING DOOR | NEWSPAPERS | TV | ONLINE MEDIA | MAGAZINES | RADIO | NEWS NOTES | JOBS
This week’s mediabistro.com classes include Advanced Copy Editing, Boot Camp for Journalists, Intro to Copy Editing and Reinventing Print Content for the Web.REVOLVING DOOR
Chicago Tribune reports, “John Twohey, executive vice president for news and features for Tribune Media Services, Tribune Co.’s content licensing and syndication unit, has announced his retirement after more than 30 years with the company, effective June 20.”FishbowlNY’s Noah Davis reports, “The Big Money, Slate’s spin-off business site helmed by James Ledbetter, is stocking up on new media talent. Elinor Shields, most recently managing editor of Huffington Post, has been appointed deputy editor.”Top of post
NEWSPAPERS
The Big Lead has “An Interview with Tony Kornheiser” Politico reports, “Weisman doesn’t want to get ‘iced out'” Slate’s Jack Shafer writes, “Michael Crichton, Vindicated — His 1993 prediction of mass-media extinction now looks on target.” Clark Hoyt says “Entitled to Their Opinions, Yes. But Their Facts?” Washington Post’s Deborah Howell writes, “Fans of the Saturday humor-wordplay contest in Style became anxious last week after Gene Weingarten — Post Magazine columnist, blogger, feature writer, humorist, lover of sophomoric jokes — noted in his May 20 online chat that Style copy editor Pat Myers has taken the Post newsroom buyout.” Washington Post’s Marc Fisher writes, “This is the last edition of The Listener, a column I have been writing on and off since 1995, and as I look back on some of the characters I have written about here and in ‘Something in the Air,’ my book about radio and what happens to old media when new technologies come along, I find a business and an art form in trouble: Just when radio cries out for creative revival, it is instead slipping into a disgruntled decline.” Top of post
TV
An ABC release announced, “According to Nielsen Media Research for the 2007/2008 primetime season, ABC News’ ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos’ outperformed CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ among total viewers and Adults 25-54. ‘This Week’ also grew among A25-54 and total viewers compared to the 2006/ 2007 season and increased the most in total viewers among the Sunday discussion programs. In addition, ‘This Week’ outperformed CBS, ranking number two in the May, 2008 sweep.”
Reuters reports, “A Fox News employee who says she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after being bitten by bedbugs at work filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the owner of the Manhattan office tower where she worked.” “Jessica Yellin 180 Degrees” An ABC release announced, “According to Nielsen Media Research for the week of May 19, 2008, ABC News’ ‘Nightline’ outperformed CBS’ ‘Letterman’ among Total Viewers and Adults 25-54. This is ‘Nightline’s’ tenth victory over ‘Letterman’ among the key A25-54 demographic this season and the eighth victory among Total Viewers. Additionally, this is ‘Nightline’s’ best total viewer and Adults 25-54 delivery since December 2007. For the May Sweep, ABC News’ ‘Nightline’ closed the total viewing and Adults 25-54 gaps with CBS’ ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ to its smallest in five years — since May 2003.” “What’s the Difference Between Dan Bartlett, Brian Williams and David Gregory? A Lot Less Than You Think” “McClellan, a Tad Late Correcting The Story” THR.com reports, “Broadcast networks are used to being sued by people who say they first conjured up the idea behind a ‘Friends’ or a ‘Heroes.’ But NBC now finds itself a defendant in a case centering on an ongoing segment produced by its news division. Cynthia Tessler, a media producer, is suing the Peacock network for allegedly ripping off programming about taking care of elderly parents. In this lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia, Tessler says she brought the idea for ‘Parenting Your Parent’ to NBC in 2001. For the next three years, the two parties discussed plans for the series and negotiated rights for it. Tessler copyrighted her idea and says that NBC agreed to pay her $750,000 before backing out when a third party involved in the program also backed out.” Think Progress reports, “Yesterday, CNN’s Michael Ware dismissed Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) recent assertion that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) travel to Iraq in order to get a better sense of the war. Ware said that U.S. officials’ trips to Iraq are usually ‘divorced from reality’ adding that its ‘impossible’ to ‘get much of a real picture.’ Ware then noted that McCain’s own trips to Iraq have not helped him get a sense of the realities in Iraq” MarketWatch’s Jon Friedman writes, “TV biz journalists owe Mike Kandel a big debt” TVNewser’s Chris Ariens reports, “As for the meeting to decide the delegates, it was divisive and raucous and left one committee member ‘stunned.’ Clinton supporter Harold Ickes rhetorically asked ‘Was the process flawed? You bet your ass it was flawed,’ he said. He then said Sen. Clinton authorized him ‘to take this to the credentials committee.’ In other words, the cable networks just got their wish. This thing may not be over Wednesday morning.” TVNewser reports, “CNN’s San Juan Bureau Up and Running” Top of post
ONLINE MEDIA
The Onion announced, “While we are quite proud at having pioneered the presentation of advertorial news content on our Inter-net site, there is no reason you should not find The Onion wherever you happen to be, whether on-line or off. So that you cannot plead ignorance, we have compiled on this web page a comprehensive list of sources and methods through which you can maintain your allegiance to our corporate agenda.” A Huffington Post release announced, “The Huffington Post’s OffTheBus (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus/), a citizen-powered online news organization, is partnering with NewsTrust (www.newstrust.net), a nonprofit social news site promoting quality journalism, to analyze media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. For this first joint project, the partners will evaluate the quality of recent news coverage of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. The John McCain ‘news hunt’ will be the first step in uncovering campaign stories that have been overlooked or inadequately reported by the media. NewsTrust will provide OffTheBus (OTB) editors and members with an updated feed of McCain news and opinion, rated using NewsTrust’s state-of-the-art news literacy tools, as well as its growing network of experienced journalists, citizen reviewers, digital media innovators and community organizers.”
WebProNews.com reports, “Local online advertising should deliver an eleven-figure payday to site publishers, according to a forecast from Borrell Associates. The woes of the retail world have yet to bring a downside to online ads in local markets. A new research report arrived with even more optimism than it contained at the end of 2007.” MediaShift’s Mark Glasser writes, “If you have preconceived notions about political blogging, Andrew Malcolm is here to shatter them. Malcolm, 64, has decades of experience as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief at the New York Times, and later as an editorial board member and feature writer for the Los Angeles Times. He has ink in his blood, but when he was tapped by the L.A. Times to help write the new political blog, Top of the Ticket, Malcolm became a quick convert to the online religion.” Reuters reports, “U.S. communications regulators are considering auctioning a piece of the airwaves to buyers willing to provide free broadband Internet service without pornography.” Tech Ticker reports, “Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg had a long day of grilling executives at their All Things Digital Conference. But they saved Rupert Murdoch — their Wall Street Journal overlord — for last. The highlight? Murdoch’s not-quite-but-almost endorsement of Barack Obama for president.” Forbes.com reports, “Google drew sneers when it paid $1.65 billion for YouTube in November 2006. Only 63 people worked at this little video distributor in San Bruno, Calif. It had minimal revenue but more clips, bigger buzz and a better user experience than Google. Sneer no more. YouTube is bigger than ever. The Google people are taking over the place, and they’ve found the buttons on the cash register — vindication for YouTube’s original crew, especially founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.” The AP reports, “Hackers took over Comcast Corp.’s Web portal for several hours overnight, denying 14.1 million subscribers access to the cable company’s site for e-mail, news and technical support.” Click Z reports, “Barack Obama’s campaign spent nearly $3 million on online advertising related purchases between January and April. The biggest recipient of the Democratic Presidential hopeful’s online ad dollars was Google.” Bloomberg reports, “Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, had a 20 percent jump in clicks on its U.S. text advertisements in April, a reversal from slowing growth the month before.” The Los Angeles Times reports, “McCain’s Web gap is showing” Top of post
MAGAZINES
Politico reports, “The Clinton camp responded today to Vanity Fair’s long article on Bill with its own 2,476-word memo, which includes attacks on the magazine’s ‘penchant for libel,’ on editor Graydon Carter, and on writer Todd Purdum and his wife, former Clinton aide Dee Dee Myers. The memo (after the jump) calls the piece ‘journalism of personal destruction at its worst’ and singles out, among other things, Purdum’s suggestion that Clinton’s heart surgery changed his personality.” Sonny Bunch writes, “Ever since I got into the journalism biz–way back in the halcyon days of 2004 — I’ve noticed an interesting dilemma: Journalists at large, national outlets will steal ideas and other people’s reporting without any more attribution than ‘it’s been reported.’ And that’s if the original reporters are lucky. Usually the shoe-leather reporting simply gets swiped and passed along. … Which brings me to my latest example: Jeffrey Toobin’s piece in the New Yorker on Roger Stone. Now, Toobin’s piece was relatively good — an interesting take on an interesting character who has inserted himself into an interesting controversy (namely Eliot Spitzer’s disgrace). But I liked it more the first time when I read it in the Weekly Standard and it was written by Matt Labash.”
Top of post RADIO
A release announced, “David Bender’s ‘Politically Direct’ will return new and improved to Air America Radio (www.airamerica.com), beginning Sunday, June 8 with a longer segment and new features. The program, which previously aired on the network from 2005-2007 for only one hour, will be broadcast on Sundays 4-7pm ET replacing ‘Seder on Sunday.'” Washington Post reports, “Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is moving closer to an agreement to buy local sports-talk station WTEM-AM and two other AM stations, in a bid to expand his fledgling but problem-plagued radio operations, people familiar with the discussions said.” Top of post
NEWS NOTES
A release announced, “The Kaiser Family Foundation … announced the nine journalists selected to participate in this year’s Kaiser Media Fellowships in Health program. The Kaiser Media Fellows will engage in group site visits focused on health policy issues and attend special briefings with leading health policy experts and practitioners to increase their understanding of current health policy issues, while working on in-depth reporting projects on a variety of policy-related topics. The Fellows will also receive training in multimedia reporting techniques.” Among the fellows are Karen Houppert, freelance reporter and author; special correspondent, The Washington Post Magazine, Baltimore, MD. B&C reports, “Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) did not get tougher press coverage than Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) when it came to the main themes about their character, history, leadership qualities and overall appeal. In fact, it was just the opposite starting after Clinton criticized the media for being too soft on Obama. That’s according to a new study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy.” New York Times reports, “In his new memoir, ‘What Happened,’ Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, said the national news media neglected their watchdog role in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, calling reporters ‘complicit enablers’ of the Bush administration’s push for war. Surprisingly, some prominent journalists have agreed.” David Callaway writes, “If journalism is indeed the first rough draft of history, as the famous quote states, than Washington’s new museum dedicated to the media, called the Newseum, is a fitting first tribute to a fast-disappearing age.” A release announced, “The Sigma Delta Chi Foundation of the Society of Professional Journalists is accepting applications for the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writing. The Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship was established to enable a mid-career editorial writer from a newspaper in the United States to have time away from daily responsibilities for study and research. The $75,000 cash award allows the selected Pulliam Editorial Fellow to take courses, pursue independent study, travel or otherwise enrich their knowledge of a public interest issue.” AAR announced, “Manya Brachear of the Chicago Tribune, Lee Lawrence of The Christian Science Monitor, and Mohamad Bazzi, former Middle East bureau chief at Newsday, won the 2008 American Academy of Religion Awards for Best In-Depth Reporting on Religion.” Top of post
JOBS
The Kiplinger Letter is looking for a Financial Services Reporter U.S. Green Building Council is looking for a Non-Profit Marketing Manager. NPR is looking for a Production Assistant, Morning Edition. Bristol Herald Courier is looking for a Crackerjack Sports Editor. Top of post
Hat Tips: DCRTV, TVNewser, IWantMedia, Romenesko, MediaBistro, JournalismJobs, JournalismNext, New York Times’ On This Day, MicCheck Radio
