Bitter Honey

TV Newser has a scoop on some Money Honey angst at CNBC:

On Tuesday I asked: "Now that Mark Hoffman has toyed with the 4 to 10am block on CNBC, what's going to happen to the rest of the business day?"

A network insider answers: "The entire CNBC daytime lineup after 10am is being held up by Maria Bartiromo. She has made absurd demands and management is not giving in. She was to have done the 9-11am slot. But then she demanded drivers, limos, hairdressers...real diva stuff. Management told her to stuff it... and so for now the rest of the day stays put while they figure out 'how do we solve a problem like Maria?'"

> Nov. 22: Bartiromo "remains at the center of whatever schedule finally evolves" for CNBC, several tipsters say...

> Update: 9:56am: A tipster adds: "Maria Bartiromo's CNBC contract has always stated that she gets at least one solo hour during market hours (9:30a - 4p) which is why she always did the 3-4p hour herself. But Maria is not only keeping the sched in limbo, she is keeping the movement of producers in flux."

Here's the problem, seems to me: Bartiromo seems to forget that news talent is a lot like money itself--fungible, changeable. And if you're news talent that covers money, it's easy to identify yourself only with the cool, fun parts of your focus: power, kow-towery, fawning photo shoots in Van Cleef and Arpels diamonds.

May I suggest to Maria a tack closer to that in the classic old Gallo wine commercial: rich guy sitting on huge lawn, Versaille-like mansion in the background, sipping on a gallon of screw-top jug chablis. Rich guy's guest says incredulously, "But Worthington, why are you drinking Gallo? I thought you were rich!" Rich guy winks, raises his glass and says, "How do you think I got so rich?"

All I'm saying is that Maria should possibly get a little more Gallo jug than Clicquot champagne in her dealings with CNBC, the better to keep sipping it on the huge lawn of national television.

AlterNet: MSNBC stands for Misery. Stupidity. NoBody Cares.

Interesting insight over at AlterNet into life at the Secaucus salt mines:

Misery. Stupidity. NoBody Cares.

That's what the combined call letters of two media behemoths mean to the young worker-bees, the daily drones who schlep to Secaucus to grind out the endless 'newsfood' packages that substitute for real information at the 24/7 cable content outlet store on the wrong side of the Hudson.

At least that's what the surf/cyber punks who daylabor there tell me.

But they're cynical survivors, cranking out whatever crap the "Fat Man" (their moniker for longtime bigtime network news exec Rick Kaplan) tells them to. It's just a gig to pay rent on the Rockaway surf shack, so what do they care?

At the risk of making sense, may I humbly suggest that there might exist some relation between the quality of the "newsfood" NBC's cable outlet has been serving up for the past ten years, and its historical paucity of viewers?

With Microsoft out of the picture, NBC executives say they may now change MSNBC's name. This is of course standard practice in the Land of Master Control, where the first decision every incoming news executive makes is to "Change the set!" But if Capus & Co. don't change everything else about their beleaguered network, they'll just be setting themselves -- and us -- up for another amusing, insulting, but telling, acronym.

Overheard at the airport

Had just landed at Reagan National Airport in Washington recently when I witnessed the following exchange:

Older, grandfatherly gentleman with Midwest accent and neat Sansabelt shirt-and-pant ensemble, tapping foot impatiently as he waits in aisle to deplane: "Ok, let's go here..."

Young Fox News cameraman with big camera and FOX-logoed equipment, taking even more equipment out of the overhead directly behind older gentlemen: "Pardon me, sir, watch your head..."

Older gentleman, turning and seeing the FNC logo and brightening immediately, with big smile, and stepping aside into row of empty seats: "No, excuse me! You go right ahead in front of me! Anything for Fox News!"

Anyway, it was nice. As soon as I see someone's visiting grandparent slapping Keith Olbermann on the back with warm admiration as he deplanes, I'll let you know about that, too.

Don't hate Greg Kelly because he's beautiful

The NewsHounds must have their beer muscles on today, because they just took an incoherent shot at Fox News White House Correspondent Greg Kelly (shown here in his usual make-Pierce-Brosnan-look-like-a-troll mode) and missed:


Greg Kelly gave a routine report this morning from Crawford telling viewers how President Bush plans to spend his vacation time this week. Kelly reported that Bush will be visiting Brooke Army Medical Center later in the week adding that he routinely visits veterans in the hospitals adding that Brooks has a good burn unit. Kelly's report suggested that Bush had visited BAMC in San Antonio in the past which is not the case according to a local newspaper...

comment: Chances are most people outside of the area will never find out that Bush has never visited the hospital. However, for those who do discover the truth it will be just another reason to distrust this Administration and FOX News. How refreshing it might have been to hear Kelly say that President Bush regrets that he has never visited BAMC but plans to visit later this week. Would that have been so difficult to do?

Reported by deborah at December 29, 2005 11:28 AM

Huh what? Kelly didn't "suggest" the prez visited BAMC. At this point, the NewsHounds are like the chief torturer in Room 101 of George Orwell's "1984," screaming that 2 plus 2 equals five or else, dammit!

Can't you just see NewsHound Deborah frantically hitting the TiVo button back and forth, back and forth, struggling to find something to take issue with, and finally, in desperation, doing what she did and just MAKING SOMETHING UP?

And, increasingly so as NewsHounds gets increasingly crazier and more desperate, gotta love the comments by their target audience. Et tu, Brutus?...




Deborah, how did Kelly's report "suggest" that President Bush visited BMAC in the past?

Posted by: Brooklyn at December 29, 2005 12:28 PM


"Deborah, how did Kelly's report "suggest" that President Bush visited BMAC in the past?"

That's an excellent question, particularly since Kelly stated this was Bush's FIRST VISIT to BMAC.

"The lengths these "journalists" must go to trying to paint this president in a good light. They literally have to LIE to make him acceptable."

In this case, the "journalist" isn't the one who LIED. If anyone LIED, it was the news hound.

Posted by: tadeusz at December 29, 2005 12:39 PM

NRO 2006 predictions: Points for Trying Award

Joining the 2006 predictions symposium on National Review Online, Cliff May takes a stab at cable news:


Roger Ailes will not lose sleep over competitive pressures. More specifically, network news programs, CNN and MSNBC, and major newspapers will not stem declines in audience/circulation. The media moguls will not figure out that at least half of those who follow the news are conservatives who prefer not to be insulted and condescended to by "progressive" reporters, editors, and producers.

Crazy as it seems, I've got to disagree with May here. Let me explain. One, I think Ailes does lose sleep and will continue to lose sleep in 2006, because he's a visionary and a genius, and visionaries and geniuses never stop thinking of ways to beat all comers and continue to beat all comers in a big way. Second, the media moguls May calls clueless aren't clueless at all. They're arrogant and they know that they're arrogant, and they know that at least half of news consumers aren't "progressive" elitists. Oh, the moguls know that. They just don't care, but they persist in believing that with enough biased proselytizing for the left, they can change hearts and minds. Fat chance, which leads me to what I do agree with May on: that network news, CNN, MSNBC and major papers will continue to go down the tubes. They'll be missed. Not. Who?

2005 D'oh! Awards, Part 1: The Today Show

As 2005 draws to a close, it's worth remembering those quiet moments that almost slipped by unnoticed yet say so much, in this case, that Matt Lauer spent the year trying out for the varsity Defeat-In-Iraq cheerleading team. Witness this exchange, courtesy of The Media Research Center's Best of Notable Quotables 2005:

Good Morning Morons Award

Matt Lauer in Baghdad: "Talk to me...about morale here. We’ve heard so much about the insurgent attacks, so much about the uncertainty as to when you folks are going to get to go home. How would you describe morale?"

Chief Warrant Officer Randy Kirgiss: "In my unit morale is pretty good. Every day we go out and do our missions and people are ready to execute their missions. They’re excited to be here."

Lauer: "How much does that uncertainty of [not] knowing how long you’re going to be here impact morale?"|

Specialist Steven Chitterer: "Morale is always high. Soldiers know they have a mission. They like taking on new objectives and taking on the new challenges...."

Lauer: "Don’t get me wrong here, I think you are probably telling me the truth, but a lot of people at home are wondering how that could be possible with the conditions you’re facing and with the attacks you’re facing. What would you say to those people who are doubtful that morale can be that high?"

Captain Sherman Powell: "Sir, if I got my news from the newspapers also, I’d be pretty depressed as well."
— Exchange on NBC’s Today, August 17.

New in the NYT: prepare for an imminent fundamentalist theocracy in America

New York Times writer and puffy puffed-up professional elitist Frank Rich says that it's just a matter of days before Fox News overturns the Constitution and sends Juliet Huddy out into the streets with an automatic weapon to enforce a Christian version of Sharia law:

THE good news today is that the great 2005 war on Christmas, the conflagration that launched a thousand op-ed pieces and nearly as many battles on Fox News, is now officially over. And yes, Virginia - Christmas won!

To those who fear the worst from a born-again president whose base is typified by these holy rollers and the Christmas demagogues of Fox News, a fundamentalist theocracy seems as imminent in America as it does in the “democracy” we’ve been building in Iraq. Only last week did Ted Haggard, an evangelical preacher much favored by the White House, fan those fears by insisting to a Jewish television interviewer, Barbara Walters, that anyone who worshiped a different God from Jesus Christ would “unfortunately” be consigned to hell.

I thought we were discussing Christmas here, not Halloween, because if a single interview with Barbara Walters translates into Fox News overthrowing the government to establish a fundamentalist dictatorship...wow, that is some feat of sorcery.

By the way, Rich is serious about all this. At least he pretends to be, but I have a deep suspicion that privately, he's his own favorite comedian.

Happy New Year, NewsHounds! You're all going to hell!

Every time I think the mouth-breathing troglodytes at the we-live-to-bash-Fox-News site NewsHounds.us have gone as low as they can go, they surprise me. Ordinarily I'm happy when otherwise useless people find something to excel at, but NewsHounds has crossed a line with their latest attack on FNC. Witness their choice of words as they defend (surprise, surprise) The New York Times:

The Fox News Reich Pins a Yellow Star on the NY Times...Yesterday it was US News & World Report; today (December 27, 2005) the New York Times is caught in Fox News's cross hairs in what seems to be a rampage designed to foment public hatred toward any news outlet that reports what's going on behind the scenes in the Bush administration.

Invoking the tragedy of the Holocaust to make a casual political point is beneath contempt, so much so that even NewsHounds.us readers are speaking up:

I think that both Podhoretz and Varney are intellectual thugs. I think that Fox is evil. However, I also your choice of Reich and Yellow Star dilutes the evil of the Nazis and dilutes the sacrifice of the victims of their genocide. Someone once said, please no comparisons to Nazis because it makes the Nazis seem less evil.

Posted by: latichever at December 27, 2005 11:09 PM

And:

Comparing the Bush administration or Fox News to the Third Reich? That is so silly. I'm sorry, but anyone who would buy into that idea does not have a firm grip on reality.

Posted by: Jose Chung at December 27, 2005 11:48 PM

Question: how can the NewsHounds live to bash FNC when--and this is pretty obvious--none of them actually have a life?

Shep Smith: Once more into the breach

Shep Smith has done a bang-up job this week reporting from the sites of Katrina's devastation in New Orleans and in my home state of Mississippi. As in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, Shep hasn't pulled any punches this week either, as this report earlier this week on Studio B shows:


"Here in New Orleans, where even now, the entire neighborhood in which we stand is a total mess. Pan around just a little bit, if you would...every car has been underwater, every home has been declared unsafe for living. There's toxic mold inside, and now they're just trying to do some gutting in these neighborhoods, mostly from volunteers. A live look down the street, and you can see what it's like on this day, still no electricity, no water, no services of any kind, no businesses open, no way for anyone to live their lives in this neighborhood. Let's go back to the days after the storm now. The first couple of days following it, when the water stood all over this neighborhood and did for weeks on end. They were eventually able to get the water out, but they were not able -- not able to make this area livable. Still to this day, the mayor talks about come home to New Orleans. He is not talking about people who live in this neighborhood, for it is not safe to live in."


For die-hard Shep fans like me, and on a lighter note, there's a nice Q&A with the Holly Springs native here. Did you know that Shep was terrorizing his hometown's roads in a Ford Pinto when he was 14?!?

NBC: We promise that MSNBC will continue to suck

So NBC is finally taking charge of MSNBC. Sounds like an episode of "Intervention" to me, and that's a good thing. But don't get your hopes up yet that MSNBC, or whatever it's going to be renamed now that Microsoft's out of the picture, will choose to end its addiction to being dead last in the ratings. TV Newser has the memo in which Steve Capus and Rick Kaplan promise that MSNBC will still continue to suck:

Operationally, you won't see any changes---the changes come on the business side, not the editorial and programming side of the operation.

Too bad.

Neil Cavuto's profile in courage

So you think you have stress? Imagine knowing that you could go blind at any second while on the air in front of millions of people. That's what Fox News' Neil Cavuto prepares for every day, as he balances the demands of having multiple sclerosis with hosting the top-rated business show on cable. USA Today reports:


Eight years after getting his diagnosis, the 47-year-old TV journalist is still walking — most days without a cane. He suffers from balance problems, weakness and back pain, but he's still the anchor of the popular cable business show Your World with Neil Cavuto. And he manages to make it all seem easy despite the fact that on a bad day, he'll have a sudden loss of vision that makes reading the teleprompter impossible.

"The first time it happened, his staff freaked out," his wife, Mary Cavuto, says. But now Cavuto simply prepares for any sudden loss of vision by going over and over the script so that he's got it down cold.

Steve Harrigan, reporting from where he's actually reporting from...unlike some other channels we could mention

In Bolivia to report on the elections and Evo Morales, Fox News' Steve Harrigan observes that a cable news competitor is truly phoning it in. Who, oh who, could he be referring to?

Another competitor did not even come to the country. They filed their reports from the U.S., tracking a script over pictures from local TV. The images were dull, blurry, and of course the track was flat. What can you say about a country you've never been to? I've always wondered how many viewers who don't work in television actually pay attention or recognize whether the reporter is on location or not. It seems like it ought to be illegal, or at least discouraged, to report on one place from a completely different place. Then at the end you sign out, "reporting," instead of saying a city in the U.S., because that would tip people off to the fact that you are not even in the country your report is about.

Christmas for Dummies, Chapter 1: 'Tis the Season to Bash Fox News

Rev. Jesse Jackson writes the first chapter of the latest installation of the "Dummies" book series in the Chicago Sun-Times today, starting with the basics: did you know, for example, that Christmas is about the birth of Christ, and that Fox News is apparently unaware of that bit of information?


Christmas -- the mass celebrating the birth of Christ -- is the biggest shopping season of the year. But of course, that's not what the Christmas story is about. Nor is it about the right's newest goofy campaign -- the hyped up ''war on Christmas.'' The ideologues over at Fox News have decided that to save Christmas, we've got to insist that stores advertise ''Christmas sales,'' not holiday sales, and that cards wish people a ''merry Christmas,'' not a happy holiday. Behind their moralizing, these folks are trying to use Christmas for petty political purposes. But that's not what the Christmas story is about either.

It's about a couple -- Mary and Joseph -- forced by an oppressive government to leave their home to travel far to be counted in the census. They were homeless in a strange land. Christmas is the story of a child born in a cow's barn and placed in a manger, a makeshift crib.

That's funny. Judging from the Left's displeasure at the War on Christmas being fearlessly exposed by John Gibson, I would have thought Christmas is all about bashing Fox News.

Sudan flap: O'Reilly responds to Kristof

FNC's Bill O'Reilly responded today to NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof's accusation that he has "ignored" the genocide in Sudan in order to focus on the war on Christmas. Kristof's open letter to O'Reilly read, in part:

"I have a challenge for Mr. O'Reilly: If you really want to defend traditional values, then come with me on a trip to Darfur," Kristof concluded. " I'll introduce you to mothers who have had their babies clubbed to death in front of them, to teenage girls who have been gang-raped and then mutilated - and to the government-armed thugs who do these things.

"You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'll encounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll be scared. If you try to bully some of the goons in Darfur, they'll just hack your head off. But you'll also meet some genuine conservative Christians - aid workers who live the Gospel instead of sputtering about it - and you'll finally be using your talents for an important cause.

"So, Bill, what'll it be? Will you dare travel to a real war against Christmas values, in which the victims aren't offended shoppers but terrified children thrown on bonfires? I'm waiting to hear."

In a Talking Points memo today O'Reilly writes:

"The shame is that Nicholas Kristof has done good work on Darfur and the trafficking in human beings around the globe. He is not usually a character assassin like some other Times columnists. But Mr. Kristof is a committed secularist who seems to not understand the culture war, or that his team is intent on diminishing the traditions of Christmas and other Judeo-Christian hallmarks, and that is deeply offensive to most Americans."

Here's what is baffling to me: that Kristof, who obviously cares very deeply about the atrocities happening in the Sudan, would diminish them by unfairly lashing out at an unrelated issue like the culture war in America today. It's not fair to O'Reilly (who gives a ton of money to charity, by the way) to try to, basically, put the responsibility for what's happening in Sudan on him. I'm sure there's a clinical term for it in psychiatric medicine, but it's clear to me that Kristof is lashing out due to the anger and grief--and I know those words are understatements to the nth power--he must feel from what he's witnessed in Africa. It'a an honorable thing to call attention to the unspeakable tragedy of the genocide in Sudan, but Kristof dilutes his message by picking a nonsensical, non-sequitur-ish fight with O'Reilly, who, last time I checked, isn't responsible for the carnage.

CNBC's new Squawk Box, protesting too much

CNBC Squawk Box co-host Carl Quintanilla puts a happy face on the revamped Squawk Box:

Obviously, there are going to be those who miss what was there before. And who can blame them? Squawk changed the face of business television when it began and has never, ever lost its edge.

If Squawk never "lost its edge," why has it been overhauled? C'mon--starting fresh is no time for spin, CNBC.

Fools and their money, Buzzflash.com edition

Radical-left blog Buzzflash goes hunting for useful idiots, suggests donating to the site if you don't like Fox News:


Fight Back Against the Demagogues Who Use Diversionary Emotional Hot Button Non-Issues to Turn the American Population Against Each Other. If a FOX News Anchor Writing a Propaganda Book About "The War Against Christmas" Makes You Mad...You Can Do Something About It Now! Support BuzzFlash.com and Counter FOX/GOP Propaganda...it's time for you to buy a holiday gift from BuzzFlash at:

http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/

Yes, here you have the GOP Propaganda Network, FOX News, still claiming that it is fair and unbiased. But then you go to your bookstore and find one of their propaganda anchor persons, John Gibson, writing a book on the Rovian/Frank Luntz hot button diversionary message point of the month: "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought (Hardcover)," by John Gibson.

If this makes your blood boil, keep supporting what one of BuzzFlash's reader calls a "light in the darkness," BuzzFlash.com.

Translation: "There are only six shopping days until, uh, a certain oppressive Christian holiday, and we're a little short. So pony up. FNC-haters! Buzzflash needs an XBox 360!"

Greta Van Susteren on Christmas party mingling with the administration: "The next day the friendliness can quickly vanish"

FNC's "On the Record" host Greta Van Susteren attends the White House Christmas party for the media and blogs with her signature candor about the media-adminstration dynamic. She took some pics, too--here's Greta with a FNC and a CNN exec, and there's Steve Doocy tormenting Karl Rove, but the one of E.D. Hill and her mom is my fave.


There is one picture of my colleague Steve Doocy and Karl Rove, but to give me a hard time for taking pictures, they gave each other rabbit ears. In the end, I am getting even by posting the picture of the two of them. Remember, this was a party: People were supposed to be having fun and they did. Under ordinary circumstances we in the media don't party with an administration, but this is an annual tradition for the media and the White House — regardless of who is in power. The next day everyone goes back to his/her respective jobs and the friendliness can quickly vanish. No administration is fond of the press.

Your tax dollars at work--attacking Christmas, O'Reilly, and Fox News

A Democratic press release has drawn TCG's attention to the latest skirmish in the War on Christmas: Representative John Dingell's use of the House floor to attack Christmas, Bill O'Reilly, and Fox News. Dingell recited a Grinchly "poem" in reaction to H Res 579, "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected":



Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House

No bills were passed ‘bout which Fox News could grouse;

Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,

So vacations in St. Barts soon would be near;



Katrina kids were nestled all snug in motel beds,

While visions of school and home danced in their heads;

In Iraq our soldiers needed supplies and a plan,

Plus nuclear weapons were being built in Iran;



Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell;

Americans feared we were on a fast track to…well…

Wait--- we need a distraction--- something divisive and wily;

A fabrication straight from the mouth of O’Reilly



We can pretend that Christmas is under attack

Hold a vote to save it--- then pat ourselves on the back;

Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger

Wake up Congress, they’re in no danger!



This time of year we see Christmas every where we go,

From churches, to homes, to schools, and yes…even Costco;

What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy,

When this is the season to unite us with joy



At Christmas time we’re taught to unite,

We don’t need a made-up reason to fight

So on O’Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter, and those right wing blogs;

You should just sit back, relax…have a few egg nogs!



‘Tis the holiday season: enjoy it a pinch

With all our real problems, do we honestly need another Grinch?



So to my friends and my colleagues I say with delight,

A merry Christmas to all,

and to Bill O’Reilly…Happy Holidays.


Skeptic? Glutton for punishment? Watch the venerable statesman recite his (no doubt, press secretary-penned) masterpiece here.

POTUS talks iPod with Brit Hume

Today's Reliable Source reports snidely on a cute item--President Bush's iPod chat with Fox News' Brit Hume. My favorite part is Hume's cool suggestion of using the iPod as portable shrink:

At the end of an interview broadcast Wednesday night, Fox News anchor Brit Hume asked Bush to show him what's on his playlist these days.

We could analyze his choices ( The Archies ? ) and crack some snarky jokes (i.e., "took my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry -- well, until Katrina hit!") . . . but why not just sit back and see what happens when a couple of boomers get talking about music and that crazy new technology?...

Bush: Put it in my pocket, got the ear things on.

Hume: So it plays them in a random order.

Bush: Yes.

Hume: So you don't know what you're going to going to get.

Bush: No.

Hume: But you know --

Bush: And if you don't like it, you have got your little advance button. It's pretty high-tech stuff.

Hume: . . . be good to have one of those at home, wouldn't it?

Bush: Oh?

Hume: Yes, hit the button and whatever it is that's in your head -- gone.

Bush: . . . it's a bad day, just say, get out of here.

MSNBC to porn industry: Yes! Yes! Yes!

Please, please please read Jossip's take on Rita Cosby's "X-rated journalism," because laughter is the appropriate response--anti-applause, if you will--when confronted with fake "hard-hitting" news like Cosby's porn special:

And lo, though I walk through the Valley of Porn,
I shalt fear no evil,
For Rita Cosby art with me.
Her "interviews only she can get" shalt comfort me.

So I prayed before watching Rita Cosby's latest bit of "hard hitting journalism." Fresh off her triumphant "Wrestler Tour" in Afghanistan and watching children's book author (and part-time gang founder) "Tookie" Williams's execution, Live & Direct took me somewhere I've never gone before: Porn Valley!

Rita made it very clear from the start that she was strictly reporting on porn as a business — and that there was good porn and bad porn, kinda like Glinda the Good saying, "Are you a good smut peddler or a bad smut peddler?" She also made it clear that she was not endorsing porn, but by the end of the show it was obvious she new her snuff stuff.

Rita's report focused on "Vivid Entertainment," the Universal Studios of the porn industry. But, as always, it was the interviews only Rita can get that gave the that "personal touch"...

We met Stephanie Morgan, who spoke movingly about the misery of screwing butt ugly guys in the name of art and the loneliness of finding a relationship when your job involves "getting it on" in front of a camera. Let's hope Rita hooked her up with someone who truly feels her pain: Colin Farrell.

Rita also introduced us to those wacky Web girls, Mercedes and Laci. For a mere $30 bucks a month, you can chat with them and even direct your own porn movie like you're Rick Solomon. The gals emphasized you must ask politely, like "Yo, you ho! Will you please do me the honor of watching you play with the whip and inflatable sheep?"

Robert Novak to Fox News

Prince of Darkness Robert Novak (I've always thought that was a very cool nickname, by the way) is leaving CNN for Fox News:

Commentator Robert Novak, who hasn't been seen on CNN since swearing and storming off the set in August, will leave the network after 25 years and join Fox News Channel as a contributor next month. Novak, 74, said Friday he probably would have left CNN anyway when his contract expired this month even if it hadn't been for the incident.

The suspension actually served to eliminate a delicate problem for CNN, which had received some criticism for keeping the political columnist on the air with his involvement in the CIA leak case.

While his CNN shows included "The Capital Gang,""Inside Politics" and "Evans and Novak," he was best known for the political trench warfare of "Crossfire," where his fiery conservative views led some opponents to give him the nickname the Prince of Darkness.

He said he wanted to stay in TV, but do more limited work. Fox News Channel spokesman Brian Lewis confirmed his signing with that network.

Novak said the switch to Fox had nothing to do with finding a more comfortable home for his views.

"I don't think that's a factor," he said. "In 25 years I was never censored by CNN and I said some fairly outrageous things and some very conservative things. I don't want to give the impression that they were muzzling me and I had to go to a place that wouldn't muzzle me."

Court TV anchor and hot ticket Kim Guilfoyle to FNC's "Lineup"

Court TV personality and frisky babe Kimberly Guilfoyle is headed to Fox News to anchor the weekend crime series "The Lineup." "Lineup," part of FNC's "Crime Time coverage," debuted in October. Guilfoyle's also been linked romantically with Bill Hemmer, lucky girl!

The Callous News Network's '05 blunders: their loss, FNC's gain

MarketWatch's Jon Friedman gives out Media Web's good, bad, and ugly of 2005:


THE CALLOUS NEWS NETWORK - CNN's media relations team dropped the ball and looked like the Cartoon News Network when CNN threw Aaron Brown overboard (not that CNN looked much classier when it cut loose Bill Hemmer). By the way, practically no single news event in 2005 sparked as many emails from outraged Media Web readers as Brown's unceremonious exit.

And points out that no matter how you feel about Bill O'Reilly, he's still the king:

IF YOU'RE GOIN' TO SAN FRANCISCO, BE SURE TO WEAR SOME FLOWERS IN YOUR HAIR - Yes, I mean YOU, Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, since you sounded off in your trademark delicate way last month about one of America's great cities. "Listen, citizens of San Francisco," MSNBC.com, among others, breathlessly quoted O'Reilly as saying, "if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead... And if al-Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." Coit Tower is a San Francisco landmark. Bill O'Reilly is a landmark loudmouth - and a genius at self-promotion.

FishBowlNY, cheap date at CNN's holiday party

FishBowlNY hits CNN's "Holiday Media Party" and is charmed by CNN prez Jon Klein and the food, not necessarily in that order:

Klein...was not only warm and very personable but also spent a ridiculous amount of time chatting with [TV Newser] Brian and me off to the side, for something like half an hour (the party was from 6:30 to 8:30)... In a moment of candor, I admitted to him that my parents pay extra to get Fox in Canada. His response: "Why would they do that? Some people pay not to get it." Funny. He did, however, say nice stuff about Roger Ailes personally. Also, he is boyish.

The Food: DELICIOUS. Chicken skewers, sushi, sashimi, shrimp cocktail, and a HUGE bowl of delicious-looking guacamle that I lamentably didn't have a chance to sample, along with an equally mountainous bowl of pico de gallo and multicolored chips; cheese, crackers, champagne, dessert-y things and the kicker: specially-made CNN cookies with the CNN logo screened on to a thin edible-paper coating over icing. At least I think it's supposed to be edible. The crowd was just thin enough that you couldn't get lost grazing at the tables; people could see you chowing down and judge accordingly. Sadly that meant I ate less.

David Brock, coming out swinging against FNC and....National Geographic?

Self-confessed tortured liar David Brock's personal redemption/slime machine Media Matters for America goes after FNC's Brian Kilmeade for having a much better knowledge of world cultures and recent environmental history than most people:

On the December 15 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade remarked that musical artist Sting, who founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1989 with wife Trudie Styler, would "be happy to be down there [in Brazil] raising money for those with plates in their lips."

From the December 15 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

DOOCY: Take a look, we've got a whole bunch of holiday stuff on board.

KILMEADE: I feel overwhelmed.

GREEN: We have poinsettias.

KILMEADE: I feel like Sting at a concert in Brazil.

DOOCY: What's that mean?

GREEN: Okay, what does that mean?

KILMEADE: He's a rainforest guy. He loves the rainforest.

DOOCY: So he would be happy to be down there?

KILMEADE: He'd be happy to be down there raising money for those with plates in their lips.

GREEN: That came from totally, like, over here.

KILMEADE: You ever see that?

DOOCY: I have had a subscription or two to the National Geographic.

KILMEADE: There you go.



But the indigenous rainforest population in Brazil does wear plates in their lips, as Media Matters goes on to point out, thereby utterly squashing their own aim of making Kilmeade look like an insensitive bad person:

According to the Rainforest Foundation: "The Foundation's first major initiative was to campaign globally for the protection of the lands of the Kayapo Indians in Brazilian Amazonia." Kilmeade may have been referring to the Kayapo Indians, who have traditionally worn disks in their lower lips.

Also, I'm sure Sting would be happy to be in Brazil raising money for the Kayapo. That's his deal, God bless him. So again, why is Kilmeade being taken to task for this?

So what's Media Matter's problem? They're having a hard time making their favorite kind of hay--the bash-FNC kind--with the facts alone. Considering their Dear Founder's pathological-liar pedigree, that's pretty funny.

Rumsfeld on "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight

FNC's Bill O'Reilly has an exclusive interview with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tonight on The Factor. (8 & 11pm ET.) The Secretary will talk to O'Reilly about the Iraqi election and give his reaction.

Rumsfeld, I think people tend to forget, is an interesting guy beyond being Secretary of Defense. I've always been a fan of "Rumsfeld's Rules: Advice on Government, Business and Life," published here in the Wall Street Journal way back in 2001. There are a lot of them, and they're all worth reading, but here are some of the cute ones:


On Life (and Other Things)

"You can't pray a lie."--Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"

"It takes everyone to make a happy day."--Marcy Rumsfeld, age seven

"The most important things in life you cannot see--civility, justice, courage, peace."--Unknown

"Persuasion is a two-edged sword--reason and emotion--plunge it deep."--Prof. Lewis Sarett Sr.

"The art of listening is indispensable for the right use of the mind. It is also the most gracious, the most open and the most generous of human habits."--Attributed to R. Barr, St. John's College, Annapolis, Md.

"In writing if it takes over 30 minutes to write the first two paragraphs select another subject."--Raymond Aron

"In unanimity there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking."--Unknown

"If you're coasting, you're going downhill."--L.W. Pierson

"What's the difference between a good naval officer and a great one? Answer: About six seconds."--Adm. Arleigh Burke

"First law of holes: If you get in one, stop digging."--Anonymous

"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."--James B. Conant

"When drinking the water, don't forget those who dug the well."--Chinese proverb

"The harder I work, the luckier I am."--Unknown

"If it doesn't go easy, force it."--G.D. Rumsfeld's assessment of his son Don's operating principle at age 10

"But I am me."--Nick Rumsfeld, age nine

"You learn in life there are few plateaus; you are either going up or down."--Unknown

Perspective--Maurice Chevalier's response when asked how it felt to reach 80: "Pretty good, considering the alternative."

"For every human problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong."--H.L. Mencken

"If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact, not to be solved, but to be coped with over time."--Shimon Peres

"If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it."--Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Most people spend their time on the 'urgent' rather than on the 'important.' "--Robert Hutchins

"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough."--Mario Andretti, racecar driver

"Victory is never final. Defeat is never fatal. It is courage that counts."--Winston Churchill

"Intellectual capital is the least fungible kind."--Unknown

"The better part of one's life consists of friendship."--Abraham Lincoln

"When you're skiing, if you're not falling you're not trying."--Donald Rumsfeld

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."--F. Scott Fitzgerald

"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."--David Hume

"History marches to the drum of a clear idea."--W.H. Auden

"Demographics is destiny."--John Scanlon

If you develop rules, never have more than 10.

Lawyer for CBS news prez McManus: My client's chaste evening at home with a hooker

The irrepressible Radar magazine reports on CBS news prez Sean McManus' hooker problem:

We hear a mentally unstable former bra model who once had a one-night encounter with McManus—and whom the exec had arrested after she threatened to tell the press—recently went on a rampage after hearing about his promotion.

The sordid affair began when McManus, at the time V.P. for CBS Sports, went to an Upper East Side bar on the night of the 1997 U.S. Open and met Charlotte von Vogt, a then 46-year-old part-time prostitute and former bra model once known for having “the most beautiful breasts in the world”—at least according to famed flack Dick Falk. The exec reportedly enjoyed a few rounds of cocktails with the buxom blonde, then invited her back to his Park Avenue apartment for a nightcap.

It was at this point that their memories of the evening diverge. Von Vogt has claimed that she and McManus embarked on a night of drinking, drug use, and kinky sex. In court, an attorney for McManus categorized the whole encounter simply as “a chat, a walk, a drink, [and] a simple and chaste goodbye.” The one thing that’s certain is that after the two parted, von Vogt began to call McManus nonstop, demanding that he acknowledge what she claims transpired between them and pleading with him to attend a session with her psychiatrist. When she finally threatened him in February 1998­­—after 15 fruitless calls, many of which McManus secretly recorded—that she would go public with her story if he persisted in denying what ocurred, he had her arrested for harassment and “telephone stalking.”

There's more, but you get the idea. What makes me laugh is how McManus' lawyer managed to get the word "chaste" in there when characterizing the encounter. Even if there was no sex, the evening still sounds pretty dirty to me.

NYO's Conason: What war on Christmas? The rich people are fine!

Joe Conason writes in the New York Observer that if Nantucket is free to celebrate Christmas, then what's the problem?

On Nantucket, the Christmas season begins in earnest on the day after Thanksgiving. Sometime before sundown, Main Street is closed off to automobiles and people gather in front of the old bank building at the top of the street. At precisely 5 p.m., a switch is thrown to light the trees that line the town streets. Then the kids from the high school lead everyone in singing traditional carols. This charming event, which offends nobody, is especially popular with young families.

Thanks to the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the tree-lighting and caroling, Christmas is alive and well on the Massachusetts island, summer home to the family of Senator John Kerry and just across the sound from the Kennedy compound. To my knowledge, none of the liberal elitists on the island has tried to abolish the holiday festivities in the public square.

DUDE! No way! What an UTTER SHOCK! The vaunted citizenry of Nantucket has not once tried to deprive itself of its own personal Christmas celebrations!

Please. Now Conason HAD to be totally cracking up while he was typing that, a fake expression of utter innocent bafflement fighting for dominance with an expression of "What idiots the vast peasantry of America are! Let's see if they'll buy this!" Of course liberal elitists comfortably and safely ensconced on their own private, remote, rich, whiter-than-white enclave aren't going to deprive themselves of their Christmas celebrations. No, they just want to deprive EVERYBODY ELSE from having Christmas, or calling it Christmas and not "the holidays." Because after all, the Nantuckians don't need sensitivity training and cultural re-education. No! That's what the vast unwashed populace of America needs, for their own good, you see! Only those who know how to oppress others with their culturally-institutionalized financial and social dominance can be trusted to celebrate Christmas correctly, you see.

What horse$%^$. But he's just getting started:

It’s just a single example, of course, from just one little place. But if the birth of Jesus can be celebrated on Nantucket without undue controversy, then perhaps the Fox News Channel’s blowhards and political preachers have exaggerated (or even invented) the notion of a “war on Christmas” for their own purposes.

Now why would they do that?

He answers his own question, and now it's not funny anymore: he says those who believe there is a war on Christmas are Nazis:

Unfortunately, what seems to bother the more rabid Christmas crusaders is akin to what inflamed Henry Ford, the industrialist and amateur Nazi, back when he first publicized the plot against Christmas during the 1920’s: They still seethe with resentment of those who differ from them. (Ford forthrightly blamed the problem on the Jews, while today’s crusaders denounce liberals, many of whom happen to be Jewish.) While Christianity is, as ever, the dominant religion in America, this isn’t a “Christian nation” in the sense that it was a hundred years ago.

Now that's just evil, and now he's engaging in not just a war on Christmas, but a war on Judeo-Christian values, which must run counter to invoking the memory of the Holocaust's indescribable tragedy and genocide to make a petty political point in a frothy newspaper.

MSNBC: Got porn? How about some bloopers?

A contributor to Josh Marshall's lefty blog TPMCafe.com weighs in on MSNBC's useless internet ratings drive:

For the past few days, MSNBC, as part of a much larger ad buy, has taken out space here as well. So far, the space has promoted a story on pornography and a preview of a clip show of "oddball TV news moments."

While I appreciate the money, MSNBC, let me ask you something: Are you guys as short-sighted as it seems?

And a reader has OlberCosby's number:

I really do get the impression that MSNBC bosses are clueless about which way to go with TV and have been for a long time, like way back when the fired Phil Donahue ec. What's really ironic about that there was a recent story in the NYTimes Business section reporting on how MSNBC's website is enormously popular and a great success, that lots of people use it as a portal to the net and go to it for their news. While the latter does have lots of human interest and advice stories and the like, at least it's not the frat boy meme.

Seems to me the frat boy theme which you describe is a relatively new one at MSNBC TV. They've been struggling for many years with putting on different "personas" to get them out of the bottom of the news ratings race, and I definitely see a dumbing down and pandering to pop topics in the last few months, frat boy style especially by Olberman(including "what's hot on blogs" and what's hot in tabloids and feigning a war with Bill O'Reilly). Sometimes I think I even see evidence of Olberman hinting that he dislikes what his producers are making him do. The puppet theatre thing he does for pop stories is nothing more than an blatant attempt to grab some of Jon Stewart's infotainment audience. Really, I do see a radical change from a few months ago. Rita what's-er-name's new show and her mode of dressing and the bleached hair is definitely pandering to the pop culture audience, and it is something that I noticed CNN tried with Paula Zahn and discarded.