Battle of the cable news brains, Crocodile Dundee edition

Everybody remembers the classic scene in the first Crocodile Dundee movie where Dundee is about to be mugged by a knife-wielding criminal, whereupon Dundee looks at the mugger's tiny scalpel, snickers, and says, "Oh no mate, that's not a knife. THIS is a knife," and takes out a blade the rough approximation of a medieval scimitar. I was reminded of the scene last night when--stay with me here--CNN's Larry King and Christiane Amanpour and ABC's Martha Raddatz were discussing Bob Woodruff's terrible injury and all asking why? Why did this happen? How?!?! The following sums it up:

KING: What happened?

RADDATZ: They were traveling in a convoy of eight vehicles. There were six U.S. humvees, up-armored humvees and there were two Iraqi vehicles, two Iraqi armored vehicles.

Bob and Doug and there were two other members of the crew, a producer and a sound man, had all been traveling in the U.S. up-armored humvees. They decided after a few miles and a couple of checkpoints that they wanted to move up into the Iraqi armored vehicle to get the perspective of the Iraqis.

So, Bob and Doug and the other two moved up there. Bob and Doug were up in the hatch. They were exposed in the back and that's when the vehicle hit an improvised explosive device.

The people I've talked to said that convoy had -- had jammers in it. It's called the warlock system, which would have detected or set off anything with a wireless signal that would set off that bomb, so they believe this bomb was actually wired probably underground and detonated remotely through that wire instead of wirelessly.

So, when it hit that Bob and Doug were exposed in the back. There was an Iraqi soldier who was in a front hatch. He was also injured but no life-threatening injuries. I think his hand was badly injured and Bob and Doug in the back.

They immediately came under fire after that which is common in Iraq. They came under fire from three different directions. The Iraqi soldiers spread out I am told. The Americans were then able to give Bob and Doug medical care.

They got a Medevac (ph) helicopter there very, very quickly. Bob and Doug were back in the Green Zone about 20, 25 miles away within 37 minutes and inside that hospital.

This is all straight reporting, not analysis. After you know the facts, you REALLY want to know why? Why did this happen? How? To this question we can refer to Fox News Channel's Greg Kelly, who has a great deal of meaningful experience in Iraq as a former embed himself, who said the following on the air on Sunday morning, hours after the incident:

"The Iraqi army has a lot of heart...but their training and professionalism is lacking."

There. That's a real answer to the question "What happened?!" That, as it were, is a knife.

Bob Woodruff & Doug Vogt: Faith and prayers

The latest news has Bob Woodruff's condition as stable, and obviously--hopefully--we are all praying for him and Doug Vogt and for their families. (Please check out the ABC viewer forum where you can post your messages of get-well, faith, and appreciation--find it here.)

For whatever it's worth, I'd like to add a small note of optomism. TCG's father suffered a terrible head injury some years ago and, like Bob Woodruff, had part of his skull cap removed to relieve swelling. Obviously I don't know anything about Bob's condition, but I do know that nobody, including his neurosurgeons, thought my dad was going to make it, and for the week after surgery that he was in an induced coma the entire family assembled to, basically, say goodbye. Then one morning he woke up and we all took it from there. That was ten years ago, when my dad was older than Bob is now, and he has zero loss or impairment of his physical or mental faculties today. (He'd probably argue that it knocked some stuffing out of him permanently but you get the idea: not that anyone would notice.) It's quite literally like it never even happened. Again, I have no idea how much of this relates to Bob's condition but this is what I do know: there is always hope, no matter what, no matter how bad it might seem. There is just always, always hope.

Movers & Shakers, American Dream edition

I commend to all students/observers of the American Dream and of getting ahead in the cable news biz this Multichannel News profile of Fox News Channel executive producer Suzanne Scott:


How does one climb from an executive assistant to executive producer of the top all-news network in just 10 years?

If you’re Fox News Channel’s Suzanne Scott, that path involved a lot of hard work and volunteering to take on new assignments. Working as an assistant for two TV legends — Chet Collier, who produced The Mike Douglas Show in the 1960s, and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes — also doesn’t hurt.

Roger [Ailes] has created an environment that fosters growth, creativity and teamwork,” Scott says. “There’s a clear mission here. And we want to win and we try to hire people who have that same attitude about winning.”

After Ailes left NBC Cable to launch Fox News Channel for Rupert Murdoch in 1996, Scott was one of dozens of executives that followed him. As an executive assistant, she was involved in meetings planning the launch of Fox News, and helped hire talent and form the program schedule.

“I raised my hand, saying, 'I’d love to help you with this or that,’ and they always said yes,” Scott says. “That was my philosophy then and it’s my philosophy now: I’m here to support the mission of this place — whatever Roger Ailes and my boss [executive vice president of programming] Bill Shine need — and I try to get the job done with excellence every time.”

Scott’s transition from executive assistant to producer occurred over time. “It’s been a stepping-stone process. You build upon each experience,” Scott says.

It wasn’t until after 9/11 that Scott was placed officially in the newsroom, where she began working on Fox’s 10 p.m. show, learning on the job. Shine says she was groomed by the best.

“You can’t be around two living legends like that [Collier and Ailes] without absorbing and picking up what they think and how they work. I think Suzanne has certainly done that, if you watch how Suzanne manages and goes about her job,” Shine says.

Shine is also quick to point out that Scott earned her position. “Nothing was given to [Scott] along the way,” Shine says.

Crediting some of her mentors for teaching her the ropes, Scott tries to do the same for other Fox News employees. “I have a couple of apprentices that I talk to regularly that are assistants in entry-level positions. I try to keep in touch with everybody at every level here,” she says. “If we’ve hired someone, I try to get to the [production assistants] and the people who do graphics for the shows, because I think if they know that they can have a direct conversation with someone who is looked at as being a boss, they appreciate working here.”

OlbermannWatch.com: Advice straight from the horse's mouth

Check out my new fave site, OlbermannWatch, which catches all of Keith's many missteps first, and with wit, style, and humor to boot. Yesterday, OlbermannWatch issued a challenge to Keith to make his latest screw-up right:



January 29, 2006

From the Horse's Mouth

On Friday, OlbermannWatch caught Keith using a phony quote to make a false charge against Bill O'Reilly. Now that we have exposed his latest bit of treachery, Olby has a decision to make. Will he stonewall, ignore the truth, and let his false story stand? Or will he admit his mistake, apologize to O'Reilly, and take it like a man?

To help Keith decide, we offer these words of advice from the one person he has the highest regard for:


What happens now to...credibility?

Is this the way to apologize for something in public, take a big club, beat up the person you trusted, and then hit yourself in the head a couple of times as well?

We are so used not used to straightforward apologies in this country that we're gushing over somebody just doing the right thing for a change.

Should the publisher not at least have verified something of this story on the public benefit angle, at least?

It fits into what humorist Stephen Colbert has defined as "truthiness" in American society.

It was never fact-checked, which is pretty much par for the course...

Ted Koppel to cable news viewers: eat your broccoli, you brainless brats

So Ted Koppel's written his first piece for as a columnist for the New York Times. Editor & Publisher reports:


[Koppel's] view is that journalists "should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around. "

In a surprise conclusion, he suggests that perhaps rather than aiming news shows at the disinterested younger segment, the networks should focus on serving older consumers who actually are interested in serious news. (Is there a lesson for newspapers here?)

The goal for the traditional broadcast networks now "is to identify those segments of the audience considered most desirable by the advertising community and then to cater to them," Koppel writes. "Most television news programs are therefore designed to satisfy the perceived appetites of our audiences. That may be not only acceptable but unavoidable in entertainment; in news, however, it is the journalists who should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around.

"Indeed, in television news these days, the programs are being shaped to attract, most particularly, 18-to-34-year-old viewers. They, in turn, are presumed to be partly brain-dead — though not so insensible as to be unmoved by the blandishments of sponsors.

"Most particularly on cable news, a calculated subjectivity has, indeed, displaced the old-fashioned goal of conveying the news dispassionately. But that, too, has less to do with partisan politics than simple capitalism.

"Now, television news should not become a sort of intellectual broccoli to be jammed down our viewers' unwilling throats. We are obliged to make our offerings as palatable as possible. But there are too many important things happening in the world today to allow the diet to be determined to such a degree by the popular tastes of a relatively narrow and apparently uninterested demographic....

"If the network news divisions cannot be convinced that their future depends on attracting all demographic groups, then perhaps, at least, they can be persuaded to aim for the largest single demographic with the most disposable income — one that may actually have an appetite for serious news. That would seem like a no-brainer. "

Got that? Here's a rough translation of Koppel-speak: "You, American news consumer, can't be trusted to ask for, or get, the information you want or need. People like me need to do that for you. And if you're under 34, go watch MTV or something, so the elite media can go back to blaming any and all national failings on uninformed youth."

But here Koppel gets to the meat--or, rather, that dastardly broccoli--of his argument:

"Even Fox News's product has less to do with ideology and more to do with changing business models. Fox has succeeded financially because it tapped into a deep, rich vein of unfulfilled yearning among conservative American television viewers, but it created programming to satisfy the market, not the other way around. CNN, meanwhile, finds itself largely outmaneuvered, unwilling to accept the label of liberal alternative, experimenting instead with a form of journalism that stresses empathy over detachment."

So Koppel's bummed that FNC is so ragingly successful, of course, so again he reverts to the elitist complaint that the FNC's viewers are happy with programming that doesn't jive with the unbalanced worldview of the Koppelian liberal hordes. [Cue violins here.] And while he rightly roasts CNN's journalism-by-group-therapy, it's only in the service of dissing the network for--publicly, anyway--refusing to call itself liberal, biased, and proud.

Whew! Quite a first effort as NYT columnist for Ted! I would've expected nothing less. Your side lost the news wars, Ted, but what the hell--as long as you want to stay a worthy opponent, we can keep sparring!

Olbermann soars to new depths

Bill O'Reilly deserves a medal for the way he spoke out on the Judge Cashman sentence of the child rapist in Vermont and ultimately caused Cashman to increase the rapist's sentence. But MSNBC's Keith Olbermann jumps in and makes himself the Worstest Person in the World by using the subject to criticize O'Reilly for something he didn't even say (thanks to the always-sharp NewsBusters for the catch:)

On his Countdown show Friday night, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered his latest attack on FNC host Bill O'Reilly during his show's regular "Worst Person in the World" segment for saying something the FNC host did not actually say. Referring to O'Reilly as a "joke," Olbermann accused O'Reilly of attacking MSNBC for not covering the case of a Vermont judge who initially sentenced a child rapist to only 60 days in jail. In fact, O'Reilly complained that the "network newscasts" had ignored the story, which would only include ABC, CBS and NBC newscasts.

During his regular "Worst Person in the World" segment, Olbermann normally chooses three nominees to be awarded the dishonor of that name. His three nominees are labeled as "Worse," "Worser," and "Worst." On Friday's show, after giving the second place distinction of "Worser" to conservative columnist Ann Coulter for joking that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned, Olbermann moved on to dishonor O'Reilly with the label of "Worst": "Speaking of jokes, tonight's winner. [Photograph of O'Reilly displayed on-screen] Him again. He walked right into another propeller."

Olbermann went on to recount erroneously that O'Reilly had criticized MSNBC for ignoring the story of Judge Cashman and pointed out that he had covered the story on his Countdown show on January 6th. Olbermann concluded by quipping that he had made a bet in the "'When does [O'Reilly] have his actual nervous breakdown?' pool."

An examination of the Thursday January 26 'Talking Points Memo' segment of The O'Reilly Factor shows that the FNC host, instead of attacking MSNBC for ignoring the story, in reality charged that "the big liberal newspapers like The New York Times and the network newscasts totally ignored the story."

So let me get this straight: When Olbermann observes "Hmm, heartbreaking story" why does that immediately translate into "How can I exploit the entire tragedy and further my personal vendetta against my arch-rival O'Reilly for ratings?"

How long before the stress of being up against O'Reilly causes Olbermann to start smoking on the air? I'd tune in to see the smoke swirling up from beneath the desk as he comes back from commercial, a wisp emanating from his nostris as he leans into the teleprompter....

The NBC Old Boys Club: Not accepting new members

CBS's Public Eye blog sums up Lukegate in one sentence: "Old Boys Will Be Old Boys"

Arianna Huffington and Mickey Kaus are a bit worked up over James Carville, Paul Begala, and Mary Matalin's appearance on "Meet The Press" this weekend. I'm a little surprised they even watched the segment – I couldn't, having already seen enough Carville and company to last a lifetime. (The James and Mary show has hit "Meet The Press" alone 41 times since 1996, according to Arianna. Mickey says 35 times. But you get the point.)

Take it away, Huff:


James and Mary, plus their straight man Paul Begala, were on to promote Carville and Begala's new book Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future -- which, I'm sure to their publisher's immense satisfaction, was mentioned 12 times in the course of the show.

But what made this appearance extra-special is how it was so luckily timed to coincide with Carville's upcoming gig as the host of a sports show on XM satellite radio.

And what made it all even more special is the relationship of Carville's radio co-host to Meet the Press's host…

Any guess who said co-host might be? Luke Russert, a sophmore at Boston College, who "attended two Super Bowls, a World Series, five Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Games, an NBA final, four NBA All-Star Games, two NCAA Final Fours, an NHL Stanley Cup Final, a U.S. Open and The Preakness Stakes," all by age 16! He is also…let me check…yes…Tim Russert's son! What a coincidence!

I'll leave the ethics of the matter to NBC, the bloggers, and you. But I am curious: Does it surprise anyone else that people in power in Washington aren't even really trying to conceal the coziness of their relationships anymore?

Aaron Brown to public: Come back so I can leave you

Fired CNN anchor Aaron Brown is up, around, and complaining:

The anchorman whose boss once characterized him as ice compared with his successor's fire was anything but chilly in the impassioned speech he delivered Tuesday at The Society of the Four Arts.

"Truth no longer matters in the context of politics and, sadly, in the context of cable news," said Aaron Brown, whose four-year period as anchor of CNN's NewsNight ended in November, when network executives gave his job to Anderson Cooper in a bid to push the show's ratings closer to front-runner Fox News...

Important issues, such as the prosecution of the war in Iraq at home and abroad, are being clouded over by "mud-wrestling" that skirts substance, he said. Consider what he called "the swift-boating of John Murtha," the Democratic congressman whose war record was smeared when he called for an exit strategy in Iraq. "Cable didn't search for the truth, but engaged in mock debates pitting those making the charges against Murtha's defenders," he said.

Many Americans on the left and the right aren't interested in the truth, but simply want news that confirms their viewpoints, he said. "You'd think that it's no more complex than good vs. evil," he said.

Ahem. Leaving aside the fact that watching "NewsNight" was usually about as engaging as, oh, I dunno, watching mud dry, it's not hard to figure out that Brown feels a lot of pity and contempt for the American cable news viewer. One of the great truths of life came from the late lead singer of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia. He said "It's hard not to like people who like you." Well, Brown in a living, breathing example of the inverse: "It's hard to be liked by people you don't like."

Broadcast newsers want their Special Report

Check out this great Q&A with FNC anchor Brit Hume inSteve Battaglio's "The Biz" column in TV Guide. Hume talks about covering the State of the Union address, the Jessica Simpson news principle, the new ABC nightly news team, and oh yes, the hog heaven that the 2008 presidential election will be to the media.

Plus, note Battaglio's sly and knowing take on the nature of broadcast newsers and their secret show-prep ritual: watching Special Report.

Hume...has sat through a couple dozen [SOTUs] and he'll be there with his team from Special Report (the program broadcast-network newspeople have been known to take a peek at before their own evening shows go on the air).

Kausfiles umpire on Russert/Carville sports show: "You're out!"

TCG isn't the only one who thinks that the Luke Russert/James Carville sports show deal is seriously messed up. Mickey Kaus writes in Kausfiles on Lukegate:

Lukegate: ... Step 1) Tim Russert books the tired Carville-Matalin act more than 35 times on his Meet the Press talk show, boosting their bankability on the lucrative lecture circuit. Step 2) Carville--with Russert's eager prodding--also uses their most recent, conveniently-timed MTP appearance to plug his new XM Satellite radio sports show. ... That's smarmily venal enough, you say? Wrong! Step 3) Carville's co-host on the XM show is Russert's son, Luke, who is "currently a sophomore at Boston College." Russert and Carville joke about this on the air but don't quite have the balls to actually inform viewers of the key conflict:

MR. RUSSERT: James Carville, before you go I understand that politics may be part of your past, that you're going to go on XM Satellite Radio and do sports?

MR. CARVILLE: Well, Mr. Russert, I can't talk about that too much, but I think there going to be a story tomorrow's paper. Tomorrow night I'll be on the Jay Leno show on NBC, and we'll be talking about some exciting new developments and maybe a new twist on an old career.

MR. RUSSERT: With anyone I know?

MR. CARVILLE: Maybe you would be familiar with someone I'll be teaming up in this, but let's just say it's going to offer a generational look at sports and the coaches of sports and things like that ... [Emph. added]

Har, har. ... Special Russert Prosecutor Arianna Huffington effectively exploits almost all the possible lines of attack here--including, but not limited to, the core charge that Russert has perverted the content of his own show for self-interested motives that might be excused as subconscious if they weren't so blatant:

Does Tim think nobody's going to notice that he's having a guest on his "news" show who is making it possible for his son to co-host a national sports radio show before he's out of college?

You'd think NBC would have an ethics policy or something. ...

P.S.: One angle Arianna misses is the bad parenting angle. It's one thing if a big star uses his connections to get a job for his unemployed son. Connections help. Stars' sons are often talented! But a sophomore in college? Isn't that rushing the connections thing a bit? Does Tim Russert think he's actually doing his son a favor? Does Luke Russert have no spark of honest Oedipal anger? ... The late Marjorie Williams could get a whole column out of this parenting point. I'm not Marjorie Williams, so I'll stop. But quite apart from parenting, the whole thing stinks. If George Stephanopoulos, or someone with a perilous network perch, tried this, they'd be in deep trouble. Maybe Russert is too. ...

Hemmerpalooza!

A Bill Hemmer fan writes:

i had to laugh at someone's comment on bill hemmer being one sided. unless there is a lot of breaking news bill hemmer's 12 - 100 news has grown into a news hour not to be missed each day.

I agree. I've always liked Hemmer, and I think he's got a depth of talent that FNC detractors try to divert attention from by putting so much emphasis on his movie-star looks. Dirty pool--when it works. Fortunately, Hemmer fans are hip to the "he's hot so how smart could he be" line.

I have a theory that there is a tremendous amount of talent in the world that gets lost, or overlooked, in the demanding vagaries of everyday existence. Take, for example, the description of some international footage Hemmer shot before his appearance on the national cable news scene. I'm willing to bet it's extraordinary, just as I'm willing to bet that Hemmer will continue to be extraordinary.

Hemmer...headed out on a solo trip to four continents and 15 countries including India, Nepal, Russia and Vietnam.

In video features for WCPO and in print stories for The Cincinnati Post, he featured various sites, such as Calcutta, India. There he was able to meet Mother Teresa and visit her various outposts of missionary work. Mother Teresa was just one of the inspirational people profiled in Hemmer’s half-hour video scrapbook that he has shared with students in Cincinnati and Atlanta. He also included the Great Wall of China and his bungee-jumping in New Zealand. For the video that aired on WCPO, Hemmer garnered three local Emmys for best entertainment programming, best investigative story and best host. The video’s message to students is that “there’s a great big world out there waiting for them to discover,” says Hemmer.

You know that line from "Hamlet": "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of?" The best journalists try to show those things to you, and I think Hemmer's capable of that. So, Hemmer-detractors, don't hate him because he's beautiful.

Iraq, written on the body

I give a great deal of credit to CNN reporter Michael Holmes for writing on CNN.com about the day two years ago when he saw two colleagues murdered in Iraq:

As windows exploded and the sheer noise of our would-be killer's weapon echoed in the vehicle, our security guard swung into action, screaming "DOWN! DOWN! DOWN." And to our driver, Ahmed, "GO! GO! GO!"

We always travel in more than one car in case one breaks down. Two members of our team, my translator Duraid Mohammad and a second driver, Yasser Khatib, were in the other vehicle.

Before I threw myself across the back seat, I had one more glance out the now-shattered back window. It was just in time to see Yasser and Duraid's car leave the road, the windshield splattered with their blood. We later learned both were dead.

It's a mental snapshot that will stay with me forever, joining an album I keep deep in my mind. It's one I try not to flip through too often.

Reporters can become anesthetized to the violence. There's an element of déjà vu here sometimes. Another day, another bomb, another attack, another death toll.

Many of us try to stay detached. You'll go crazy if you get emotionally involved in every horror you see. But there are always times when we in the media cannot avoid it. Usually it's when that horror involves you or someone you know.

This week, it is two years since we lost Yasser and Duraid on that Iraqi highway.

It changed me, changed all of us in those cars that day, and many who were not. These were our friends, people we lived, worked, fooled around with.

It changed, too, how we work here in Iraq. Those of us here in the early days would take precautions, but we would think little about walking the streets in Baghdad and elsewhere, speaking with locals, getting a firsthand look at the story we were covering.

I miss them, and think of them most days. Their names are tattooed on my arm in Arabic, a design I had specially done in Cairo.

And you've got to give him credit for the tattoo, no matter how you feel about tattoos in general. That's commitment emblemized, both to journalism and to humanity--and that's a fine combination. Sometimes wearing your pain is a good thing. That graphic at the top of the page, by the way, is a Japanese Kanji character for "sorrow." Funny how for all Jon Klein's rapturous talk about a forced emotionalization of the news, it's the stuff you wish never happened--like seeing your friends murdered on the job--that best exemplifies the power of emotion. There's a lesson here for Klein: emotion is power, yes, but the most powerful emotion can't be scripted, and we should never wish it could be.

Trying too hard, cable news edition

So CNN prez Jon Klein is characterizing the gamble CNN's taking by hiring Bill Bennett "as part of CNN's ongoing effort to bring a broad range of perspectives to its viewers."

Ahem. This is what's known as trying too hard. It's ordinarily assumed--or should be, anyway--that if you're in the news business you're automatically showing all sides of the story, both sides of the coin, letting all voices be heard, etc...but apparently, this is news to CNN, no pun intended. CNN shouldn't be straining to "bring" anything, much less some vaunted, high-sounding, but ultimately mythical "range of perspectives." If you want to get kind of Zen about it, cable news is really all about the art of allowing: allowing the news to flow. Instead, Klein and Co. are frantically trying to remove all the built-in PC blockages established in CNN's liberal culture over the years...eith a conservative commentator who, fairly or unfairly, is synonymous with "sanctimonious hypocrite" to the general public. C'mon, CNN. Bennett might be a risk taker, but he's no miracle worker.

Accuracy in Media: Step aside, let us run FNC

Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid continues his campaign to be named Fox News chief so he can run it into the ground. I mean, that's the only explanation for his endless bitching and moaning over the fact that Fox News lives up to its "Fair & Balanced" slogan:

Accuracy in Media has led the way in reporting on concern among conservatives that the Fox News Channel is drifting to the left. Perhaps the most egregious example was the global warming program on Fox featuring Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a "special correspondent." Some people who responded to our comments noted that FNC host Bill O'Reilly had bought into the man-made global warming theory long before the channel ran the Kennedy special.

"Your writing is 'right on' and we can't agree more," said one. "O'Reilly has really gone bonkers..."

Another said, "Just read your recent article regarding Fox News Channel and the global warming issue and I am glad you chose to address this matter. I've forwarded to you an email I sent FNC after seeing portions of their show. I did not bother to watch all of it. I thought you might appreciate reading my email response to FNC after they aired their environmental propaganda piece."

He added, "FNC is not the cure-all broadcaster to counter liberally biased MSM. It is better than MSM, but is not perfect. Much of its regular programming fails to meet its own 'fair and balanced' mantra; your analysis of Bill O'Reilly is a good example."

One person wrote in to say, "No one has even mentioned the spate of ex-CNN reporters, such as Bill Hemmer, coming to FOX...and he certainly is NOT fair and balanced. He has the Washington Post and NY Times people on more than any other sources. Wesley Clark? Conservative? I don't think so! No one to rebut him either. What has happened to Shepard Smith? Apparently he has been in NYC too long.....and New Orleans! It has gotten to him, I think. Oh well, it was too good to last..."

One said, "Good article! I had to give up on Fox News about six months ago. The morning show stopped doing news, the obsession with President Bush's poll numbers over the last year. Just a continued spiral down the drain."

Still another: "I have abandoned Fox News the same way they have left the conservatives."

Oh, that gullible, easily-led O'Reilly. He just lets any old liberal group steamroller him, right? Boy, Cliff, you know O'Reilly better than he knows himself!

Please. I couldn't even keep a straight face when I was typing that.

There's a reason FNC is the number-one cable news channel: because it epitomizes what journalism is supposed to be, namely unbiased. So fine, Cliff, keep complaining--that's what advocates do. (And you're an advocate for bias, not a news executive--an important point to keep in mind.) The rest of the country's going to keep watching Fox, no matter how much you agitate for the channel to unbalance its journalistic scales.

Susan Estrich on her close call with Madeline Albright, the first Secretary of State who should be slapped with a restraining order

It what will henceforth be known as "The Two Asses" story, the great Johnny Dollar has some must-hear audio over at J$P of a John Gibson interview with Democratic strategist Susan Estrich, (not to mention selected readings of some truly hysterical hate mail from the single-celled organisms over at NewsHounds.us. Estrich, a very smart woman and former Dukakis campaign manager, talks to Gibson about the dangers of daring to question the liberal party line ("God forbid I should say something critical about St. Hillary") and the consequences--which include being cornered by a screaming, frothing-at-the-mouth Madeline Albright at the '04 Dem convention. It's got a punch line you have to hear to believe!

Attn liberal media: Steven Colbert will not be your trained poodle. For real

I love this. In an interview with the Onion's AV Club, Steven Colbert the person--as opposed to Steven Colbert, the "Colbert Report" character, proves that he's nobody's dancing poodle, not the Right's and not the Left's, and I'm going to make a prediction here: eventually that will make the liberal media crazy, and they'll turn on him. Fortunately, he's such a genius that it won't matter.

Witness, for example, Colbert-the-person's elegant refusal to jump on the bash-Bill-O'Reilly bandwagon, despite numerous attempts to bait him into doing so by AV Club interviewer Nathan Rabin. Instead, every time Rabin desperately tries to throw O'Reilly under the bus, Colbert-the-person compliments O'Reilly and says, very sincerely, that O'Reilly is just flat, all-out great. Rabin must have been sweating with the effort and in tears by the end of the interview. I'm amazed the Onion even ran it. Rock on, Steven!

By his own admission, Stephen Colbert specializes in playing "high-status idiots," a niche he refined as a venerable correspondent on The Daily Show and perfects as the host of The Colbert Report, a Daily Show spin-off that adroitly satirizes Bill O'Reilly's bullying media-age demagoguery...the A.V Club spoke with Colbert about Bill O'Reilly, fantasy role-playing games, and the plague of truthiness sweeping the nation.

AVC: What about Bill O'Reilly and similar figures makes them so ripe for satire?

SC: Status is always ripe for satire, status is always good for comedy. And they have the highest possible status—and that's what we've tried to amplify with everything on the show. Everything on the show has my name on it, every bit of the set. One of the things I said to the set designer—who has done everything, I mean even Meet The Press, he does that level of news design—was "One of your inspirations should be [DaVinci's painting] The Last Supper." All the architecture of that room points at Jesus' head, the entire room is a halo, and he doesn't have a halo." And I said, "On the set, I'd like the lines of the set to converge on my head." And so if you look at the design, it all does, it all points at my head. And even radial lines on the floor, and on my podium, and watermarks in the images behind me, and all the vertices, are right behind my head. So there's a sort of sun-god burst quality about the set around me. And I love that. That's status.

AVC: There's an innate appeal to demagogues, and your show plays on that. Is it fun to be playing a character who's so insanely narcissistic? Is there any element of it that's cathartic?

SC: It's hard. It is fun, because mostly it's getting laughs. The audience seems to be responding to it, so that's the fun part. But the character can be tough, because it's hard for me to maintain the level of self-assurance that someone like O'Reilly has all the time. He was so admirable in a way when he was on Letterman, because he really was kind of unflappable. He was bigger than any venue he's in. And that's a hard thing to achieve. I'd love to be able to believe that for short periods of time. I'm afraid if I did that completely well, I'd never be able to turn it off. How great would it be to feel that great about yourself?

AVC: It seems like it's much more an overt parody of O'Reilly.

SC: Right, sure, O'Reilly, Hannity, there's a little bit of Lou Dobbs, where he rides the same story over and over again, the attention to sartorial detail like Anderson Cooper, absolutely bullheaded holding onto an idea, no matter how shallowly considered, like Hannity, and almost a physical aggressiveness that O'Reilly has. O'Reilly's the easiest one to reference, because he's the most popular. He's the one everyone's gonna understand. And he also does it best. He's an incredibly aggressive performer. We try to include a little bit of all of them.

Got it, MSM? The smartest and best satirists, like Colbert, send everybody up, but even more important, they don't know the meaning of the phrase "sacred cow." And in this case, Bill O'Reilly's not the sacred cow--the reality of what happened in this interview is more complex and more important. The sacred cow here is the unspoken implication that in order to be taken seriously as a social commentator, you have to specifically bash O'Reilly. And Colbert just proved his toughness and his willingness to rebel against all liberal MSM dogma. That's why Colbert has staying power, and that's why he'll be on the outs with the NYT, eventually. It's also why he'll go down in history as a new HL Mencken.

"Meet the Press" gets egged again?

The NYT reports this morning that Tim Russert's student son will be co-hosting a sports show on XM Satellite Radio with The James, that is, the Hunter S. Thompson of Democratic politics himself, James Carville:


Carville, the former campaign manager and Democratic talking head, has often been criticized for turning politics into sports. Now he will get a shot at the real thing.

XM Satellite Radio will announce today that, beginning in March, Mr. Carville will be the co-host of a one-hour sports talk show, trading his thoughts and barbs with Luke Russert, a Boston College student and son of Tim Russert, the NBC television commentator.

The Carville and Russert families decamp near each other at Washington Nationals baseball games and Washington Wizards basketball games, and the men began a sports debate that evolved into a suggestion for a show.

"I've always had the idea for a sports show," Mr. Carville said.

For a college student--not a former pro athlete, not anyone with any formal sports-commentator experience--that's a nice gig if you can get it. So will Tim Russert disclose, every time James Carville is a guest on "Meet the Press" (that's a pic of Carville smashing an egg on his face on Meet the Press in November '04 above) that Carville is his son's on-air associate? How about every time Carville's on NBC, period? I'd think all parties involved would be interested in avoiding any more eggs on any more NBC faces.

News supermarket + shaking things up = huge mess

Jon Friedman has some thoughtful and, I think, good advice for CNN in his Media Web column over at Market Watch:

It's no secret that CNN has been panicking as rival Fox News relentlessly widened the ratings gap between itself and the former "Clinton News Network." Rather than stick to one journalistic style and let an audience gravitate to it (the secret to Fox's success), CNN changed approaches and personnel regularly and, naturally, failed to establish a clear identity with the public and the critics.

CNN shouldn't be running a news supermarket. It should stand for something -- anything. Not only would it be a better network, but the morale of its beleaguered troops would go up. Pssst -- so might those precious ratings.

Yeah, I remember my second grade art class, too

The Nebraska Journal Star reports on an art show in Lincoln showcasing the work of five local artists, but I don't think the Met is going on alert anytime soon:


The most directly political work in the show comes from Justin Kemerling, who takes on what he calls the “corporate serpent” in a series of small pieces...

“Fox News is Bloodthirsty Ferocity and we are those unable to dialogue” reads the text on “Ferocity,” one of Kemerling’s anti-corporate pieces. The primary imagery — a headless bird layered over a cage.

Apparently, we're unable to produce any actual art, either. But it's impressive stuff for...well, the article doesn't say how old Justin Kemerling is, but I do seem to recall pretty similar stuff being produced by my fellow 7-year-olds in second-grade art class, especially when we were cranky due to a cookie shortage.

CNN's Beck: "It took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families....."

Way to go, CNN. I'd go on about what a creep your new HLN hire Glenn Beck is, but I think I'll just let him speak for himself
(courtesy of--and I have to give credit where credit is due here--an equally scandalized Media Matters for America.) Besides, I think I have to go vomit.

You know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year. And I had such compassion for them, and I really wanted to help them, and I was behind, you know, "Let's give them money, let's get this started." All of this stuff. And I really didn't -- of the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of them. Probably about 10 of them. And when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, "Oh shut up!" I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining.

CNN, you didn't move to the right by hiring Beck. You moved to the wrong. It's a whole different place.

MSNBC, your cable news channel...to trigger an epileptic seizure

According to Inside Cable News, MSNBC is tarting up its visuals and adding graphics/boxes/giant crawls/weather to the screen. (Thanks to TVNewser for the screen grab.) That's like changing lip gloss to hide the fact that you're 30 pounds overweight.

So the quality of news won't be any better, but if you're in the market for the kind of repetitive, dizzying, flashing and twinkling lights and fast-moving letters and numbers that could trigger a neurological event....MSNBC's your news channel!

Time-Warner's King Richard the Disposable

So Carl Icahn can no longer hide one of the worst-kept secrets in business: that for all the glowing, gushing press Time-Warner CEO Dick Parsons has gotten over the years, Icahn considers him thoroughly disposable.

Carl Icahn is considering submitting a full slate of alternative directors in his proxy fight for control of Time Warner, including an alternative chief executive candidate who will seek to replace the incumbent Dick Parsons.

So far, it is not clear who the alternative chief executive candidate would be.

However, potential candidates are mostly not from the media sector, according to people involved. Instead, executives with experience of cost-cutting and restructuring are being approached.

One can only assume that candidates with only good press and no actual good track record at being a media executive need not apply.

Power Books: Roger Ailes' reading list in the WSJ

Check out Fox News chief (and author) Roger Ailes' reading list in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal:


Media Elites
The best books about the news business.

BY ROGER AILES
Saturday, January 21, 2006 12:01 a.m.

1. "The Medium Is the Message" by Marshall McLuhan (Bantam, 1967).
The book also comes titled "The Medium Is the Massage," a typesetter's error that amused McLuhan so much, he decided to keep it. I was just starting in the television business when I read this book and recognized immediately the nerve it struck. In those days, we were still filming in black and white. There were no satellite hook-ups. But it was already clear to me that people who knew how to use television had enormous power at their disposal. McLuhan proposed that the collective way we watch television has created a "global village," one that is more affected by the nature of the medium than by the content of the message. I'd only add this to the formula: Never underestimate the influence of dominant TV news personalities, like Walter Cronkite in his day and those who have followed.

2. "The Kingdom and the Power" by Gay Talese (World Publishing, 1969).

Compared with the troubled New York Times of today, the newspaper Mr. Talese describes here--in his inside history of the Times from the postwar years through the 1960s--seems to exist in a golden age. Yes, we see the clash of giant egos and the infighting over everything from the coverage of the Kennedys to the appointment of a theater critic. But who, back then, could have imagined the Jayson Blair scandal or a deteriorating Times culture that allowed it to happen? When I was growing up, people thought: If it's in the Times, then it must be true. Who thinks that now? Reading Mr. Talese's hugely enjoyable, exquisitely detailed book in 2006 has to be a bittersweet experience.

3. "Breaking the News" by James Fallows (Pantheon, 1996).

This book stands out for how directly it addresses the arrogance and negativism of the press, which run counter to the way Americans feel about their country. Consider the media's current obsession with the wiretapping story. If an al Qaeda member is phoning somebody in the U.S., what are we supposed to believe--that he's looking for travel tips? Americans know better. On other matters, they can be more susceptible to media persuasion. Decrying the development of "attitude" journalism as a desperate attempt to hold onto audiences, Mr. Fallows says that leading journalists in the 1990s (the period under discussion) presented views of public life and public figures much bleaker than the ones they held themselves. The condition he describes so well has not changed.

4. "Three Blind Mice" by Ken Auletta (Random House, 1991).

Mr. Auletta's tremendous access to sources was the making of this entertaining book, subtitled "How the TV Networks Lost Their Way." Among other things, it shows how network people spend their lives sucking up, stabbing each other in the back and then going to corporate meetings promoting teamwork. I remember, from my own experience at NBC, the endless seminars on the subject of integrity. Chronicling the networks' struggles under new managers as audiences declined, Mr. Auletta draws on a vast reservoir of anecdotes. Some of them are familiar, like the one about Dan Rather's angrily marching off the "CBS Evening News" set, leaving the screen blank for six minutes. Most of the stories, though, come as insider intelligence of a high order.

5. "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg (Regnery, 2001).

This breakthrough book says: Let's stop pretending, let's finally acknowledge the elephant in the room--the fact that the media, composed largely of liberals, view the world through the prism of leftist politics and report the news accordingly. The subtitle of this best seller is "A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News," but Mr. Goldberg quickly became an outsider at the network after he first spoke out publicly on media bias. This treatment by CBS surprised the veteran newsman, because he had once been a liberal himself. But Mr. Goldberg also happened to believe in keeping an open mind. That's what made him unacceptable to his liberal colleagues.

Midwest to FNC: Primetime Hemmer?

A TCG reader in Iowa writes that FNC needs to spread the HemmerLove more evenly in the schedule:

I am a news junkie and was a fan of American Morning with Bill Hemmer and Jack Cafferty. I was irritated about the way CNN changed that program and the way they released negative comments about Hemmer. So...I completely changed from CNN to FOX. Now my complaint is where is Hemmer?? tucked away in the middle of the day for about an hour while most people are working. What a disappointment. I think he deserves more.

FNC's Paul Gigot, post-"Connie & Maury" brain paramedic

So let's say you watch "Weekends with Connie & Maury" this Saturday at 10am on MSNBC because, say, your job isn't going well, or you're unhappy with your significant other, and in either case you just want to see people who are worse off than you. But it melts your brain instead! You come off that half-hour with a good 10-point reduction in your I.Q. (Remember, we're talking Connie Chung here--even
Keith Olbermann can't stand her.)

Fortunately there's an antidote. The brainy Paul Gigot and the equally brainy Wall Street Journal's Journal Editorial Report start airing on the Fox News Channel this Saturday night at 11pm. So if you do watch MSNBC's fun couple in the a.m., just try not to drive or operate heavy machinery until Gigot can re-brain you in the evening.

Today's riddle: Why did the mule cross the road?

Answer: So the Fox could chase that ass right back over. Check out Tim Goodman's genius, genius, genius column this morning. Excerpts don't do it justice; let's just say that if I were Rita Cosby I'd be considering law school right now, you know, just as something to fall back on. And he totally calls new HLN hire Glenn Beck on what an Olympian jerk he is. At any rate, the column's a masterpiece.


These must be great days to work at Fox News. Not only does the 24-hour cable channel beat rival CNN like a sick, sad mule, but Roger Ailes is so deep in the heads of CNN's managers that every time they stumble over themselves in chaos -- which is often -- the chairman of Fox News looks like some kind of psyops genius.

If Ailes -- boo! -- isn't haunting the halls of CNN and driving CNN President Jonathan Klein batty with paranoia, then how else to explain Klein's relentlessly nonsensical decisions, which are driving CNN into the ground? What person rooted in reality looks at CNN and thinks, "Now there's a network on the rise"?

Well, apparently there's one person -- Klein.

If you watch CNN or Headline News with any regularity, then you know it won't be long before the Next Big Blunder. Perhaps that news crawl at the bottom of the screen will read: "We're Out of Ideas -- Try MSNBC."

Honestly, it's exhausting trying to figure out what in the world the game plan is at CNN. The current best guess: "Wait for trouble. Send Anderson Cooper right to it. Roll camera."

That's not a strategy. That's a crutch.

David Brock: Betrayal, The Sequel

Mark Jurkowitz writes in the Boston Phoenix that professional Fox-basher David Brock (pictured above partying with liberal firebrand Congressman Barney Frank and friend) has some nice things to say about Bill O'Reilly:


[T]he general consensus is that despite O’Reilly’s and the Fox News Channel’s rightward tilt, his viewership isn’t all firmly in the George Bush column. So the assumption is that the dissenting guest might find a few sympathetic ears.

“He’s clearly not just speaking to the converted,” says Brock. “I think there’s some validity to the idea that some of his audience has an open mind.”

Brock, who says that representatives of Media Matters for America have tried unsuccessfully to get on the program for over a year, says targets of Factor can either decline to go on “or risk having no representation. I often suggest if you can prepare yourself, I think it can be worthwhile.”

Now this is really fascinating when you think about what might really be going on here. The first possible explanation for Brock making nice with an arch-enemy like O'Reilly holds water: that Brock is tired of languishing in crazy-billionaire-funded semi-obscurity over at left-wing watchdog outfit Media Matters, and wants to move and shake with the real players again. But I'm going to hazard a guess that what this make-nicing really is, is turncoat Brock's long-awaited new betrayal. Remember, this is a man who famously disavowed his home on the Right in order to make a buck off his ensuing self-flagellation. So it makes sense that now that he's been hanging out with the Left long enough to get a whole lot of dirt on its operatives, that he'd be begging the highest-rated personality in cable news for a platform to dish it.

Coming this fall in bookstores near you: "David Brock: Prodigal Son Republican."