Talk is never more cheap than when it's barked loudly by those most unprofessional of professional Fox News-haters, the Newshounds. Take their latest beef: with the outstanding Fox News Channel reporter Greg Palkot, who has done an outstanding job reporting from Indonesia in the aftermath of the earthquake this week. I can only imagine how difficult it must be--physically, emotionally, intellectually--to report lucidly, logically and compassionately while surrounded--subsumed is probably a better work--by the kind of human suffering the earthquake has wrought. But Palkot is doing an amazing job anyway. But does that stop the Newshounds from taking shots that are not just cheap, but deranged and cheap? Of course not:

Help for Help Sake? Not to Fox
Reported by Donna - May 30, 2006

Today on Fox News Live (12 - 1 p.m.) there was a segment on the U.S. providing help to Indonesia because they had suffered so much from a devastating earthquake. Good story, right? It was until reporter Greg Palkot said that by helping Indonesia, with it's [sic]large Muslim population, there may be "political dividends for the U.S. as well."

During the story Palkot talked about us setting up a medical and surgery facility and how this could help U.S. relations with Indonesia.

Comments: I couldn't help but wonder, what happened to helping people because it's the right thing to do, not because we expect something out of it? Isn't this something that every child learns as they grow? Not to Fox, it's what we're going to get out of it that counts.

Now, we know the Newshounds are keyboard jockeys who wouldn't last two seconds trying to report from the scene of a natural disaster, so one would think that they'd refrain from criticizing someone who's actually out in the field doing a job very few people could do, or do well. But it seems that the Newshounds' problem with Greg Palkot is that he's being a real journalist and providing some astute geopolitical context to the disaster instead of just reading statistics about the aid to Indonesia into the camera.

The Newshounds: never letting their schnauzer-sized brains get in the way of their opinions.

TV Newser has a great interview with FNC's awesome Steve Harrigan today--worth reading every line. Steve (shown left, in La Macarena, Columbia) is headed back to Baghdad in July...and (fingers crossed) he'd like to write a book....

Check out Steve's latest dispatch, from the OPEC conference in Caracas...

The New York Observer's Gabriel Sherman writes approvingly on the latest lefty hate attack on the media--Eric Boehlert's "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush"--and uses his review as an opportunity to slip in a casually huge falsehood about the most successful television news venture in history, Fox News Channel:

Historically, the wolf pack of media bashers has come from the right. Conservatives found they could whip up support from their base by exposing the MSM’s “liberal media bias” with a jab at The New York Times or the CBS News. (Roger Ailes launched Fox News to wild success based entirely on that single premise.)

The contemporary psychological term for what Sherman does here, coined by writer Neil Strauss in his book "The Game" about how to pick up women, is called "negging." It's basically a manipulative trust technique that incorporates a compliment and a put-down in the same sentence. The theory is that you're disarmed by the compliment--clearly, the provider of the compliment is perceptive and intelligent!--and thus more likely to believe the insult. This is what Sherman attempts with the reader. He compliments Fox News by truthfully referencing its "wild success," then slips in the untruth: that Roger Ailes made FNC such a success by simplistically and exclusively "jabbing" the NYT and CBS, and not by his revolutionary and genius concept of fair and balanced reporting.

Sherman gets an "F" in objective reporting...but an "A" in attempting to mess with the reader's mind to score biased political points. His pickup-artist-like psychological warfare is appropriate, though, because his brand of Fox News bashing is perfect barroom talk: all empty posturing, no substance.

Al Gore, spinning and hoping for the death of television news

Al Gore tells Seattle Weekly that television is on its way out:

GORE: [In] the early 1960s when the television became the source of information for the majority, for a couple decades after that, the TV news operations mimicked The New York Times, and The Chicago Tribune, etc. The struggle at the heart of Good Night, and Good Luck chronicles the point when that began to change, and entertainment values asserted themselves. Add in conglomerate ownership with a smaller and smaller number of owners, and then all of a sudden the fundamental nature of television began to be apparent: It is one-way. It's one-way. It's like the medieval monastic scriptorium. If you wanted to be a writer in the Middle Ages, you had to be a monk, and then you could copy a dead guy's book in a dead language. Now, if you want to be Thomas Paine on television, you can't. You have to go work for a studio, and then you play a bit part on a show about people eating dogs.

The Internet is changing all of this, and once again creating a multiway conversation with low entry barriers for individuals. However, due to the architecture of packet switching, it will not support mass distribution of full-motion video, which is essential to produce the quasi-hypnotic effect that television has. The average American watches television four hours and 39 minutes a day, up four minutes from last year. Most of the people using the Internet are watching television simultaneously. So television is dominant; it won't stay that way, but right now it is.

This sure is a lot of talk to say: what, exactly? That people persist on getting their televison news from actual telvision news because they're slavishly addicted to a "quasi-hypnotic effect"? That people are too stupid to turn off the television and agitate for a Max Headroom-type delivery system of the news...but with the advent of technology, humans will be forced to evolve into an internet-dominant existence?

Al Gore is being patronizing and talking dumb--because television news will never be replaced by the internet. If "mass distribution of full-motion video" became the norm, then guess what? Your computer would become, by definition, a television, complete with commercials. And hard cold headlines will never replace flesh and blood anchors, as long as viewers remain flesh and blood humans with basic and inextricable psychological needs for the basic relatability and empathy a human news correspondent provides.

Yet Gore yaps on....well, I guess if you invented the internet, you're going to proclaim its imminent omniscience until the last dog gets eaten.

Check out this cool behind-the-scenes FoxCam look at the mini-studios that are set up when Fox News goes on location. The video clip, in this instance showcasing the technical shake, rattle and roll behind Sean Hannity's recent live remote from Grand Rapids, Michigan, includes an invite to email the producers with questions or suggestions.

This is a cool thing all around, because I've always thought that the news is the original reality television, making even "Survivor" look derivative by definition. Virtual behind-the-scenes access is another way of increasing the viewer's knowledge of the news game, and in this case as in every other, knowledge is power. It's a way to, in effect, democratize the news--and if utilizing viewer feedback leads to increased ratings, well, talk about a win-win.

Anderson Cooper's narrative nudity--or, the emperor has no (ratings) clothes

Weekly Standard writer Matt Labash satirizes CNN's Anderson Cooper in the 6/5 issue:

...We now recognize the host of CNN's 360 the way we recognize the sun and moon, which are always before us, as Anderson is. He is silvery and sleek, the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, the friend of mankind. He is an enigma wrapped in a mystery ensconced in a French blue shirt, which really makes his eyes pop, by the way. Not that he cares about shirts. He doesn't really need one. In fact, if it were up to him, he'd probably do every show naked. Because that's how he comes to the story. And maybe because of that nakedness, he tells better stories. Which, strictly speaking, is a Nissan slogan. But I wouldn't be surprised if Nissan became one of his sponsors, since, they, like Anderson, understand narrative nudity.

Anderson goes where the news is, and even where it's not, sometimes bringing it with him in a carry-on bag, since he packs light, because he never knows when he's going to have to dodge a bullet or a hurricane projectile. Danger is his middle name. Actually "Hays" is, but "Danger" is so much more, I don't know, dangerous-sounding.

His first name is Anderson, which of course means "son of Andrew," as in the first disciple called by Jesus. And like our Lord and Savior, he is omnipresent. He's on two hours a night on America's News Leader, the second-place network CNN. He writes for Details, poses for Maxim, and is called one of the sexiest anchors alive by Playgirl magazine. There he is crying in New Orleans. Wait, no! Now his throat's tightening in Niger. Time out! Isn't that him vacationing in Rwanda at the genocide museum, since he says he hasn't been in a while? Hold up a second! What's that rustling? Is that Anderson under the bed, finding the news, emoting over it, smothering it with a pillow until its legs kick and twitch, then sliding out the bathroom window before anyone notices?

This is amusing...although I don't think it's cool to make fun of Cooper's mother to get at him. Making fun of Gloria Vanderbilt for being born rich is similar to how Democrats made fun of George H.W. Bush for being born rich (and he had a great riposte to that: he said he couldn't help where he was born, he just wanted to be near his mother at the time.) What's not so funny, if you're Jon Klein or Anderson Cooper, is the fact that Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren is just whipping 360 like a rented mule in the ratings. So here's my question: since it's incontrovertible that his ratings aren't great and getting less great by the second, why is the media paying so much attention to him? Negative attention is still attention. My point is that sometimes, there's something to the old adage of ignoring something so it'll go away.

Helen Thomas, soul of reason?!

In a Q & A with Helen Thomas in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, writer Deborah Solomon continues to let her bias against Fox News show and makes professional Fox News-basher Thomas seem positively balanced:

SOLOMON: Are you concerned that the members of the Bush administration seem to give most of their interviews to Fox News?

THOMAS: No. It's always good to hear whatever anyone in power has to say, and if Fox has the access, good. If they can produce the news, that's what we want. We want the people to be informed.

Amazing how when it comes to the MSM's reporting on Fox News, "seems" is good enough; actual facts, actual reporting (as in, what is the numeric breakdown of interviews given to the different news nets by the Bush administration) is for tiresome sticklers for accuracy. Here's a little rule of thumb to measure one's degree of media bias. If Helen Thomas sounds like the soul of reason and fairness next to you, you have a real problem. It also means that you fit right in at the New York Times. Congratulations, Deborah Solomon: if you keep this up, you'll never get your reputation for accuracy back. Oops! That's right: if you never had it, you can't lose it!

Storm, aka Halle Berry, does cartwheels on "Fox & Friends"!

Yay! The awesome Halle Berry was on "Fox & Friends" doing cartwheels in four-inch heels (video clip)--did you know she was a gymnast when she was little?--and talking about her new movie, "X-Men: The Last Stand." (I saw it and it was absolutely awesome, really just the single most entertaining and uplifting movie I've seen in a LONG time. Go see it!)

Parents of teenage girls to CNN's Showbiz Tonight: Thanks, thanks a lot. That'll be $200 for an hour of therapy for my kid, please

CNN Headline News, aka the Nancy Grace Network, is moving full steam ahead with its new theme of "Life is a crime and we're the survelliance camera." Last night's "Showbiz Tonight" made the parents of many (well, considering ST's ratings, hopefully not all that many) teenage girls very, very unhappy with its feature on "pro-ana," or pro-anorexia, web sites. The feaure also included a segment on the "startling trend" of young girls cutting themselves, just to keep parents tearing their hair out when they walk into the living room and see their teenagers glued to HLN like it's the latest "Hills Have Eyes"-type slash/torture flick.

First of all, these pro-ana websites have been around for years; I first saw one five years ago when a girlfriend on a perpetual diet showed it to me. So HLN isn't exactly breaking any news here; what Showbiz Tonight IS doing is exploiting tragedy and violence directed against oneself (full show transcript here.) ST is providing sick, vicarious thrills to sick people who want to hurt themselves and to the television audience in general. Again, the whole segment was the equivalent of a slasher flick aimed at a teenage audience--but because it's real, the consequences are real, too. Check out this excerpt that is going to make a thousand perpetually-dieting teenagers run for their computers:

VARGAS: And for those of you who haven`t heard about these websites referred to as pro-ana, they`re teaching people, mostly teen girls, how to become anorexic and bulimic. They even provided one primetime TV star with dangerous tips that sent her life into a tailspin. Now, we`ll speak to her in a moment, but first, a look inside pro-ana through SHOWBIZ TONIGHT`s Brooke Anderson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON (voice-over): A hunger to find others like them, a desire to be thin, to be perfect. That`s what`s driving more and more people to sites like these.

They`re called pro-ana for pro-anorexia, or pro-mia for pro-bulimia. They`re places people go to trade disturbing tips. This one recommends using a spoon instead of your finger to purge food after a binge. Many of the pro-ana sites use pictures of stars, "thinspiration" for girls looking to replicate their favorite actresses or models.

LYNN GREFE, NATIONAL EATING DISORDERS ASSOCIATION: Encouraging people to be ill is really what it is, and it`s like a secret cult. It`s a secret society and word spreads around.

ANDERSON: Word has most definitely been spreading around. Sites like these are popping up all over the Web. Do a Google search for pro-ana, and you`ll get thousands of hits, each and every one sending a dangerous message about eating disorders, that they`re actually a good thing.

HAMMER: Actress and singer Scarlett Pomers says she used pro-ana sites while suffering from anorexia. Her illness got so bad, that she had to enter rehab and leave the set of "Reba," that`s the TV show she starred in alongside Reba McEntire. Well, Pomers is now in recovery and is an ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT`s Brooke Anderson had a chance to speak with Scarlett and asked her why anyone would even visit websites that teach them how to be sick.

ANDERSON: I was looking at the websites today, looking at some of them, and I was shocked at some of the tips that I read. They included smelling the garbage when you get a hunger pain so that you don`t want to eat, or cleaning something gross so that you lose your appetite. What are some of the more outrageous tips that you learned, and you used, and that also you were teaching others?

POMERS: Well, I actually don`t really like to talk about specifically what I did when I had my eating disorder or the tips that I learned, because I know that other girls who do have eating disorders, even though they might see someone like me who is in recovery and who is being, you know, more -- making healthier choices and living a good life after an eating disorder, they will use the tips for, you know, destructive behavior. So I prefer not to talk about it specifically what I did or what I learned, but definitely the ones that you described are some of the less extreme ones, I would say.

Well, Scarlett Pomers has some sense--she knows that if she talks about her illness, she'll trigger vulnerable girls to engage in the same behavior. Brooke Anderson, on the other hand, is just salivating over the prospect of polluting the airwaves with "some of the more outrageous" tips out there, like we're talking about a new way to wear your makeup or your jeans, or do yoga or kiss someone, and not about a deadly disease that kills young girls and devastates families.

But wait--there's more. Did you know, for example, that all the cool, pretty cheerleaders are doing it--self-mutilating, that is?

ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Driven by hope, 16- year-old Danielle and her mom traveled all the way from Tennessee here to Linden Oaks Hospital outside Chicago.

JACQUE OBENHUBER, MOTHER OF SELF-ABUSING DAUGHTER: You OK?

DANIELLE HURST, WANTS TO STOP HURTING HERSELF: I`m cold.

OBENHUBER: OK. Cold is good, better than other things.

UDOJI: Other things, dark and dangerous things brought them here in search of help.

HURST: I`m ready. I`m ready to change. I really want to do this for myself.

UDOJI: For years, Danielle, a cheerleader, a gifted student, a budding actress, has kept a secret from nearly everyone: always smiling, but battling depression and teenage stress using scissors and knives to cut herself.

HURST: It made me feel like all my troubles were flowing out and it wasn`t blood; you know, it was my troubles with my mom, and my problems at school, and my body image.

UDOJI (on camera): Shocking to some, but experts estimate up to six million Americans injure or mutilate themselves, often through cutting, and that number, they say, is growing.

Self-mutilation has also been around for years among vulnerable teenage girls; anybody who went to high school in the past 10 years has known someone who's done it. Ask any guidance counselor. Again, Showbiz Tonight isn't providing information. This is not news; this is a sick kind of entertainment. It's exploiting and glamorizing the saddest kind of gore in the most salacious way possible. Why is this segment even on Showbiz Tonight? Well, CNN would probably say it's because anorexic teenagers are starving themselves to look like celebrities. But that's weak and lame. CNN is doing it for the same reason that teenage girls in bikinis always got slaughtered first in the old "Friday the 13th" movies: because it's salacious and disturbing. But unlike R-rated slasher flicks, unlike parental controls on internet software (which thousands of parents are now forced to update tonight to block keywords like "pro-ana" and "thinsperation,") the news is supposed to be a source of information, not a source of vampirish entertainment, not a self-destruction manual for miserable adolescents staying up late without their parents' knowledge.

I'm not saying the news shouldn't make parents aware that this stuff goes on. I'm just saying it could have been handled in a much more sensitive, much more sober, much less vivid way (CNN kept flashing pics of very thin models and actresses during the segment, like it was a rock video made in hell.) CNN is going to increase the number of kids visiting pro-ana, pro-mutilation sites, not decrease them. And you can bet that lunch tables in high schools all across America today are trading those website addresses today, thanks to Showbiz Tonight.

Life's all about intention, and though CNN would protest, CNN's overall intention with this story is not good. And if I were a parent, Showbiz Tonight would have a parental-control block on my cable system from now on.

CNN: Rooting for Ghana in the World Cup. Why? Funny you should ask...

Today's CNN eye-roller of the day: check out this puff piece on Ghana's chances in the 2006 World Cup on CNN.com...and ask yourself, hmmmm....

LEICESTER, England -- Ghana continued their warm-up for the World Cup with a comfortable 4-1 victory over Jamaica.

"We are getting better each game and by the time of the World Cup we will be ready to beat any team," said Serb coach Ratomir Dujkovic.

Ghana are in Group E with the Czech Republic, the United States and Italy.

They got off to a perfect start when Sulley Muntari pounced on a loose ball on five minutes after Jamaican keeper Donovan Ricketts could only parry a shot.

"Warm-up for the World Cup"? "Perfect start"? I read the sports pages, and I can't remember the last time an actual professional sportswriter nearly fainted with bliss over the prospects of a team he didn't have money or a relative on.

So why the dumb slobbering over Ghana's soccer team? Could it be, oh, say, because Ghana is now CNN's client?

[Ghana announced on Monday is has] launched a new media campaign to market Ghana through the Cable News Network (CNN) for three months.

The campaign seeks to entice CNN's global viewers to experience at first hand the richness and diversity of Ghanaian culture, tradition, chieftaincy, and natural edifices such as forts and castles, game and wildlife, parks and gardens, rivers and waterfalls.

The 60 seconds promotion would be telecast to CNN viewers in Africa, Europe and the Middle East during prime time through CNN's Sight and Sound programme.

Bridgette Katsriku, Chief Director, who launched the campaign on behalf of the sector Minister said the ministry had developed a strategic plan to ensure the country did not become a dumping ground for misfit tourists.

In other news today, Ghana's new partnership with CNN got off to a "perfect start" as its reporters apparently got the memo that as long as Ghana's checks don't bounce, only good news can be reported about the country.

Or we could just show you this

CNN internet reporter (aka blog chick) Abbi Tatton seems like a very nice person, and I know she's got a fan following because she's so pretty and smart. But check this out: Tatton did a nice little song and dance with her touchscreen monitor on CNN's "Situation Room" (with guest host John King) today, clicking around the websites of relief organizations that are aiding the relief efforts after the devastating earthquake in Indonesia. CNN meant well, even though the proverbial parrot with a strong beak could Google that info in about 2 seconds. Then her air-filler segment ends, and the image above flashes on the screen: actual useful information on where to donate.

KING: And for more on the relief efforts in Indonesia, let's bring in our Internet reporter, Abbi Tatton -- Abbi.

ABBI TATTON, CNN INTERNET REPORTER: John, the first airlifts of emergency supplies from UNICEF came to the region this morning. More will follow tomorrow. The U.N. Children's Agency is bringing water, sanitation to those hospitals that the agency reports are overwhelmed.

Some aid agencies already had workers in this region. That was because of a different threat. Oxfam, for example, had a small team and supplies there because of Mount Merapi. This is a volcano nearby which has been rumbling for weeks. The threat has not gone away. That volcano has been three times as active since Saturday.

Other aid agencies are saying, as well as the medical supplies that are needed and the water, there's an urgent need for temporary shelter. Mercy Corps is sending tents. All of these organizations are appealing for donations. You can find all the links at CNN.com -- John.

KING: Thank you, Abbi.

And you can help the relief effort. Donations can be made to the Red Cross at 1-800-REDCROSS or at RedCross.org. Also, try 1-800- 4UNICEF, or, on the Web, at UNICEFUSA.org.

This is what's known as getting shown up. CNN could've just skipped the the blog reporter segment. But then the Situation Room would just have Jack Cafferty to keep things interesting, and...never mind. Keep on keeping on, Abbi.

What kills Chris Matthews' cynicism? The Rev. Billy Graham, for starters

I have to give credit to MSNBC's Chris Matthews for something he said at the beginning of today's Hardball featuring his interview with the Rev. Billy Graham:

MATTHEWS: On this Memorial Day, there are many pressing issues that are dividing the country...and for the majority of Americans, it is our personal religious beliefs that help us endure and perservere during these difficult times.

It was brave of Chris Matthews to put his faith out there like that, to publicly make a statement about his "personal religious beliefs" in such an upfront way in a medium--television news--that too often treats organized religion like a science: something to be studied and utilized if and when convenient, not something to be respected and accepted.

Later, in a segment taped at Rev. Graham's 3-day crusade in New York last summer, Matthews was clearly emotional and overwhelmed at being in Graham's presence, both during the interview and reporting from the sidelines of Graham's speech. Addressing the camera, Matthews' voice cracked:

MATTHEWS: Everyone thinks of evangelism as being a kind of a rural thing, as a kind of a country religion...and I think one of the messages [Graham] wanted to demonstrate here is that evangelism is very big here in a big city like New York...I was watching some white people and black people and different color people all being just as emotional about this chance to be saved...it's very dramatic. It kills your cynicism.

I just thought it was very human of a tough-guy journalist like Matthews to admit that sometimes, cynicism is a bad thing...and that a lot of the time, religion is a good thing. It was the opposite of what many Americans expect of the media elite, and Matthews should also be commended for speaking out against the acceptable contemporary bias of evangelism as "hick faith."

2 CBS crewmembers killed in Iraq today, Dozier in critical condition

Two CBS crewmembers were killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq today and correspondent Kimberley Dozier is in critical condition. Please say a prayer for them and their loved ones.

Veteran cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, were killed, CBS said in a statement. Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was in critical condition at a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad after undergoing surgery.

Ironic and sad that CBS wasn't the place for real-time information on this story; I found the soap-opera "The Young and the Restless" when I checked in on CBS while Fox News was reporting this. But then, that's one of the reasons why network news is becoming increasingly yesterday's news: because, by definition, network news is part of a network that includes non-news programming. Cable news never has to fight itself for dominance in order to report the news.

On Fox News Sunday, a Memorial Day "Power Player of the Week" to remember

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace made an absolutely outstanding choice for its Power Player of the Week: Army Staff Sergeant Alfred Lanier, one of the leaders of the honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Ceremony. SSgt. Lanier sat down with Chris Wallace to talk about his dedication to guarding the tomb and his devotion to his service (in just one example, he didn't even leave his post when 60mph winds toppled trees around him when Hurricane Isabel hit Washington in September '03, even when he was told he could seek shelter):

SSGT. LANIER: While you're on post, the veterans [who visit the Tomb on Memorial Day] will be talking to you, telling you 'thank you' for what you're doing...because they lost a lot of friends in those major campaigns that we had.

WALLACE: The Tombs have been guarded every minute of every day since 1937. How long do you think this will go on?

SSGT. LANIER: The Tomb will be guarded. The Unknowns will be guarded. There will be a vigil pulled until we can identify each of the remains.

WALLACE: And if that goes on forever?

SSGT. LANIER: There will be guards out there forever.

Thank you to SSgt. Lanier for his service, and thank you to Fox News Sunday for introducing viewers to this absolutely outstanding American on Memorial Day weekend.

What do you get when you cross a Harley-Davidson with a cable news reporter?

In Saturday's Washington Post, CNN correspondent John Roberts is revealed as an authentic Harley-riding wild man:

A Newsman Goes Hog Wild

CNN's John Roberts plans to leave the camera crew behind tomorrow, stick his well-coiffed head inside a motorcycle helmet and join Rolling Thunder when the biker vets hit Washington for their annual memorial tribute to veterans, POWs and MIAs.

"I don't think I'm as straight as viewers may think," said Roberts. "I listen to rock-and-roll music and ride a Harley," a 2005 Fat Boy he bought last year. "I love it."

Roberts has been riding since he first tried to attach a motor to his bicycle at the age of 10. (That didn't work out so well.) The 49-year-old gave up motorcycles when he became a father at 28, but embraced the bike again last year. He rode with the Thunder with his teenage son last May. This year, his wife will be along for the ride.

"It's such an amazing show of respect of patriotism with such a broad spectrum of America," Roberts said of the gathering. "The guy who is wearing the brain-bucket helmet with the three-day stubble is just as likely to be the CEO of a company or a garage mechanic."

TCG isn't going to make fun of this, because she thinks it's cool. (His Harley isn't as cool as the Triumph she grew up riding on the back of, but we'll leave the motorcycle snob nit-picking to another time.) It's cool because, as the daughter of a war vet, she thinks Rolling Thunder is way cool; it's cool because it's highly unusual to see a member of the MSM supporting American military veterans in such a personal, positive, and high-profile way off the job; and it's cool because she thinks that news organizations vastly, vastly underuse their accumulated personality-capital, and it's great to see Roberts revealed as a real person, so to speak, off-camera. It's going to drive people who haven't watched him before to tune into CNN, I guarantee you. For starters, Roberts is giving the Americans who came from all over the country to ride their motorcycles in Rolling Thunder a highly postive view of CNN, if only through Roberts' ambassadorship. And Roberts knows this; it's why he gave the interview to the Washington Post.

TCG has been wondering for some time now why news personalities' actual personalities aren't utilized more as a kind of public relations with viewers. I'm not talking about the kind of raw emotion CNN prez Jon Klein encouraged his reporters to express during and after Hurricane Katrina (insulting in itself to the reporters trying to keep it together on air, but that's another post.) I'm talking about intriguing and light-hearted looks into the hearts and minds of personalities with the kind of ratings that indicate that there's a market for another level of information about them. Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith's Playboy interview is a great example.

All I'm saying is that news personalities have ratings, in part, because they have fans. And if there are reporters with ratings that leave something to be desired, well, sharing looks and insights into their personal lives, hopes and dreams helps politicians get elected. Why wouldn't it work to increase fan bases for reporters? Look at Fox News reporter Steve Harrigan, who files the most incredible reporter's notebooks for FoxNews.com, "Harrigan on the Hunt." Just read any of the comments people leave for him after reading his notebooks. People absolutely love Steve Harrigan for the way he puts his heart and soul into his reporting and his writing (regular readers of TCG know that she has always thought Harrigan is the greatest reporter and person ever.) More news personalities should follow Harrigan's great example, even if his great talent isn't as easily duplicated.

All I'm saying is that I wish news organizations would let us see more of the humanity and personality of their reporters...and I hope that any motorcycle-riding reporters from Fox News, or MSNBC, or any national news outlet, represent at Rolling Thunder next year.

New Greta special set to air tonight on Fox News: "Crime Scene: Missing in Paradise"

The tireless Greta Van Susteren will host a new one-hour special on the Natalee Holloway investigation, "Crime Scene: Missing in Paradise" this holiday weekend. The special, set to air tonight (Friday, May 26th at 10pm ET; set to repeat Saturday at 3am and Tuesday at 3am) is billed as an inside look at the missed opportunities and false leads that have impacted the investigation from its beginning, and includes an interview with former suspect Joran van der Sloot (and Greta asks him some tough questions) that reveals his version of the last moments he spent with Holloway. The special will also feature interviews with Gerard Spong, the attorney for new suspect Guido Wever, and Holloway’s parents.

Check out a video clip here...Greta really has the unique ability to ask truly difficult questions without sounding disrespectful, or salacious or insensitive. She just sounds like someone who really just wants to get to the truth, with no agenda whatsoever but the truth--all the while remaining polite and focused. That is a rare and valuable ability that isn't prized nearly enough by other investigative reporters in the media.

O'Reilly goes retro on Fox News in Memorial Day weekend specials

Check out this historic pic of the most watched man in cable news from the very first episode of "The O'Reilly Factor" back in the day: 1996, to be exact! Fans of The Factor are in for a treat: Fox News is running not one but two "Best of Bill O'Reilly" specials this Memorial Day weekend, to air tonight, Friday, May 26th and Monday, May 29th. Both specials will air from 8-9PM/ET and will feature clips from the first episode of The O’Reilly Factor that aired on October 7, 1996. Tonight's special episode will include Bill's interview with Donald Trump the night before the very first episode of “The Apprentice” aired, and the “Most Ridiculous Item of the Day” segment also from the first episode. Monday's special will feature some of Bill's signature verbal fireworks with guests Michael Moore, John Moyers and Michael Kinsley; Bill's shortest interview ever with Mike Tyson; and an interview with Simon Cowell before "American Idol" really got huge...

CNN: Digging the perp walk, hating on big business. Now buy our book

CNN's "Live From" couldn't play enough footage of Ken Lay's perp walk in handcuffs today. If a little green man fresh off the spaceship happened to pause in front of a television turned to CNN, he'd think--in his garbly, squeaky alien-voice kind of way--that these earthlings had just captured a fearsome mass murderer, or a great conquering general like Alexander the Great, not a white-collar criminal. But the whole trial is SO up CNN's alley: wicked, wicked big business! Bad executive! Bad, bad, bad executive! So naturally CNN business reporter Susan Lisovicz is going to hit Lay on the nose repeatedly with the rolled-up newspaper of the MSM's core contempt for rich middle-aged men...but Lisovicz isn't going to forget for a second that there's contemptible, greedy big business like Enron, and then there's benevolent and good big business, oh, say, like the company that signs her paycheck, Time Warner. So why not pay homage to Time Warner with a twofer while getting in a lick at a guy who's going to spend the rest of his life in prison as a symbol of avarice and greed? Wind her up and watch her go:

KYRA PHILLIPS: Well, were you surprised by the verdict? And what did you think about the defense's strategy?

SUSAN LISOVICZ: I was not surprised by the verdict at all. You know, Kyra, one of the best books on this is written by our colleagues over at "Fortune" magazine. It's called "The Smartest Guys in the Room." And the basic gist is that this was no accident that Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay were running one of the biggest and most successful companies in the world. And I think that jurors found it very hard to believe that these kind of hands-on managers simply did not know what was going on.

As for the defense, it was an interesting defense, as well. They were blaming market forces. Let me read you quickly a quote from Ken Lay himself while he was on the stand where he says, "We thought 'The Wall Street Journal' was on a witch hunt against Andy Fastow and maybe Enron. It was absolutely destroying the confidence of our shareholders and the company and driving down the price of our stock." And, obviously, jurors just didn't accept that. They thought that the principals of the company, the CEO -- and Ken Lay, of course, is the founder of the company.

Let's examine this. What exactly did the mention of the book bring to her reporting? Answer: nothing. And that's fine, if you watch CNN for televised interdepartmental kissyface like this.

I say "tomato," you say "tomahto," MSNBC's O'Donnell says "the hell with it"

Judging from her performance on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" last night, MSNBC chief Washington correspondent Norah O'Donnell might have hypothermia of the brain--but more likely, she's just keeping right in step with MSNBC's institutional bias against Republicans (and its twin, lazy reporting.) Take her pronunciation of conservative strategist Richard Viguerie's (rhymes with "hickory") last name: VIH-guerre-y. Olbermann got the pronunciation right, not once but twice, even, in his intro to her "the fight on the right" segment:

Our fourth story on the COUNTDOWN, William F. Buckley, Francis Fukuyama, James Dobson, and now, remarkably, in the editorial pages of “The Washington Post,” Richard Viguerie. The noted conservative‘s public rebuke so stung that the White House actually issued a response trashing Viguerie for having similarly criticized Ronald Reagan six times in office, including as late as 1988.

Yet O'Donnell mispronounced Viguerie's name twice in her segment--or, more accurately, couldn't be bothered to check the pronunciation. The possibility exists that she just couldn't retain the correct pronunciation long enough to speak it out loud, though I seriously doubt that. But here's the thing: it's sloppy reporting, yes. But does anyone think for a second that O'Donnell would have mispronounced--or not bothered to check--the pronunciation of a liberal or Democratic icon's name? Does anyone think she'd mispronounce unusual names from the left, past and present, like Shalala, Steinem, Che Guevara, Pelosi? There's actually an interview with Viguerie in the segment--she really and truly is that contemptuous of her subject that she can't bring herself to commit the smallest, most basic requirements of journalism? "Hey, junior producer over there, how do you pronounce this jerk Vigwashisname's name?" Not even that?

You expect this kind of careless, "whatever" attitude from, say, sullen teenagers massing in a Starbucks on a Saturday. But from a national news correspondent? Oh, well. "Whatever" O'Donnell--her new nickname--has performed one service, if not actual journalism: she's given her biased game away.

She looks nice in a tube top, though.

Media Matters for America: pro-torture (of the data)

Great stuff from the great Johnny Dollar! He also notices when Media Matters plays the fuzzy-numbers game, and J$ crunches his own numbers right back. Check out his take on a Media Matters study of the O'Reilly Factor that asserts that most guests are Republican...which, of course, is empirically untrue. But in their grand secret-police, 2 + 2 = 5, mess-with-your-mind tradition, Media Matters has found a way around that--by tagging individual guests with non-partisan, or "Neutral" labels (among others), as opposed to "Republican" or "Democrat" (among others) and using the mislabeled guests to skew the results. There's torturing the data until it confesses...but somebody needs to report Media Matters to the UN for crimes against, well, data.

J$ calls the Brockian Hordes on all of this, including putting a spotlight on the laughable mislabelings of Eric Burns, Ellis Henican, Lis Wiehl, and Judge Andrew Napolitano, among others...ah, numbers games. They're not so fun when they're based on what your own personal dishonest definition of "a number" is, is it, Media Matters?

It's who to trust for information--Media Matters or CQ--that's not exactly a close call

David Brock's "media watchdog" organization (more like "anti-fair, anti-balanced watchdog organization" Media Matters for America has its panties in a bunch because Fox News Live's Gregg Jarrett yesterday called the Ohio governor's race "a nail-biter" in a "battleground" state--in other words, because Jarrett reported the current state of the race between Democratic Congressman Ted Strickland and Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell accurately instead of, basically, calling it for Strickland now. Media Matters aggresively massages and averages together several old Rasmussen polls to assert that a Strickland victory is a sure thing, then points to the most recent Rasmussen poll that puts Strickland ahead at 52%. Not exactly a 10-mile lead, but then again, this is why agenda-based (read: "anti-Fox News") poll analysis like Media Matters' is known as "torturing the data until it confesses."

Yet a May 4 analysis of the Ohio governor's race by the very serious, very distinguished Congressional Quarterly--not exactly anybody's idea of a biased rag--ranked the Strickland/Blackwell race as "No Clear Favorite" and called it a "battleground" within a "battleground" state. My, how strange. Perhaps Media Matters would like to take CQ on as well?

Oh, Newsbusters, I love you so. [Dreamy sigh here.] Like a Marine Corps drill instructor, you are the all-seeing, merciless god of the (MSM's) universe. I especially love the Gaggle strip today...Charlie Gibson, without pity:

Headline News' abysmally-rated--and just plain abysmally insulting--attempt to pander to the red states, Glenn Beck, apparently doesn't know the first rule of what to do when you find yourself in a hole: stop digging. Thus, he wants you to know that he thinks you and your bat mitzvahs and weddings are just stupid and utterly worthy of his contempt. Check out this excerpt from last night's "Glenn Beck":

BECK: You know, one of the biggest problems facing our country right now is we feel compelled to buy stuff that we don`t really need or we can`t afford. This is really, I think, the reason why we don`t stay home with our kids. It`s also why the average college kid is thousands of dollars in debt. We`ll do anything to drive the right car, wear the right label, watch the right plasma, no matter what the cost.

If we can solve this problem individually of out-of-control spending, I`ve got to tell you, I think we solve a lot of our problems. All week, we`re going to take a look at this with a series we called "Unbridled Consumption"...

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECK (voice-over): In the Jewish religion, the bat mitzvah is a rite of passage, a crossover from childhood to adulthood, where the child becomes responsible for his own deeds, spiritually, ethically and morally.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She loves the ruffles, because she wanted a poofy dress. But it`s a service. So she needs -- so that`s why she needs a custom, too, because she can kind of take a ruffle but put a jacket with it as opposed to just going and buying a poofy dress off the rack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just like how it`s so poofy.

BECK: Scholars have yet to find any reference to poofy in the Talmud. But the main theme and focus of the bat mitzvah is the celebration of becoming a young woman in the eyes of Jewish tradition...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the exact same color of the flowers. And everything I bought was just pink and orange. They`re all -- everything is pink and orange.

BECK: It`s about taking your place within the Jewish faith and becoming a responsible member of the community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the tablecloths are pink and orange, and all the flowers are pink and orange. And I think the decorations also are pink and orange. We`re going to get favors that are pink and orange.

BECK: Preparation for the bat mitzvah takes years of study and preparation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s September 6, 2008.

BECK: That means her bat mitzvah is only two years, six months and, I don`t know, a long way away for an 11-year-old to worry about anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to do it customized, like, so it`s not the same as everybody else`s. And I want it to have a lot of accessory but not too much.

BECK: Wait a minute. Aren`t you like 11 years old?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like this color and this kind of fabric.

BECK: You should be outside playing with other girls.

Beck goes on to give the poor, misguided souls excited about getting married the same "you idiot" treatment. Are we all clear on this? Glenn Beck thinks we are irresponsible jerks for spending money on traditions like bat mitzvahs and weddings that are, frankly, sacred...and he's willing to make fun of an 11-year-old girl and her religious traditions on national television to drive his point home. He needs to issue about a half-dozen apologies.

FNC's Megyn Kendall is doing an outstanding job covering the very difficult story of the Duke rape investigation, getting exclusive information that the accuser in the case "told investigators several different stories about the night of the alleged incident."

Compare Kendall's actual reporting to Headline News host Nancy Grace's legal advocacy in the guise of journalism: reading aloud the most disturbing, explicit portions of the Duke accuser's statements to police. (I've linked to the transcript because it's too graphic in portions to reproduce here.)

Usually, when lawyers try a case in the media, they're not members of the media themselves...but Nancy Grace is both, and she's pretty clearly convicted the players already. Again, nobody knows the truth about what happened at this point except the accusers and the players. But that's why we have reporters like Megyn Kendall: they report. If there were no alternative to Nancy Grace, who's already decided what the truth is, it would be a lot easier for both sides of the case to use television to stack the deck of public opinion.

FNC's balanced global warming follow-up: No easy answers...and that's the point

Watching Sunday night's Fox News Channel special "Global Warming: The Debate Continues", it struck me that while there will undoubtedly be hue and cry from the Al "Apocalypse" Gore crowd for this balanced, calm look at the facts behind global warming, there's a very simple reason Fox News does such a great job with its global warming investigations and with its science reporting in general. It's because journalism--in its purest form--and science both spring from the same school of hard fact. Science, like unbiased reporting, is made from the building blocks of immutability. The boiling point of hydrogen is -252.87 °C; a DNA molecule consists of two strands of nucleotides; Senator John Doe said "ABC" in an interview yesterday. There's no room for bias in reporting, just as there's no way to spin the atomic mass of platinum. Facts are what they are.

It's also worth noting what prominent, incredibly smart "The Skeptical Environmentalist" author and self-described former "worried member of Greenpeace" Bjorn Lomborg was given the opportunity to say on the special last night:

"I used to be a worried member of Greenpeace, thinking everything was coming to an end...but the data, the facts, tell you that many, many things [in the environment] are moving in the right direction. There are many other problems [besides global warming]...there are three million people dying of HIV/AIDS every year, there are millions of people dying from malnutrition, from malaria, from lack of access to free trade, lack of access to clean drinking water...to put it bluntly, the Kyoto Protocol [on climate change] is going to cost $150 billion per year and do very little good. The UN actually estimates that for half that amount, $75 billion, we could solve all basic problems in the world. We could give clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care, and education to every single human being on the planet. Do we want to spend twice that amount of money doing very little good, or do we want to spend half that money and do an enormous amount of good, right now?"

No matter how you feel about what Lomborg says, it's undeniable that a) FNC is letting viewers decide for themselves what to think about global warming and about the politics of the global environment and b) Lomborg is nobody's shill. And check out the video of a FNC producer's interview on the science behind global warming with a deeply non-hysterical MIT scientist--and MIT scientists aren't exactly either political or dumb--here. Again, all science is, essentially, unbiased reporting--no wonder FNC covers it so well.

Aaron Brown, driving off the set

Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown continues to cement his image as someone not emotionally compatible with the demands of anchoring a live television news broadcast. In an interview with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Neal Justin, the tanned and freshly-LASIK-ed Brown talks about the battle for domination between The Two Aarons:

Q Why the eye surgery?

A I just got tired of wearing glasses, and, all of a sudden, I had the time and the freedom to do it. Peter [Jennings] used to say, "You look stupid without glasses." OK, so maybe it's not a great career move, but the TV Aaron wore glasses, and, maybe, at some level, the TV Aaron was in conflict with the other Aaron.

Q What do you mean?

A The TV Aaron was public and I'm very shy. My wife and I would go to a party and we'd have to take separate cars because there would always be a point where I'd get really anxious and have to leave early. I need to feel really comfortable with people. But I could put on the uniform and do the job of a reporter.

This is worth dwelling on because Aaron has just provided a great litmus test for journo-vocational ability. If you have to take separate cars to a place where you will be forced to interact with strangers, because there is a high probability you will freak out and need to flee because you are not "comfortable with people," then a job that is 99% interacting with strangers--ie, the audience and the people making news--is not for you.

He looks great without the glasses, though.

Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy's Villanova basketball rivalry

One of The Cable Game's very favorite Fox News personalities, "Fox & Friends" host Steve Doocy (check out a pic of Steve in his University of Kansas radio days here) talks about his Kansas City roots, his road to national television, Villanova basketball (read on) and his love of local BBQ (he served it at his wedding rehearsal dinner! Check out his adorable wedding pic, left) in today's Kansas City Star:

Kate Spade, Calvin Trillin, Harry Truman — to that list of famous Cowtown exports add Fox News anchor Steve Doocy.

The whimsical weather wonk turned affable anchor of the top-rated “Fox & Friends” morning show is a real deal KC export. He grew up in Dickinson County near Abilene, Kan.

“I went to the University of Kansas (in the early ’80s), and while I was at KU I was an intern at Channel 9. I also worked at classic station KANU-FM in Lawrence. And one year I was the manager at KJHK in Lawrence and I worked at a disco in downtown Lawrence called Bugsy’s. It was in the historic Lawrence Opera House (now Liberty Hall).”

Speaking of Jayhawk Central, to this day, Doocy is a keeper of the faith.

“I tried desperately to get my son to go to KU,” says Doocy, who lives in New Jersey now. “But he mocked me and went to Villanova. And every time this past season when Villanova won (a basketball game) and KU lost he would call, giggle on the phone — not identify himself — and then hang up.”

As for his stint at KMBC-TV, “they hired me to do PM Magazine. Then they canceled it and put on ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ ” Doocy says. “Then I did a feature story every night on the 10 p.m. news. It was an extremely challenging job — I did it for a year. Then NBC called and I ended up going to Washington, D.C.”

Doocy’s run with Larry Moore and Len Dawson in the early ’80s might have continued, but for a Machiavellian maneuver.

“I heard one of the other stations did not want me on the air there, so they started circulating my tape,” Doocy says. “So I ended up getting a better job, but who would have ever thought of that?”

Doocy recalls Moore’s “enormous sideburns and that deep voice. I always tried to end up (his report) with something that would make Larry laugh, and I always tried to end up with a big laugh. But if I just got a little laugh — hey, I still made him laugh.”

Is Doocy a KC barbecue fan?

“Absolutely. In fact, when my wife and I got married in the Rose Garden at Loose Park we had Gates Bar-B-Q at our rehearsal dinner the night before,” he says. “Yeah, Gates and Sons is my favorite restaurant on all the Earth, and whenever my dad comes to visit me, he always brings me a six-pack of all the Gates sauces.”