Roger Stone, Cable Gamer

Welcome to The Cable Game, Roger Stone! A veteran Republican politico whose career reaches back to the Nixon era, Stone is the wildly flamboyant, wildly controversial, wildly everything source of rumors, innuendo, whispering campaigns, smears--you name it.

And starting on Monday, he is going to have his TV show. OK, his own web-based streaming show. TCG can't vouch for Stone's character or veracity, but he is always fun to watch on cable shows. And now, he will have his own show.

Frank Rich on Media Covergence

The The Cable Gamer has never been a fan of Frank Rich's political punditry--the New York Times columnist is a down-the-line liberal, and has been an equally dogmatic Obamalator. But if you wade through the usual Obama-fluffing, one comes across a clear-eyed discussion of the contemporary media, a discussion worthy of Rich's original calling, as a theater/media critic:

YouTube, the medium that has transformed our culture and politics, didn’t exist four years ago. Four years from now, it’s entirely possible that some, even many, of the newspapers and magazines covering this campaign won’t exist in their current form, if they exist at all. The Big Three network evening newscasts, and network news divisions as we now know them, may also be extinct by then.

It is a telling sign that CBS News didn’t invest in the usual sky box for its anchor, Katie Couric, in Denver. It is equally telling that CNN consistently beat ABC and CBS in last week’s Nielsen ratings, and NBC as well by week’s end. But now that media are being transformed at a speed comparable to the ever-doubling power of microchips, cable’s ascendancy could also be as short-lived as, say, the reign of AOL. Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum, which monitors the intersection of politics and technology, points out that when networks judge their success by who got the biggest share of the television audience, “they are still counting horses while the world has moved on to counting locomotives.” The Web, in its infinite iterations, is eroding all 20th-century media.

This is Convergence. One screen. One network.

Speaking of this sort of Converging media guard-changing, did you notice that Vanity Fair is now teaming up with Google for its big parties? Today, politics, tomorrow, Hollywood?

The Other CNN: Lou Dobbs. See Him Rail Against Incumbents in September. But If Obama Wins, Not For Very Much Longer After That!

Lou Dobbs is increasingly alone at CNN. While the network has been moving left, he's been moving right--or, more precisely, to the populist right.

And so The Cable Gamer reckons that "Lou Dobbs' Independent Convention," highlighting citizen grievances against a rotten system, will be a sort of last hurrah for the veteran anchorman--at least at CNN.

Although Dobbs was once known as a standard-issue blue-suited business reporter, in the last five or so he has carved out an independent profile for himself as a populist crusader for the the ordinary guy and gal. CNN tolerates him because CNN likes business-bashing--so long as it doesn't step on the toes of advertisers.

Morever, when Dobbs speaks of "broken government," well, we know that that's intended by CNN to be a reference to the federal government, and specifically, the executive branch--controlled, of course, by George W. Bush and the Republicans.

To be sure, there's plenty broken about the executive branch of he federal government, but there's also plenty broken about the other two components of the executive branch: Congress, and the Courts. And of course, while some state and local governments are pretty good, most, as we all know, are pretty lousy.

Which is to say, there's plenty of blame to go around. And Dobbs himself is willing to spread the criticism widely, but the rest of CNN has a way of channeling up that criticism, the better to pour it out all over Bush & Co.

So this Independent Convention promises to be interesting. Here's how CNN is touting it:

CNN invites you to be a part of a week of special coverage September 8 -- Lou Dobbs' Independent Convention.

We want to hear from you about the issues that matter to middle-class Americans.

Do you believe Obama and McCain have the interests of middle-class Americans at heart?

Send in your photos and videos. Show us what the middle-class is, and what it stands for. Your stories could be used on Lou Dobbs Tonight.

TCG will be watching; the topic is a good one. But methinks that if Barack Obama wins the presidency this November, thus causing MSM hearts to go pitty-pat, there won't be much tolerance for populist criticism if it could be construed as being anti-Obama, as opposed to anti-Bush.

CNN's John Roberts Shows That Sexism is OK, So Long as It's Aimed at Conservatives...

...and hurray for Roberts' fellow CNN-er, Dana Bash for standing up to Roberts! As transcribed by Newsbusters' Matthew Balan, here's Roberts being a sexist oaf, and Bash sticking up for Sarah Palin and her right to be a working mother:


CNN’s John Roberts, after briefly alluding to the issue of Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s experience he called into question earlier on Friday’s "Newsroom" program, asked correspondent Dana Bash about how the Alaska governor’s newborn son with Down’s syndrome might be affected if she were elected: "There's also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome.... Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?"

And here's the way that Bash answered--note the kicker at the end.

Bash deftly answered this question, which has the implication that Palin could neglect her infant son, and made a possible counter-argument the McCain camp would use, that a question like Roberts’ would be sexist: "That's a very good question, and I guess -- my guess is that, perhaps, the line inside the McCain campaign would be, if it were a man being picked who also had a baby, but -- you know, four months ago with Down's Syndrome, would you ask the same question?"

A kicker, of course, at John Roberts.

Bill Maher: Matthews and Olbermann "ready to have sex" with Obama?

No, nobody's accusing Barack Obama of anything untoward here. But it does seem that MSNBCers Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann are showing signs of puppy love. But don't take it from TCG.

Bill Maher, of course, is not commonly thought of as conservative, or anti-liberal. And yet as Newsbusters' always-on-the-spot Brent Baker records, Matthews and Olbermann are getting more than a little carried away. Here's Maher:

The media in general, and MSNBC in particular, are so far into the tank for Barack Obama that even the far-left Bill Maher, on his HBO show Friday night, recognized “there is a problem...with the media gushing over him too much.” Specifically, though he didn't name co-anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, Maher pointed to MSNBC's coverage following Obama's acceptance speech: “The coverage after, that I was watching, from MSNBC, I mean these guys were ready to have sex with him.”

This is CNN: John Roberts Doing Obama's Oppo On Sarah Palin

Well that didnt't take long. Not long to get the Barack Obama talking points into the media bloodstream, not long to show CNN competing hard with MSNBC for the hardcore Obama vote.

CNN's John Roberts went to work on John McCain's VP choice, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, this morning, as reported by Newsbusters' Lyndsi Thomas. Roberts dismissed her:

She's only been in office for a couple of years now, which really raises the experience issue here.

But lookee here: What Roberts said mirrors the attack line from the Obama campaign! This is verbatim from Bill Burton, an Obama flack:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Is that a coincidence? Or is it simply the way CNN does business? I report, you decide.

But TCG will offer a special prize to any Cable Gamer who discovers that John Roberts, or anyone else at CNN, has ever said of Obama (sworn in as a US Senator on January 3, 2005), "He's only been in office for a couple of years now, which really raises the experience issue here."

So When Will Keith Olbermann Go On the Obama Payroll? Or Will MSNBC Continue to Make In-kind Contributions to the Obama Campaign?

Greg Mitchell, of Editor and Publisher mag, looks askance at Keith Olbermann's open advocacy of Obama, which has now reached the point where Olbermann has taken to flyspecking reporters' copy and hectoring them about it on national TV. As Mitchell puts it in his lede:

In an unusually heated attack on a veteran political reporter by a cable news host, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann laced into the Associated Press's Charles Babington an hour after Barack Obama had concluded his speech in Denver on Thursday night.

There's nothing wrong with press criticism, of course--The Cable Gamer has been known to indulge in such--but there is something wrong with open advocacy for one candidate on a "news" network.

And there is REALLY something wrong with being a bully. Here's how Olbermann closed his tirade:

"Charles Babington, find a new line of work."

If I were Babington, I would be more than a little afraid that the lefty netroots would come after me somehow. (And the great Cable Gamer Johnny Dollar, over at Olbermann Watch, demonstrates that Olbermann got his script from none other than Daily Kos.)

In other words, the Olbermann-Kos Komplex is working hand-in-glove to intimidate ordinary reporters.

This is not good.

And so one has to ask: Is this good for Olbermann's employers? Do they really want a Kos-sack on their payroll.

Forget MSNBC, we know about them. But what about parent-company NBC, and grandparent GE? Is this the sort of atmosphere of intimidation that they wish to pay for?

Maybe what Olbermann is doing is protected by free speech--although bullyboy tactics are not so protected--but there is still the potential Federal Election Commission issue of what are, in effect, in-kind contributions from MSNBC to the Obama campaign. (Where are the smart conservative lawyers?)

And also, more broadly, do the GE shareholders really want to subsidize these nasty tactics with their money?

And what about advertisers? There might be eyeballs to be found in the Olbermann-Kos strategy, but do big companies really want their products to be associated with the raw partisanship of the O-K Kombine?

As discussed here at TCG in the past, the current course is not sustainable for MSNBC. Olbermann is getting buzz, but he is making too many enemies, and he is too visibly losing his cool for the cool medium of TV.

So if Obama wins, expect Olbermann to be doing something different, something more Washington-oriented, if you get my drift.

Chris Matthews Tells Tom Brokaw To Go To Hell

The Cable Gamer watched it, but Newsbusters' Geoffrey Dickens got the tape. The tape, that is, of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews vying to be the most pro-Obama suck-ups.

And the winner is... Matthews! Not only does he praise Obama to the skies, but he directly addressed the criticism he received from NBC legend Tom Brokaw, who said that Matthews and Olbermann had "gone too far" in their championing of Obama. Olbermann, surprisingly enough, has been restrained in response to Brokaw's criticism, at least in public, but Matthews couldn't resist firing right back last night, saying, "You know I've been criticized for saying he inspires me and to hell with my critics!"

That means you, Tom.

Here's the transcript:

OLBERMANN: For 42 minutes not a sour note and spellbinding throughout in way usually reserved for the creations of fiction. An extraordinary political statement....I'd love to find something to criticize about it. You got anything?

MATTHEWS: No. You know I've been criticized for saying he inspires me and to hell with my critics!

Brokaw will survive, of course, his good name intact--he has put plenty of distance between himself and the Obamaholics who have taken over MSNBC.

And that's where the real inferno, of course, continues to burn--at MSNBC.

MSNBC Not the Fave among Daily Kos Lefties? Where Did Keith Go Wrong?? What Does He Have To Do???

Now THIS is interesting. The Daily Kos posted an online survey asking Kos-sacks how they were watching the Democratic National Convention--as in, what channel or medium. And the answer, as of 4:45 ET, was a shockeroo. Who was the winner? C-SPAN! And MSNBC was second!

That's right, C-SPAN, a channel with no commentary, and no ideological lean whatsoever, received 4334 votes. Nothing wrong with that. But the real surprise is that MSNBC came in second, with 3972 votes. (See screen grab above--it's a little small, but you can see C-SPAN as the clear #1.)

Now let's think about that a bit. MSNBC has moved into a hard left posture, as Keith Olbermann has become not only the star of the channel, but also the commissar of ideology. Not only does Olbermann blog regularly for Daily Kos, but he has launched a campaign of on-air intimidation and off-air harassment against anyone who doesn't fit his Maddow-esque vision of the channel. Such an ideological posture is obviously a turn off to most viewers, but KO and MSNBC must figure that they can corner the market on lefties, and that that's a good plan. (And obviously The Jeffs-- NBC chief Jeff Zucker and GE chief Jeff Immelt--are going along.)

And yet lookee here: The Kos-sacks are not rewarding Olbermann or MSNBC. Barely more than a quarter, 28%, of Kos-sacks responding are watching MSNBC.

Obviously the potential viewing audience is larger than just Kos-types, but every network needs buzz as well as big numbers. and the Kos-types are buzzy. So if MSNBC isn't winning them over, well, that's ominous.

For the record, CNN is third, with 951 votes, and, amazingly, Fox is fourth, with 312 votes. As for the broadcasters, they're way back--NBC has 156 votes, CBS 34, and ABC 30. And 1470 say that they are watching online.

It must be frustrating to be Olbermann. In his fevered mind, he is surrounded by right-wing goons, such as Joe Scarborough, and just plain goons, such as Chris Matthews. And yet for all of his efforts, KO can't even count on his base among the Daily Kos Krowd.

Maybe the Kos-sacks are more discriminating than I have given them credit for being. I guess that even on the left, not many want to be propagandized, and even fewer want to watch a bully.

The Great MSNBC Purge Continues

Do you think that Joe Scarborough is a dangerous conservative who threatens to spoil the rigid lefty purity of MSNBC?? If so, sign here, and join the likes of this fair-minded commenter:

He seems to be a racist like Sean Hanity and Rush Lumbaurgh. I do not like him

And you can bet that Keith Olbermann has signed this petition, too, in some form or fashion. OK, maybe just as a behind-the-scenes cheerleader, but I might just looking down the list of signatories for a "Kyle Olson," or a "Kevin O'Donnell."

Kountdown to Keith's Exit: Update

Peter Wehner is a former Bush White House aide-turned-think tanker, and so is not really a Cable Gamer. But he writes sharply and shrewdly--for Commentary magazine, of all places--about the sitch at MSNBC, and the lasting damage done to NBC:

They reveal a network increasingly at war with itself, with anchors and correspondents insulting each other on the air. Not surprisingly, the problem seems to center on Keith Olbermann, who has established a reputation as a very difficult person to work with everywhere he has gone–whether at ESPN, at MSNBC in the 1990’s, or at Fox Sports. Olbermann is a man, on television at least, consumed by rage and various hatreds. Once MSNBC decided he would become its most visible public face, it was only a matter of time before turmoil would set in.

It’s worth noting that Tom Brokaw, the longtime anchor of NBC News and currently the moderator of Meet the Press, has conceded that Olbermann and Chris Matthews have stepped over the line several times. At a panel discussion in Denver on Sunday, Brokaw admitted what every sentient person knows: “I think Keith has gone too far. I think Chris has gone too far.” Brokaw went on to say that they are “commentators” and “not the only voices” on MSNBC and viewers could sort it out.

In fact, Olbermann has been cast in the role of not only an MSNBC commentator but also a host, where presumably some modicum of objectivity would be expected. But Olbermann is the antonym of objectivity.

Brokaw has had other on-air differences with Olbermann. For example, in June, Brokaw criticized the rabidly pro-Obama Olbermann for suggesting that Clinton was attempting to “shoehorn” her way into the press coverage, saying, “I think that’s unfair, Keith.” Unfair, of course–and utterly predictable.

MSNBC has made a conscious decision to turn itself into the hard-left cable news network. That has led to an increase in the number of viewers, at least in the short run. But it has also besmirched the brand of NBC News, which was once a serious and respected news organization. Thanks to Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and company, that’s no longer the case. And now, after successfully tearing down NBC’s name, they seem eager to tear down one another.

Remember that book by Robert Fulghum called, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?

TCG read it way back when, and one of the central messages was, "be nice." Not only because being nice the right thing to do, but because you just never know when you will need help for yourself. You learn the lessons of niceness and mutuality with age--or, more precisely, you re-learn that lesson, because you first learned it in kindergarten. But maybe Olbermann didn't learn it, ever.

Implosion at MSNBC--The Countdown to Keith Olbermann's Exit Begins!

The Huffington Post reports, you decide. Five different articles in the header--see screen grab above--plus another one underneath.

The Cable Gamer is going to start her own Countdown: How long can Keith Olbermann survive?

MSNBC MELTDOWN -- INSIDER: 'OUR CHANNEL IS ABOUT TO BLOW UP' -- FEUDS, SLANDER AND ACCUSATIONS...

The Drudge Report, always an agenda-setter for Cable Gamers (and everyone else) features this headline tonight, played big, drawn from The Politico.

The howler of the day comes from MSNBC chief Phil Griffin:

“MSNBC does not have an ideology,” Griffin said. “We hire smart people who are passionate about their love of politics and love of news.”

If Griffin really thinks that, he will be hearing from MSNBC commissar Keith Olbermann. But don't worry, Keith, Phil doesn't really think that.

"MSNBC Drama Pervades Convention Coverage: Olbermann vs. Matthews For Round 3"

The Huffington Post reports, using that headline above, you decide:

Discussing Hillary Clinton's upcoming speech, Matthews began talking about women 's reactions to Hillary. His producers, likely wary of any more cries of sexism against the host and the network, presumably tried to get him to wrap, as he said, "I'll wrap in a second, I'll wrap in a second."

Olbermann then tried to attribute Matthews' point about women voters to Rachel Maddow, to which Matthews said, "Good ideas can be shared."

Then, when introducing Steny Hoyer, Olbermann mocked Matthews for "[going] off at the mouth" and made a hand gesture implying that Matthews talked forever.

"You make that sound, Keith," Matthews said. "I can do the same to you. That's what I thought. And I said it."

Translated: "I'm rubber, and you're glue..." C'mon guys, grow up! Chris, this won't help your Senate run, even if the experience of sharing a set with Olbermann in Denver makes Matthews more determined than ever to go seek a new career in elective politics.

And of course, The New York Post's "Page Six" is stoking up the fratricidal fires, chronicling the on-air war of the words between David Shuster and Joe Scarborough, and adding this tidbit:

Insiders say Olbermann is pushing to have Brokaw banned from the network and is also refusing to have centrist Time magazine columnist Mike Murphy on his show.

"The idea of anyone trying to ban Tom Brokaw is ludicrous," said one MSNBC-er. Brokaw was on MSNBC for an hour yesterday afternoon. Murphy, who was bumped from Olbermann's show on Monday night, told us, "They told me technical problems and I have no reason not to believe them."

The Cable Gamer can only offer this comment: television, like any form of entertainment, is naturally full of big egos and prima donnas. Nothing new there.

But a TV network has to function, on air, as a cohesive team. Why? Two reasons:

First, the mechanics of TV, transitioning from one talking head to another, from one guest to another, from one show to another are simply too delicate to allow for bad behavior. (And that lack of collegiality was a big reason why the same David Shuster got axed from Fox News a few years back.)

Second, the viewers--if there are to be viewers--like to think of the network as a team, as a family. After all, the folks in the box are being invited into folks' homes. And as guests, TVers are supposed to be pleasant and civil. Otherwise, they won't be invited back. Again, it's human nature for ambitious people not to like each other, but if the on-air chemistry is too obviously terrible (think Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner in the 70s, think Connie Chung and Dan Rather in the 90s), well, then, the show just doesn't work.

In the meantime, it's pretty clear to The Cable Gamer that Olbermann is the principal cause of the trouble at MSNBC. His acidly volcanic personality and temperament is all too clear on the air. And if we can see it on the screen, imagine what it's like to be around him on the set, or in the office. TCG can only imagine that profilers and bloggers are gathering their string on KO--the better to hang him with it.

Which is why TCG has never thought he will last on TV, even if he is pulling down decent ratings--it's just not possible to run a network with someone like him making everyone else's life miserable.

And of course, MSNBC has an even bigger problem: It is connected to the rest of the NBC media conglomerate, and then to GE. Suits don't like trouble, because trouble wrinkles.

And as KO would be the first to proclaim, he is trouble.

UPDATE: Jeff Bercovici, ace Cable Gamer for Conde Nast Portfolio, adds this, under the headline, "Scarborough Losing Patience with MSNBC-ers."

Cable Gaming, Blogging, Jousting--and Politicking

The Cable Gamer has been noting, with interest, that the Cablers are making more and more use of in-house blogs. In normal times, such blogs are just a way for talent to get a few things off their chest, throw out things that they forgot to say on the air, and perhaps polish apples with viewers--or management. But at their juicy best, blogs become another form of give-and-take, of dish and counter-dish.

And so, for example, after Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews teamed up to blast of Howard Wolfson, the Hillary Clinton communications director-turned-Fox News contributor (as ably summed up by TV Newser here), the issue was fought out in the blogs, as well as on air.

John Moody, an Executive VP at Fox, fired right back at Olbermann.

And then Wolfson, on his own blog, let it rip.

This is all good fun for Cable Gamers, and maybe I should stop there.

But this writer can't help but think to herself that the big loser is Barack Obama. That is, the left "netroots" wing of the Democratic Party seems determined to purge the Clinton Democrats--who are liberals, but not true-blue leftists. And that purging seems to be more important to them than winning the election.

Such a leftward lurch is no doubt fine with the folks at MSNBC, because they are enjoying being at the lefty vanguard. If you are frantic at the thought of George W. Bush being president for one more second, then MSNBC is the place to go, because you know that Matthews, Olbermann, and now Rachel Maddow will be flailing away at every opportunity.

But surely this lefty explosion is catastrophic for Obama, viz. his declining poll numbers--he's not getting a bounce from Denver, he's getting a crater.

I guess by now it should be pretty obvious to the Obamans that MSNBC wants them to lose. That's right, MSNBC wants Obama to lose. But why? Because being in the opposition is good for MSNBC's ratings. MSNBC has done better by Bush-bashing, and it must figure that it can do better still by McCain-bashing. Far better to be on the offensive against Republicans than on the defensive for the Democrats.

All of which means that MSNBC must make sure that McCain does, in fact, win. And one way to help make that prospect a reality is by attacking centrist Democrats. The plan is working so far!

"Fox to stream premieres for dorms"

The Cable Gamer read this article on a website called Contentagenda.com, and thought to herself, "This is a pretty good article for a website I've never heard of."

And then, on closer inspection, she see that the article is from good ol' Variety. But it's all legit: ContentAgenda.com is owned by Reed-Elsevier, the parent company of Variety. Evidently, all content these days can and will be re-purposed--"agnostic across all platforms" is the buzzword du jour.

And the same platform-agnosticism can be ascribed to the content-distributors, as well as the content-providers. As the article details, Fox broadcast will stream the premieres of two of its shows simultaneously with their broadcast. Pretty cool!

The Cable Gamer got curiouser about this phenomenon, and found
this website, which is sort of a Drudge Report for video. Even cooler!

I mean, I am not sure if this is cool with the content providers, but it's great for content consumers. And isn't that the story of the Internet overall?

The Convergence Game

Here's another example of Convergence: A company called Zetabid, which is owned by the same parent company that owns The Los Angeles Times, is revealed in a story appearing in... The Times!

But as discussed here many times at TCG, Convergence is real. And the story itself, by Annette Haddad, was perfectly fair and balanced:

Searching for new sources of revenue, Los Angeles Times Media Group is getting into the real estate business.

On Monday, Times Media Group and other partners will launch ZetaBid, a business that will auction foreclosed homes and other properties. The company would also run a website where the properties could be viewed.

The other partners are London-based GoIndustry-DoveBid, an auction specialist, and CataList Homes of Hermosa Beach, a real estate brokerage. The partners will share fees paid by the buyer on each home sold.

The venture is the latest effort by the struggling media company to tap additional revenue streams beyond newspaper advertising. The media group also operates revenue-sharing ventures through its Cars.com and Apartments.com classified-advertising enterprises.

The point here is that newspapers let their classified ads slips away, first to Monster.com, and then to Google. That's the big reason why their stock prices have plunged. So now, belatedly, they are trying to get back in the game, with a new kind of business model.

The reality of Convergence is what I call the Natty Bumppo Media Principle: "one shot, one kill." Or, updated for the web, "one shot, one screen." Right now, there is much media confusion: People have their TV sets, their computers, and their hand-helds. That's three screens to keep track of, which is two too many.

What folks really want, of course, is just one screen. One screen to do everything for them: It will entertain, it will inform, but it will also be useful for chores, from communications to paying bills to, yes, buying real estate.

That's Convergence, and it's coming. The Home Shopping Network was an early version of this, but HSN stalled because it didn't fully embrace the web, and so it let eBay get ahead of it.

Now, looking ahead, the big question will be from which direction Convergence comes. Will it be TV moving more into e-commerce? Or will it be newspapers, such as the LA Times? Or will it be e-commerce, putting on shows as a cover for, well, e-commerce? (That's how TV got its start, of course--advertisers built a show as an excuse to show commercials, hence, "soap operas." There's nothing inherently wrong with any of these models, of course; it will be fun to see which model wins the Convergence Game.

FireDogLake and Convergence--On the Left

The first thing you notice about this website screen-grab above is that it's not really distinguishable from a TV channel. For all practical purposes, it is a TV channel. You look at a screen and you watch it. Of course, in many ways, a web-based "TV" channel is better than traditional TV, since one can watch it on a computer, or on a PDA--or even, with a little software and a cable, back on your TV. And of course, because it's a net-based system, it's much more interactive and flexible.

As the headline on the post, from the lefty site OurFuture.com, says, "AJ from FireDogLake.com talks about the FireDogStory from single blogger to business operation, and what that means for the future of the netroots." In other words, there's plenty of lefty politics on FDL, but there's also plenty of business.

Note AJ talking biz-speak about "horizontal integration," "maximize advertising revenue," and "rolling up" smaller blogs--into a big blog, a blog of blogs. And out of that rolling up will come the Next Net Thing--the next network.

Convergence. It's real, and it's coming. And from what TCG can see, the Left is Converging faster. Today, the "Netroots" might just seem like a buncha bloggers, but they are comin' atya with network-like power.

Jon Stewart Outs Himself...As a Liberal

Comedy Central's Jon Stewart has gained the reputation, in recent years, as something of a truth-teller. That is, sort of the wise fool, who couches sometimes cruel truth in humor.

And The Cable Gamer will freely admit that "The Daily Show" is a powerful product: Stewart and his team are smart, and they use video editing extremely well to catch politicians in their contradictions. Of course, most of the politicians so caught tend to be Republicans--most obviously, George W. Bush.

Now TCG doesn't regard our current president as a great genius, but then, neither are most politicians, or, for that matter, most people. With clever technique, it's easy to make anyone look stupid.

Once again, that's fair enough--free speech, and all that.

But Stewart chose to travel to the Denver, site of the Democratic National Convention, to unload on cable news, and Fox News, in particular. No doubt liberals and Democrats will lap it up.

But Stewart might have thought through his argument a little better: The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz quoted Stewart as saying, "I'm stunned to see Karl Rove on a news network as an analyst." That network, of course, is Fox.

Continues Kurtz:

Stewart, who voted for John Kerry in 2004, said he didn't see CNN's James Carville, the former Bill Clinton aide, in the same category because "I don't think he's being passed off as a sage."

Well, there you have it. Stewart, a Democratic voter, sees a crucial distinction between Republican pundit Rove and Democratic pundit Carville. And just last night, TCG was watching coverage of the convention, and there, on CNN, was Donna Brazile, a CNN analyst, talking about what she was doing as a DNC superdelegate. That's right: Right there on air, she was doubling as a politico and as a political analyst. Does that bother Stewart? Evidently not.

This is Lou Dobbs: "My Colleagues in the Media Are Absolutely Biased"

The fearless Lou Dobbs lets 'em have it, as recorded by Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard:

An astonishing thing happened on CNN Sunday evening: Lou Dobbs told his guests, "My colleagues in the national media are absolutely biased, in the tank supporting the Obama candidacy while claiming the mantle of objectivity," and they agreed.

The Cable Gamer has to wonder how long Dobbs will last at CNN.

This Is CNN, in Chicago. Or Should We Say, "This WAS CNN"?

Another hardhitting FNC ad, picking up on the reporting of The Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal.

This is CNN

Fox has an amusing ad taking CNN to task for its liberal bias.

Interesting that The Huffington Post, not known for its fair & balanced leanings, seems to have gotten the scoop.

“MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign" -- Ed Rendell

Here's Michael Calderone
writing today in The Politico:

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was supposed to give “closing remarks” during this afternoon’s Shorenstein Center-sponsored panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators — NBC’s Tom Brokaw, ABC’s George Stephanopoulous and CBS’s Bob Schieffer — but instead, he opened up a can of worms about bias in 2008 election coverage

"Ladies and gentleman, the coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing," said Rendell, in the ballroom at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel. "It was embarrassing."

Rendell, an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primaries, now backs Obama in the general election. Brokaw and Rendell began debating campaign coverage, including the on-air comments by Lee Cowan, and when MSNBC came up, Rendell went after the cable network.

“MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign," Rendell said, who called their coverage "absolutely embarrassing."

Chris Matthews, Rendell said, "loses his impartiality when he talks about the Clintons.”

At that point, PBS's Judy Woodruff, who was moderating the moderators event, said: "Why don’t we let Governor Rendell sit down."

That was met with applause from the crowd of big-time media figures, which included Arianna Huffington, Gwen Ifill, Al Hunt, and Chuck Todd.

Woodruff allowed Brokaw to respond, and in defending the network, he said that Matthews and Keith Olbermann are "not the only voices" on MSNBC.

In other words, Rendell is willing to say the obvious about the pro-Obama coverage. Candor!

Also, it's interesting to see Judy Woodruff, laid off from CNN, still eager to defend the MSM.

UPDATE: Tom Brokaw volunteers that his colleagues have "gone too far" in their political bias. Here 'tis:

"I think Keith has gone too far. I think Chris has gone too far,"

Obama Attacks Swing Voters, aka the Fox News Audience

The Cable Gamer would like to pass along two rumors about Barack Obama:

First, that Obama is nothing more than a walking, talking version of Mother Jones magazine. You know, stereotypical San Francisco left-liberals. There is no liberal--oops, I mean "progressive"--cliche that Obama doesn't embrace: We believe in God and guns because we are bitter, we should learn Spanish to embrace our multicultural future, we should all be "community organizers," 60s bomb-radicals weren't bad, they simply "cared too much," we should turn our thermostats down, etc., etc.

Second, that Obama is a lefty Frankenstein, created in a bubbling vat in the basement of the Manhattan headquarters of the Ford Foundation. That is to say, he is the fantasy-product of limousine-liberal lefty multiculturalists--he is pro-abortion and pro-tax increase. He is a post-patriotic, post-American "citizen of the world."

OK, OK, neither of those rumors are true. They are jokes, not rumors. But rumors, absurd as they are, that are based on nuggets of truth. Obama is a doctrinaire liberal, whose Christianity is acceptable to the left only because he expressed his faith for 20 years in an America-bashing church.

But the real joke is on Obama, if he thinks that he can attack Fox News and thereby win over the swing voters who currently don't support him--or, frankly, even fear him.

Attacking Fox News will raise his favorables among MoJo readers and Ford Foundation grant-writers, but he had their support anyway. Where Obama needs help is among "red" voters, or at least "purple" voters. You know, swing voters. Also known as Reagan Democrats, or more recently as Hillary Clinton Democrats.

If you read The New York Times today--and bear in mind, this is the Times!--you see that plenty of blue-collar and middle-class voters in Pennsylvania have plenty of doubts about Obama.

For example, here's how the Times reports on one resident of Hopewell, PA:

Ivan Stickles talked of false rumors that Barack Obama did not shake hands with troops in Afghanistan, “I don’t have the time to check out if it’s true, but if it is, it’s very offensive.”

Such "ignorant" views, of course, will only earn Mr. Stickles the disdain of Manhattan and Beverly Hills--where did he go to college? But Mr. Stickles probably doesn't care too much--the bicoastals disdained him anyway. And Mr. Stickles knows it. The question is whether Obama is seen as closer to the bicoastals, or closer to Mr. Stickles and the 50 million or so Americans who are mostly like him.

But Democrats with a better handle on the American people as they are--that is, how ordinary people think about politics and voting--are sending neon-warnings to the Obama campaign: Knock it off!

Here's Howard Wolfson speaking this morning on "Fox & Friends, said that he would advise Obama not to attack Fox. And Wolfson knows whereof he speaks: A Pew Center survey released this week found something that most liberals might have a hard time accepting: No less than 61% of Fox News viewers did NOT regard themselves as Republicans. Which is to say, they are Democrats and independents, most of them, swing voters.

The cosmic joke of this presidential-election season is that the chief strategist of the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign, Mark Penn, had the right idea for beating Obama. Penn's problem is that he tried to implement that strategy inside the Democratic Party, where a majority of those who vote think that Obama's leftism is perfectly acceptable. And so Hillary lost. But of course, John McCain's campaign has picked up the Penn strategy, and is using it effectively to paint Obama as a Mother Jones/Ford Foundation leftist. And that Penn-McCain strategy, of course, has the virtue of being true.

So what should Obama do? He should stop bashing Fox News, and instead, go on its air constantly. Love bomb the Fox audience. Kill Sean Hannity with kindness.

But Obama won't do it, of course. He would rather play to his liberal-left base. And so, after November, as the junior Senator from Illinois, he can keep his rockstar status when he visits the offices of MoJo and Ford.

Convergence Update

Imagine a screen with the immediacy and urgency of TV, but also with the interactivity of the Internet. Convergence is coming soon, and it just got a little closer, thanks to Yahoo and Intel.

The widget-text along the bottom of the screen-grab above is hard to see here on this blog, but it would be easy to see from a big-screen TV.

H/T TechCrunch.

Is CNN Expanding or Shrinking? The Trib's Phil Rosenthal Is Keeping 'Em Honest

The Cable Gamer was plenty interested to see Brian Stelter's
seeming scoop in the August 12 edition of The New York Times, headlined, "TV Networks Rewrite the Definition of a News Bureau."

Here's Stelter's lede: "CNN announced on Tuesday that it would assign journalists to 10 cities across the United States, a move that would double the number of domestic cities where the cable news network has outposts." Now that sounds pretty cool, huh? We cover the waterfront, etc.

In the next graf, Stelter added a few more points:

But in a reflection of the way television networks are reinventing the way they gather news, the journalists will not work from expensive bureaus — rather, they will borrow office space from local news organizations and use laptops to file articles for the Internet and TV. When news happens, they will use Internet connections and cellphone cameras to report live.

Now that seems OK, too--CNN is lean and mean, low to the ground, all that good stuff. And after all, communications technology is so much lighter and easier now that one person can do the work of several.

Indeed, both the Associated Press and The Hollywood Reporter picked up on this storyline, praising CNN for having the digital-era vision to remake reporters into "all-platform journalists." How cool! How Googley, even!

But then along comes the Phil Rosenthal, writing on Wednesday for The Chicago Tribune, to clarify the real deal in a story headlined: "Expansion thins CNN's Chicago staff."

Thins? That sure is a different spin than the Times and its followers. Did Stelter, one on the greatest Cable Gamers working today, get gamed by CNN?

Rosenthal lays it out:

What CNN is calling expansion will mean reducing the number of staffers assigned to its bureau in Chicago by 25 percent, to nine from a dozen.

Instead, it is scattering "all-platform journalists" across the map, each working solo in locales such as Columbus, Ohio, and Minneapolis until reinforcements are needed.

Indeed, under the new plan, the Chicago bureau will be, uh, all platformed:

CNN's expansion plan also calls for elimination of its Chicago-based position of Midwest bureau chief. Reporters here will answer to Pete Janos, the Los Angeles-based Western region chief.

Christian "Fuzz" Hogan, an 11-year CNN veteran named Midwest chief almost two years ago to coordinate coverage from not only here but also bureaus in Dallas and Denver, is among those in the Chicago office displaced.

Got that? Less is more!

CNN must do what it must do, and its flacks must say what they must say, but happily, the rest of us have Phil Rosenthal, keeping 'em honest.

Bill Hemmer's is Bigger

His election board, that is--what were you thinking about? CNN has its "Magic Wall," touch screen for election-data presentation, but Fox has "The Bill Board," named after Bill Hemmer.

"It's a living, breathing, walking, talking iPhone," Hemmer told The Austin American-Statesman. "It's 113 inches in diameter." By contrast, Diane Holloway reports, CNN's screen is just 81 inches. Size matters!

The reputation of conventions these days is that all the juice and life has been scripted out of the conventions. And that might be the case in Denver and St. Paul--although it might not. "Historically the campaigns will try and control the message as best they possibly can," Hemmer said. "The campaigns hope there won't be any surprises. Reporters, of course, hope there will be."

Well put. And that's the point about live events--you never know what's going to happen. I mean, you might think you know, but then you don't.

"The best political team on television"? Or The Best at Name-Calling?

"It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current President." So says CNN's Jack Cafferty. He continues:

"Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been. I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him."

Now let us ask each other, we Cable Gamers: Is this the beginning of a worthy consideration of politics? Is this the way that sound coverage begins?

It occurs to me that the answer is "no." CNN might bill itself as "Your home for politics," but in fact, CNN is home to Jack Cafferty, who revels in ad hominem insults.

That's not keeping 'em honest, that's keeping political coverage on the low road, where the increasingly bibulous--oops, I meant bilious--Cafferty holds forth every day in what can only be called "Cafferty's Unhappy Hour."

H/T to Brent Baker of Newsbusters.

Keith Olbermann: Turning MSNBC into "ONBC"? And You Know What the "O" Stands For!

As Cable Gamers know, MSNBC announced yesterday that it is replacing Dan Abrams with Rachel Maddow.

Oh wait! Actually, MSNBC didn't announce this news, Keith Olbermann announced it! As he wrote in his Daily Kos blog, "The network will be formally announcing this tomorrow, but I am pleased to inform you in this fully authorized leak, that as of Monday, September 8, our mutual friend Ms. Maddow will become host of her own show, on MSNBC, at 9 PM Eastern Time."

And Olbermann continued, "Let me answer the key questions in advance." And then he listed 12 answers; some were jokes, but this one was telling:

4) Yes, I had something to do with it.

In the world of media and media relations, making the announcement is a power move. And throwing that little line in there is further proof that Olbermann wants to underscore his clout inside the channel.

And so now we know who runs MSNBC. Or should we call it "ONBC"?

Fox & Facebook

Now here's something interesting: According to Cable Game Ace Brian Stelter (now slumming for The New York Times), Fox News has chosen Facebook as its main social-networking partner.

But wait a second: Isn't Facebook the big rival to MySpace? And isn't MySpace owned by the News Corporation, which also owns FoxNews? Isn't that a bit... strange?

Well, yes, until you consider that MySpace recently reached outside of its own corporate family to do a deal with MSNBC, which is not only a rival to Fox, but is owned by NBC and then GE,which are rivals to News Corp. And of course, as noted on Saturday, MySpace has played host to those execrable "artists" The East Coast Avengers, who rap "songs" about killing Fox talent.

The Cable Gamer has always been skeptical of corporate synergies. And evidently, the various cable and social networking players are also skeptical.

A Rap "Song" About Killing Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin

Wired magazine was apprently the first to report that a rap group called "East Coast Avengers" has made a song entitled "Kill Bill O'Reilly." And for good measure, the Avengers "sing" about killing Michelle Malkin. The lyrics can be found here.

This is outrageous, of course, and such an open incitement to violence should not be tolerated.

But here are two more points to add:

First, the East Coast Avengers are hosted, if that's the right word, on MySpace, which is owned, of course, by the parent company of Fox, the News Corporation. So much for synergy, at least positive synergy.

Second, the repeated references to "media matters" and the remarkable detail in the lyrics--"Malmedy"-- makes me wonder if these rappers, whoever they are, didn't have some help from someone who obsessively covers O'Reilly. Like, maybe, someone with a, uh, close familiarity with Media Matters?

Just asking.

NBC Olympics-gate Upate. Not that Jeff Zucker cares, but it's also now CNBC-gate and MSNBC-gate.

Now there's news of yet another fraud at the Beijing Olympics. And we might ask: What did NBC know, and when did it know it?

The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes has the horrible details in her TV column this morning, under the headline, "Something Else at the Olympics Rings False." Here de Moraes, summing up a story first broken by the Asian Wall Street Journal, with follow up from the Associated Press:

Just when you thought things couldn't possibly get any worse for the scandal-plagued Beijing Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies, comes word that those cherubic children wearing costumes of China's 56 ethnic groups, who stole our hearts as they carried the repressive totalitarian country's banner to the Scary Goose-Stepping Soldiers who then hoisted it up on the Official Beijing Olympic Games Flag Pole, were not actually members of those ethnic groups.

They were -- are you sitting down?

Actors!

Which is to say, fakes. Frauds. Scams. Lies. And she noted other reports, too:

"Fake fireworks, a fake singer and now fake children at the Olympics opening ceremony," screamed Reuters, joining the latest Olympics scandal cacophony heard 'round the world.

OK, you get the idea. Now here's a question: Where was NBC? And where were all the crusading journalists at CNBC and MSNBC?

Her prose dripping with sarcasm, here's de Moraes again:

NBC's crack journalists had been all over this wardrobe scandal when it occurred during their network's broadcast of the ceremonies:

"All of the children you're going to be seeing tonight -- it's important to the organizers -- are average Chinese children from average families, chosen from some art schools around the area," Matt Lauer told the 34 million or so viewers back home.

"Joshua, what do we make of this now, from the children to the soldiers?" Bob Costas asked NBC's China analyst (and former Time foreign editor) Joshua Cooper Ramo, as the non-ethnic children in ethnic costumes handed the flag to the Scary Goose-Stepping Soldiers.

"I think it's a profound statement that will resonate in the hearts of the more than 1 billion Chinese watching this tonight, the idea that the state is the guarantor of the future of those children in a country that for so long could not guarantee the safety or stability of the society for generations of children," Ramo replied.

Oops.

In other words, the Olympics news coverage of NBC, as well as the news coverage of CNBC and MSNBC, has been fraudulent. Not only have the NBC properties failed to go digging for stories--especially about the crucial issue of China's restive minorities, from Tibet to Xinjiang--they have even ignored relevant stories even when others have reported them.

Not that NBC cares. Jeff Zucker, the big boss, was too busy cheerleading for himself to notice the implications--for NBC, for journalism, for the truth:

So this really is a great watershed moment for network television. It's great for NBC and it's a great moment for our multiscreen -- on air, online, on the go, the digital aspects of these games has been huge.

So nevermind the story of China's police-state tactics against ethnic groups, or the fate of Falun Gong, or the Christians. Just talk about how much money you've made. That's good, Jeff.

You're going to get a helluva bonus.

This Won't Help Chris Matthews in the Democratic Primary Next Year in Pennsylvania

The Cable Gamer has long understood that Chris Matthews has been angling to run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2010. The stars are aligning for him to run, but as we shall see, there are some anti-matter counter stars blocking his path to the Senate.

TCG sources say that Matthews is bored doing "Hardball," and that he is filled with envy over those political figures--Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Bloomberg, and, of course, the ultimate celeb, Barack Obama--who are crossovers from the world of celebrity culture. And of course, Matthews started his career as a Congressional staffer, for the legendary Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, so there would be a certain symmetry in him coming back to Capitol Hill, 30 years later, as an elected big cheese.

That Senate seat is currently held by Arlen Specter, a Republican. Specter has been elected to that job five times, but never by big margins, and more to the point, he will be 80 years old in 2010. And these are bad times for GOPers, everywhere.

And so in preparation for that Senate run, as a Democrat, Matthews has tried to much more of an orthodox Dem on his MSNBC show. He was visibly and virulently pro-Obama during the Democratic primaries, and, of course, Obama won the presidential nomination (although not the Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton in the Keystone State--more on that in a bit).

Yes, Matthews has made some missteps along the way: That New York Times Magazine April cover story, did him real damage, making him look like a name-dropping, ego-tripping lout. Which, in the opinion of many, he is. No wonder he wants to run for the Senate!

But even so, there's no reason for Matthews not to run for the Senate. He has plenty of money piled up, he knows that he will never get higher in the cable game than he is now, and moreover, his employer, MSNBC, has an uncertain future when GE spins off NBC. (Yes, I know that everyone at GE denies the prospect of such a sale, but Jeff Immelt had more clout within his company, and with Wall Street, when GE stock was higher than 29, but that's what I'd do, too, until the moment that I was ready to sell it.)

OK, so now we know what's in it for Chris. Is that all that matters? Not quite. The LA Times reports on a new feminist group this morning, using this ominous headline: "Women's group wants Chris Matthews fired/Calling his treatment of women on his cable TV show sexist, the New Agenda urges MSNBC to not renew his contract."

Leader Amy Siskind of Westchester, N.Y., identified by the Times as a Hillary Clinton supporter, said the group, called New Agenda, was urging that Matthews' contract not be renewed because "the kind of language he uses and the kind of behavior he exhibits in the public domain toward women objectifies them and leads to bad things for our society and to domestic violence."

Ouch!

The Times recalled this incident, for example:

In 2007, Matthews was talking on the air with Erin Burnett, a CNBC business news anchor, when he asked her to lean into the camera. "Come in closer -- really close," he told a flustered Burnett. He then laughed and said: "Just kidding. You look great. . . . You're a knockout."

Matthews, by the way, is married. But even if he weren't, it's not good to do your romantic reaching, live on TV.

But the real subtext here is feminists who supported Hillary Clinton's presidential race who are not happy with the way she, the junior senator from New York, has been treated in the past year. Those feminists and other women are taking out their anger on Obama, who they accuse of being demeaning to Hillary, and they are now taking out their anger on Matthews, who obviously was demeaning to Hillary, although in a different way than he demeaned Erin Burnett.

Now The Cable Gamer thinks it's extremely unlikely that this group will succeed in getting Matthews fired, or not renewed. On the other hand, a group of well-connected activists who pledge to use "covert" methods to undermine Matthews should not be underestimated.

So we shall see. The Cable Game stands by her prediction that Matthews will leave MSNBC and "explore" his options in Pennsylvania. And that will give Ms. Siskind a victory.

And then the question is, will New Agenda follow Matthews home to Pennsylvania, where feminist ire against him could really hurt inside a Democratic primary? My guess is that New Agenda will, indeed, continue to hound Matthews wherever he goes, in part because angry feminists need someone to hate--preferably an older white male--and in part because somebody in Pennsylvania is pulling their string. Sorry ladies, but that's what I think.

Like who? Who's the string-puller? I dunno. Maybe someone else who wants the Senate seat, like perhaps Ed Rendell, the current Democratic governor, who is term-limited out of his current job in 2010.

Or maybe that someone string-puller just doesn't think that Pennsylvania should be represented in the Senate by a self-indulgent blowhard.

Jeff Zucker: "the poster child for failing upward"

Karl Taro Greenfield of Conde Nast Portfolio reports, you decide:

After he took over as president of the NBC Television group in 2004, prime-time ratings slipped 11 percent during his watch, dropping NBC from No. 1 to No. 4. Kurt Andersen of New York magazine declared NBC’s 2004–05 season an “annus horribilis.” Zucker’s widely publicized flops included the Friends spinoff, Joey, and the expensive animation show Father of the Pride. Much to his own surprise, Zucker became the poster child for failing upward, as he was promoted to C.E.O. of NBC in 2005, and then to his current job last year.

Speaking of "falling upward," Jeff, be careful of that railing. Gravity is a less indulgent boss than Jeff Immelt.

Olympics-gate! Did NBC Cooperate in Two Olympic Fakeries? And What About CNBC and MSNBC?*

The Cable Gamer always wondered if NBC, which paid nearly a billion dollars for the rights to broadcast the Olympics, knew that Lin Miaoke, the cute little girl singing a Chinese song during the opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday, was a Milli Vannilli-type lip-synching fake.

The Cable Gamer doesn't pretend to know all the ins and out of TV production, but she knows that the technical issues of carrying a live performance are so enormous that it would have been hard for NBC not to know that the Chinese were putting on the vocal equivalent of a Potemkin village.

And yet NBC, and NBC News, kept mum about this news, leaving it to others to eventually leak the story. Of course NBC kept quiet: Because parent company NBC-Universal made a huge investment in the games, and so loyal NBC apparatchiks, such as Matt Lauer--who is allegedly part of the NBC News team, although he is more of a cheerleader for sponsors--was all too happy to suck up to the Chinese dictators and slime Chinese dissidents and protestors in his broadcasts.

And now here's another example of what would seem to be NBC's over-eager collaboration with Chinese fakery: The Chinese also managed to insert fake video footage of a fireworks display into TV viewers' screens (see screen grab above). This is complicated, so let Richard Spencer, writing for The Telegraph, the British newspaper, do the explaining:

As the ceremony got under way with a dramatic, drummed countdown, viewers watching at home and on giant screens inside the Bird's Nest National Stadium watched as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks processed gloriously above the city from Tiananmen Square.

What they did not realize was that what they were watching was in fact computer graphics, meticulously created over a period of months and inserted into the coverage electronically at exactly the right moment.

The fireworks were there for real, outside the stadium. But those responsible for filming the extravaganza decided in advance it would be impossible to capture all 29 footprints from the air.

As a result, only the last, visible from the camera stands inside the Bird's Nest was captured on film.

The trick was revealed in a local Chinese newspaper, the Beijing Times, at the weekend.

Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence. Meticulous efforts were made to ensure the sequence was as unnoticeable as possible: they sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office as to how to recreate the hazy effects of Beijing's smog at night, and inserted a slight camera shake effect to simulate the idea that it was filmed from a helicopter.

"Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks," he said. "But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished."

He said the main problem with trying to shoot the real thing was the difficulty of placing the television helicopter at the right angle to see all 28 footsteps in a row.

One advisor to the Beijing Olympic Committee (BOCOG) defended the decision to use make-believe to impress the viewer. "It would have been prohibitive to have tried to film it live," he said. "We could not put the helicopter pilot at risk by making him try to follow the firework route."

So in fairness to NBC, the prime responisibility for the video "feed" rests with the Chinese, as Spencer explains:

A spokeswoman for BOCOG said the final decision had been made by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, the joint venture between the International Olympic Committee and local organisers that is responsible for providing the main "feeds" of all Olympic events to viewers around the world.

OK, but one still has to figure that NBC must've been wise to this--all those hundreds of technical people, in Beijing and New York City, they must have known. But they kept their mouth shut.

And it never occurred, of course, to any of them to give this scoop to NBC News, or to MSNBC, or to CNBC. Heck, if the story had been given to MSNBC or CNBC, those netlets couldn't have run it, because they have been too busy covering the Olympics.

With a feed provided by the Chinese communists.

Admittedly, all this techno-trickery made for great television, but NBC News, and CNBC and MSNBC, all collaborated in a huge fraud, working as tools for an authoritarian regime.

And that's why these actions--and no doubt more examples will come trickling out--deserve to be called Olympics-gate.

*UPDATE: TCG reader VSTOL says:

During the live-to-tape NBC broadcast of the opening ceremony, as the foot print segment unfolded, Bob Costas and Matt Lauer revealed to the audience the cinematic electronically generated nature of the footprints.

If your going to criticize someone for not revealing the facts, you should probably make sure your "facts" are accurate.

The Cable Gamer didn't hear Costas and Lauer say this. Maybe they did. In which case, both TCG and Richard Spencer of The Telegraph--which treated the story as a revelation--stand corrected.

And VSTOL still doesn't answer the question of whether NBC had any knowledge of the lip-synching.

Eyeballs, The Cable Game, The Netroots, "The Coasean Floor," and Populist Mobilization

The Cable Gamer has often thought to herself that the same "eyeballs" that watch a show could do more than just watch. They--or, more precisely, the people connected to those eyeballs--could take action. And why not? People have opinions, why not put them to work?

Of course, those eyeballs already are doing something: At least in theory, they are watching the ads and buying things. And of course, in a political season, eyeballers--especially those eyeballing cable news, which has taken the lead on political coverage--are also voters.

But these folks, waiting to be mobilized, could be doing more--more good. A heartwarming f'rinstance comes from TV Newser, which details the wonderful humanitarian efforts of "Fox & Friends":

The show is also being hailed for helping a young woman get the medical coverage she desperately needed.

19-year-old Caitlin White had extensive brain surgery (her brain was actually falling through the bottom of her skull) but her insurance company was not going to cover the $113,000 bill until FNC's Peter Johnson, Jr. got involved. Fox & Friends aired several segments on Caitlin's story, and Johnson went all the way to the top to help the Bartow, Florida teen, calling up Gov. Charlie Crist. Crist's call to Aetna was enough for the insurer to pick up the tab.

"If a call from the Governor's office can make a little bit of a difference to help someone like Caitlin, it's an honor to do that," Crist said yesterday during an appearance on F&F along with Caitlin and her mother.

That's a sweet story. And let's hope that there's more of that sort of wrong-righting "ombudsman"-type activity on TV. But in the meantime, TCG can't help but think that the same sort of activism will be found in more venues, especially as TV and the Net continue to converge.

And already, Convergence Visionaries have demonstrated that the political/policy impact of Net-based mobilization can be seismic. In May, Newt Gingrich launched his "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less." petition drive, which was a sort of TV-Net hybrid, as Gingrich championed the idea across various media platforms. Newt's effort gained nearly a million-and-a-half signatures in just a few weeks, blowing away the Al Gore-type polar bear pieties, transforming the American political debate in just a couple of months.

And just this morning, there's an interesting item in The Washington Examiner, detailing Net-driven changes in the lobbying biz. Writer Bill Myers notes that the old clubby game of influence peddling has now been blown wide open:

The problem is that in the 21st century, it’s harder to have an absolute monopoly on information.

“The story of American society after the Internet is the story of the decreasing relevance of middlemen and institutions: People want to do for themselves,” said journalist Matt Bai, whose book, “The Argument,” was one of the first to spot the growing influence of netroots groups on Boggs’ Democratic party.

Indeed, the netroots groups are impatient with compromise and make no secret of their scorn for professional lobbyists.

And if that's bad news for lobbyists and other kinds of gatekeepers--including the MSM--fine! Although, of course, something tells TCG that Boggs & Co. will do just fine under any technological regime. Why? because human nature, including all its insider-y factors and foibles, will always matter a lot in politics.

But at the same time, TCG can also see the outlines of a populist upsurge. If the Internet has collapsed the "Coasean Floor" that once made grassroots networking prohibitively expensive, then the politics of the future could be dominated by more TV- "netroots"-type convergences, coming together on behalf of various causes, humanitarian as well as partisan, left, right, and center.