Urner Barry Publications
Conservative harridan Ann Coulter garnered harsh criticisms from all sides after her tense interview with Matt Lauer on yesterday's "Today" Show to promote her new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. In the book, Coulter refers to a group of 9/11 widows as "the Witches of East Brunswick" writing, "I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much," and Matt Lauer challenged her on it on the air in an exchange in which she accused Lauer of being "testy." Editor & Publisher rounds up some of the Coulter-hating ink spilled in her inflammatory wake:
See also NewsHounds, which made the interesting observation that Sean Hannity seemed to be distancing himself from Coulter.
from TVNewser
Rick Kaplan "resigned" from his post as President of MSNBC today, leaving his post vacant and with no word about plans for the future. TVNewser further reports that "Kaplan met with NBC News president Steve Capus at 30 Rock this morning [and] was apparently told that MSNBC is moving in a new direction."
Kaplan's farewell memo lauded his staff and praised their achievements: "Together, we've increased MSNBC's viewership 25% in primetime and 19% in dayside," singling out "Hardball and Countdown" for praise (but not the programs featuring Tucker Carlson or Rita Cosby, two of his recent pet projects). ETP wishes Kaplan well and wants to know if this means that Dan Abrams gets his portrait back.
Craig Silverman
Each day seems to bring with it another report of theft, a new dastardly deed where the culprit is unmasked, sometimes given a public spanking, and dispatched into the annals of thievery. I feel as though I'm living through a season of plagiarism unlike one we've ever seen before.
Are we getting better at catching these parrots, or are they engaged in a breeding frenzy? I suspect it's a little of both, though why anyone...
People Magazine
Little Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt is already a big earner - thanks to her rarified parentage, her first-ever baby photos sold for $4.1-million to People (as reported by yesterday's Page Six). Hello! scored the British rights for $3.5-million. Kelly speculates that worldwide rights could hit $10-million. The happy couple plans to donate it all to charity.
UPDATE: A legal brawl is brewing over the unauthorized publication of the Hello! cover by two websites, according to the BBC (does that include this one?). Both People and Hello! launched a suit against the websites today. Upshot: Baby Shiloh is expensive for everybody.
Peter Daou
Open Letter to Tim Russert was launched in January of 2006 with this question: "This Sunday, you asked Senator Barack Obama to respond to Harry Belafonte's remarks about George W. Bush being a "terrorist." Why? Why did you ask this question? Harry Belafonte isn't an elected official, he doesn't speak for Democrats, he doesn't represent Senator Obama, he doesn't represent the Democratic Party, and he is entitled to his own opinion."
In light...
from Penguins On The Equator
Khardori approves of "On The Media" host Brooke Gladstone's guest-gig on Charlie Rose last night, where she welcomed the highbrow new guard of magazine editors with Franklin Foer of The New Republic, Roger Hodge of Harper's, and Philip Gourevitch of The Paris Review, in which she commented on TNR's "tanking" circ numbers and loss of direction. Khardori thinks Gladstone has a face for radio and TV; Charlie Rose returns on Monday, June 12 .
Gabriel Sherman documents the difficulty the Times has in recruiting new correspondents to cover Baghdad. Five volunteered; three are going: Paul von Zielbauer, 39, Damien Cave, 32, and Marc Santora, 31. From Baghdad, veteran war correspondent John Burns noted that some people are entering their fourth year of covering what, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, is the deadliest modern war for journalists; that fact would likely not comfort von Zielbauer's mother, who hung up on him when she heard the news, turned on the TV and saw a report of the attack on the CBS team.
Rachel Sklar
Welcome to the Huffington Post's newest feature, "Eat The Press!" This page will be the nexus of all of HuffPo's media coverage, from blog posts to news briefs to top headlines every day, plus blogosphere reaction, spin, whispered conjecture, appropriately disclaimed rumors and all the chatter from across the national conversation. We're pretty excited.
In a bizarre irony, HuffPo's ETP has learned that The Boston Herald plagiarized Editor & Publisher's article about Seth Mnookin's Vanity Fair article about...plagiarism. Except for the first paragraph, today's Boston Herald "'Code' blue: Vanity Fair calls Brown copycat cowboy" is almost identical to E&P's "Upcoming 'Vanity Fair' Article Raises New Issues About 'DaVinci Code' Author," dating from yesterday, June 6th, at 11:45 am ET. The byline on the E&P story is "E&P Staff" and the byline on the Herald story is "Inside Track," which is the Herald's gossip column.
Both stories refer to Mnookin's article, "The Da Vinci Clone," about allegations of plagiarism against Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown as a "massive article." Both stories cite "John Olsson, the director of Britain's Forensic Linguistics Institute" saying "This is the most blatant example of in-your-face plagiarism I've ever seen. It just goes on and on. There are literally hundreds of parallels." Both follow with "Brown did not respond to requests for comment" (E&P says "from Vanity Fair"; the Boston Herald says "from the magazine").
Harry Shearer
It was just last night that conservative talk-radio host Laura Ingraham was on the O'Reilly show reiterating her complaint that the American public has been turned against the Iraq war by reporting that doesn't get out of the Green Zone, reporting that stands on hotel balconies describing IED's, reporting that doesn't get out to bases in-country and "talk to the troops".
"Do you think if more of the troops' stories were...
In the July 2006 Vanity Fair Craig Unger makes the case that that SISMI, the Italian secret service, fabricated evidence of a yellowcake deal with Iraq in order to bolster Bush's case for war. Unger traces the so-called 'Italian job' to Michael Ledeen, a prominent neo-con with close ties to the White House.
Related: Sy Hersh, 2003: Dick Cheney stovepipe of raw intel to White House (New Yorker)
In the July Vanity Fair, writer Seth Mnookin revisits the plagiarism allegations made against bestselling Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, who successfully defended a plagiarism lawsuit from author Lewis Perdue earlier this year. Mnookin's article -- "DaVinci Clone?" -- cites two libel experts who found "literally hundreds of parallels" between Brown's book and Perdue's "Daughter of God." The "massive" article, clocking in at approximately 5,600 words, also explores additional charges of plagiarism and the suspicious behaviour of Brown's wife with respect to a campaign of email harrassment against Perdue.
NYT: Mnookin says experts agreed Brown "clearly" plagiarized, but he managed to stay within copyright law. Boston Herald: Literally hundreds of parallels with E&P's article, posted yesterday at 11:45 am (see related HuffPo report on the plagiarism in an article about plagiarism).
from Rolling Stone
Memo to staff: Sign releases, act naturaly, and "do not purposely get involved with the shooting." Unwritten but assumed: Keep personal workspaces clean.
Eric Boehlert
Wingers have become unhinged over the alleged massacre and cover-up in Haditha. Or more specifically, they've become unhinged over the Haditha news coverage, which they insist has been laced with barely contained glee on the part of the press. But as usual with the press-hating conservatives, whose first concern is always the Bush White House and not the state of American journalism, don't actually point to any...
Robert Scheer
Originally posted at Truthdig.com.
Five media giants joined the U.S. government last week in paying maligned Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee $1.6 million dollars while once again denying any serious culpability in his totally unjustified and extremely harsh incarceration. Hiding behind their "bond" with government sources, the media companies continue to protect officials who broke the law in leaking highly classified information to defame an individual, as they have more recently in the...
