Hows this for head-scratching eureka-moment irony: Yesterday's Houston Chronicle story about Anderson Cooper was in the Entertainment section. Other stories from the Entertainment section: "Murky details about Aquaman surfacing in Hollywood" and "Reality show to decide who stars in Broadway's Grease." CNN, the most trusted name in, er, something.
from usmagazine.com
Today, Us Weekly broke the news that Vince Vaughn had proposed to Jennifer Aniston (who, as the Us Weekly cover suggests, said yes), complete with juicy details such as "Vince almost cries whenever he tells the story of the proposal," and, of course, Vince proposed with "a ring bigger than Brad's." Janice Min even went on the Today show to recount the specifics of the proposal (Vaughn proposed on June 27th, in a Gulfstream jet flying back home after a nine-day vacation in Mexico). In just a few hours, however, E! Online had dispelled the myth with a statement from Aniston's publicist Steve Huvane: "It is not true — they are not engaged. Huh? But Us Weekly said so! That sounds flip but actually, it's a big deal: it's on the cover, and Min put her credibility and that of her magazine on the line when she greenlit the story — and when she went on national TV to spread it. Is it possible that one of America's favorite couples somehow managed to keep their engagement under wraps for a month and a half, anyway? Well, Brangelina bought Namibia, so who knows.
Either way, with the Brangelina baby born and Suri Cruise hidden away from view, a Jen-Vince engagement is just what the celeb weeklies need. In fact, this latest rumor is just the latest in the various twists and turns in the coverage of the Vaughnistan romance by competing celeb mags Us Weekly and Life & Style. E! Online provides the summary:
"Life & Style reports engagement, Us Weekly denies engagement, Life & Style reports breakup, Us Weekly counters with engagement report, Life & Style conveniently forgets prior breakup report, points finger at Us Weekly and says, "Nana nana boo-boo."
In the meantime, let's focus on the important thing: Jen's happiness. Doesn't she deserve some, too?
— with Troy Schuler
from CBSnews.com
Mike Wallace shows he's still got get, landing an exclusive sit-down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Tuesday, airing in part on the CBS Evening News tomorrow night and in full on "60 Minutes" this Sunday. Ahmadinejad and Wallace chat about a wide range of subjects, but the nut is really in Ahmadinejad's thoughts on Bush and U.S.- Iran relations:
"But please give him this message, sir: Those who refuse to accept an invitation will not have a good ending or fate. You see that his approval rating is dropping every day. Hatred vis-à-vis the president is increasing every day around the world. For a ruler, this is the worst message that he could receive. Rulers and heads of government at the end of their office must leave the office holding their heads high."
Bush, no doubt, will be watching the interview eagerly and taking notes.
Ahmadinejad also accuses the U.S. of "talking down" to Iran, saying that Bush "believes that his power emanates from his nuclear warhead arsenals. The time of the bomb is in the past, it's behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges." Where does the "death to Israel" part come in, I wonder? Oh, right, that kind of cultural exchange.
from HoustonChronicle.com
Whoa — people clearly care who the hottest media-related people are in Washington D.C., at least if the votes FishbowlDC's "D.C.'s Hottest Media Type" contest are any indication. You have until 5 pm to vote for the raven-haired wiles of Norah O'Donnell or Howie Kurtz, or to declare it a draw between brainy babes Danas Milbank and Priest; to click through your devotion to a fetching Froomkin or a flexing Folkenflik or to give it up for the smooth stylin's of Robin Givhan or the hot and haiku-riffic Jake Tapper; to pledge Sunday-morning allegiance to a raw, ravishing Russert or a sexy, smoldering Stephanopoulos, or to assert your democratic right to declare that Wolf Blitzer's beard-and-specs combo makes you blinker like a bank of TV screens. What, you think we watch "Meet The Press" for the issues? Get real.
Yes, we know Anderson Cooper isn't from D.C. but, really, isn't Anderson Cooper everywhere? And besides, he looks really cute and stern and serious in this photo. Don't give us no flak for it.
Last night, Jon Stewart welcomed NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams to The Daily Show in a witty rapid-fire exchange. Williams, who is obviously very serious on the NBC Nightly news, has a reputation for being a pretty funny guy, and more than held his own in bringing the funny, joking about, among other things, being old enough to wear trifocals ("I interviewed Lincoln") and even donning the specs on air (which he doesn't do on NBC), to which Stewart's reaction was: "When you came out I saw a robust man who just came back from the Lebanon, if I may use the British pronunciation of it, and was feeling his oats as a newsman, as a gadabout...and then you put those on and I thought, I think I beat that guy's ass in Dungeons & Dragons. I think he's a wizard with very little power."
The exchange did, however, have two notable moments, regarding soon-to-be nightly news challenger Katie Couric and Williams' recent reporting from Lebanon. Regarding Couric, Stewart cut right to the chase: "What are you and your colleagues gonna do to destroy her? What are you gonna do to break her spirit?" Williams responded innocently, "I'm not about tearing down" and then, with a joke he clearly relished, "It would be as if one of your acolytes in the fake news business branched out to start his own..." (Williams liked that joke enough to use it twice, after the first time getting cut off by the audience's "Oooooooooh" as if to say, "Oh no, you didn't!"; Stewart's reply: "You don't do the news with an audience do you?"). After getting to satisfactorily deliver his zinger the second time ("Ohhh, that French guy!"), Williams addressed the Couric challenge:
"You know what, we welcome the competition, Jon. We don't go out to destroy our competitors — we say things like JFK did when he said "a rising tide lifts all boats." Having Katie in our time slot and my friend Charlie Gibson for that matter — why are you drawing when I'm talking to you?— makes us better, it makes the competition sharper. My son has a longer attention span than you do.
But the segment truly heated up when Stewart tossed Williams this question: "In the Lebanon or in New Orleans, which had do you think, the stronger US government presence?" Williams deftly dodged the question a bit (which he did the last time he was on the show, following Katrina, when he said: "I don't do opinions, I'm going to leave it to others."). He did, however, describe exactly how secure he felt over there: "The bottle rockets you and I set off as kids have a better guidance system than these Katuyshas. They go all over the countryside. Half of northern Israel is a forest fire because they land and they explode and they're scary as all get out in that way." And when questioned on the veracity of news reports coming from the Middle East (especially on the heels of the doctored Reuters photos), Williams insisted that the situation is "too real," that "no one has time" to manufacture a story for the media's benefit. Williams recounted going up in an Israeli military blackhawk helicopter with rockets flying 1,500 feet beneath him before reminding Stewart, "they're firing real bullets over there. Anytime you wanna cross over to the other side, baby, travel with me." Stewart did not seem inclined to do so.
Update: Video of the segment available on YouTube here.
from service.spiegel.de
U.S. troops have arrested four Iraqi men in connection with the kidnapping of Jill Carroll, the American freelance journalist for the Christian Science Monitor who was kidnapped on in January and held for 82 days before being released on March 30, 2006. Her Iraqi interpreter was killed in her original ambush. The men were arrested in Anbar province west of Baghdad about a month ago, according to one USA Today source, though the U.S. military won't confirm a date.
Carroll, meanwhile, will publish an 11-part series for the CSM about her ordeal, scheduled to begin next Monday, April 14th.
from npr.org
Apparently lots of people listen to NPR, a new study from the Center for Media Research reports. NPR is the fourth-most listened to radio format, pulling in 14.7 million adult listeners each week, trailing only the News/Talk, Country, and Christian formats in weekly audience size. Lest you think that unimpressive, please note that NPR beats out Dance, Classic Rock, Rock, R&B Urban, and Religious (but not Christian!) categories for that clutch #4 ranking. Led Zeppelin circa '73, eat your heart out. Further, it seems, NPR listeners are loyal, as it ranks second (again, behind powerhouse News/Talk) in the number of adults who listen to that format most often — and, perhaps most importantly in the ever-changing media landscape and its burgeoning platforms, it leads the pack in terms of "converting" one-time listeners to regular listeners.
Note that this above data was culled from a telephone study of 114,035 adults across 84 cities in 2005/early 2006; yesterday's Gallup poll ranking the popularity of TV news figures used a sample of 1,001 people surveyed.
Sometime over the weekend, AOL employees published records of 658,000 users' search histories. The users were anonymous and ID'd only by numbers, but even so the company took down the information and subsequently apologized for the breach in security. Naturally, copies of the records are still circulating online and arent' so tough to crack: which they, in fact, did by examining user search histories. Turns out User No. 4417749 was Thelma Arnold of Lillburn, Georgia, whose searches for other people with the last name "Arnold," "landscapers in Lillburn, Ga," and the ever-popular "homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia" led Times reporters Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller, Jr. to her digital doorstep. In the process, they learned that Arnold researches medical conditions, looks for single men in their 60s, and was curious about the best season to visit Italy. They also learned that her home may smell faintly of dog urine.
The level of tracking user data raises a red flag (especially in Arnold, who "had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder"). Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center called the data tracking by AOL, Google (and now MySpace?) and the like as "a ticking privacy time bomb." That goes double for User No. 3483689, whose searches for the songs "Time After Time" and "Wind Beneath My Wings" were a dead giveaway (we're looking at you, Bill O'Reilly). In the interest of full disclosure, recent ETP searches include "how does it feel? to be on your own" "responsible for all the wars in the world" and "head superimposed on David Hasselhoff's body."
N.B. This seems like the kind of story moms everywhere will send to their kids and to their friends, so don't be surprised if it climbs to the top of MEL. You heard it here first, as you often do .
Not so much like a rolling stone on his own and a complete unknown, Bob Dylan has gathered some online moss at MySpace, with a complete user profile inviting fans and visitors to join his mailing list, listen to a few classic clips, and pre-order his new album. Dylan is one of many artists — or books, movies, TV shows — to start up a MySpace page, though query whether he has any actual involvement given that the content is completely corporate (see above - it's kind of hilarious that the first real quote on the site is from a suit). Dylan's new album drops on Aug. 29th, with ten new songs, and, as Columbia Records Chairman Steve Barnett points out on the MySpace page, "A new Bob Dylan record is an event." (No Luddite he, Dylan has also teamed up with iTunes for the album presale.)
Unlike some scary people on MySpace, Dylan doesn't claim to be some 16-year-old, but cops to being 66 and from Hibbing, Minnesota, so he hasn't forgotten his roots, man (weirdly, the WTC movie self-IDs as a 19-year-old male). The page, which dates to November 2005, loads to the strains of "Mr. Tambourine Man" which is kind of ironic since it was actually popularized (and more popular in its time) by The Byrds. To everything, turn, turn, turn.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, Dylan's MySpace tagline is "Like a rolling stone...." which presumably means that he can still answer the question "how does it feel?" He can at least answer the question "How does it feel to be friends with Journey, Simon & Garfunkel and Jefferson Airplane?" who are all featured in his network. Creepily, he's also "friends" with John Denver and Stevie Ray Vaughn
(and it's really kind of unseemly that the pages offer a link to their "latest blog entry"). Coincidentally, Dylan's "friends" all link back to an outfit by the name of Legacy Recordings. Probably less coincidentally, Journey's tagline is "Don't stop believin'". Oh, Legacy Recordings, we never will.
Not at all ironically, Dylan's new album is called "Modern Times."
Hat tip: Best Week Ever.
— From "The Man Without A Face" (edited). For those interested in Mel-as-Shakespearean-actor, the full clip is below.
