David Sirota
I had the chance to debate Ann Coulter today on CNBC's Kudlow and Company - and wow, for one of the GOP's top icons, she was truly unimpressive. You can watch the video of the ensuing debate here in .mov format, and here on YouTube. I cited a bunch of facts that Coulter never bothered to even address, much less refute. For instance, I...
It is a sad day at the HuffPo offices: One by one, our beloved, cherished, and dependable interns are leaving. That's them in the picture — from left to right, Troy Schuler, Elias Altman, and Danny Shea — and Lordy, we're going to miss them. Elias was not only a clutch member of our crack news team, but he was also the auteur who directed and cinematorgraphized our famous "Merkel Massage Madness!" video (maybe "famous" isn't the word to describe it). Troy, who departs today, was assigned to "Eat The Press" full-time and provided indispensible assistance with pretty much every aspect of the site, especially our "Newsbriefs" posts for which he was largely responsible. Troy also appeared in the video, and very seriously examined the motivations of the character "Troy" prior to shooting. Danny leaves us sometime next week — when he grows weary of us, he hasn't yet decided — leaving me bereft of insight into the vagaries of MEL (yes, Shamu was his specialty). Danny's star turn in the video came when he delivered this pivotal line: "Katharine, you have really strong hands." We can tell you now, reader: that line was completely improvised. He is that skilled.
All three of them provided invaluable assistance to us all here at HuffPo central, as well as being fun, smart, tech-savvy, helpful, and genuinely delightful contributors to the site and the office. We are so very sad to lose them, but we are heartened by the fact that each of them has internet connections so we can probably eke some work out of them if we hit 'em at just the right time. In the meantime, we wish them the very best and will miss them very much. Best of luck to you, guys!!!! We'll miss you!!!! Oh, I said that. Dammit, proofreading is the intern's department.
Jeff Jarvis
I'm fascinated to see journalism schools mirroring the strategic debate going on in the journalism business -- as well they should.
Columbia's J-school seems to be establishing itself as the classicist, the sanctuary whose ivied castle walls guard journalism as journalism has been done. I suspect that's an unfair summary but here's the evidence: We see its dean, Nick Lemann, issuing his papal bull in The New Yorker setting up a separation...
from maximcovers.com
As first reported by Jossip, four staff members at popular lad-mag Maxim were laid off this morning. A source inside the magazine said that senior associate editor John Devore and associate editor Steve Mazzucchi have been let go, as well as production editor Andrij Witiuk and fact-checker Bartley Morrisoe.
A source inside Maxim said that the turnover had "nothing to do" with the recent hiring of erstwhile gossip maven Chris Wilson, though the magazine will have to match Wilson's current salary, rumored among industry insiders to be in the $70,000 range, not to mention perks (such as fully-subsidized weekend getaways). The Daily News reported yesterday that the former Page Sixer's new job would in fact be a "higher-paying gig" than his position at The New York Post.
A source close to the magazine said that several staff members have felt a "palpable distrust" of editor-in-chief Jimmy Jellinek since he assumed leadership, and that certain editors felt that Jellinek had decided from the beginning "who would stay and who would go." Wilson, whom ETP's source said is a "known drinking buddy of Jellinek," will be joined by current Stuff associate editor and sections editor Jeff Foss and Seth Kelly as new Maxim hires, as reported by FishbowlNY. Jellinek did not return a phone call made earlier this afternoon.
Yesterday, HuffPo hosted a mini face-off between "This Is Not Chick Lit" editor Elizabeth Merrick and "This Is Chick Lit" contributor Rachel Pine about the relative merits of the genre (our take is here). As Carrie Bradshaw might say, we couldn't help but wonder: what makes chick lit, and should you, in fact, judge a book by its cover? We played around a bit in Photoshop (hat tip: Adnan Hajj) and leave it to you figure out.
Cover image for The World Is Flat taken from Necessary Objects, and cartoon George Bush taken from SNL "TV Funhouse" (see).
All covers by Marty Higgins except for The World is Flat (Rachel Sklar) and Prep (Curtis Sittenfeld).
YouTube
As you may or may not have noticed, Joe Scarborough was not included on the list of talk/news personalities Gallup polled 1,001 Americans about (well, you probably didn't notice, but Joe sure did). As Scarborough mentions in the video from Wednesday's show, this fact "didn't go over so well in Scarborough Country." The video is hilarious in its own right, and it's worth a first viewing just on its own merits. But if you have time for a second or third viewing, you can pick up on the little things that reflect the segment's extremely low production value (hey, it's all about the little things). Our favorites include: the fact that Scarborough's entourage consists of interns in Ann Taylor business casual; that Joe didn't even bother to light his cigarette (if it's even a cigarette at all); and the nothingness in the background which indicates the spot was clearly filmed in Jersey. Something tells us Diane Sawyer does a little better.
— Danny Shea
from blogs.kansascity.com
Perusing the letters that Jim Romenesko posts at his website is always good fun. You never know whether you'll read some small bit of media criticism, the thoughts of some media bigwig (like Keith Olbermann), or, say, the media-themed poetry stylings of Leon Freilich (whoever he is).
But we weren't quite prepared for an appearance by Bill Cosby, who, after discussing The Washington Post's coverage of and response to remarks Cosby made at a forum co-sponsored by the paper, closes with this doozy:
I believe that the series of events described above leads to an obvious question: Is The Washington Post abusing its considerable journalistic power? I think an investigation is warranted in order to find an answer.It being Romenesko Letters and all, Cosby got a quick response from none other than Len Downie, the Post's executive editor.
After the jump, we recover from the surrealness of it all and take on the merits of Cosby's case. Hint: He may not be as crazy as the picture suggests.
Eric Boehlert
In the wake of Tuesday's Connecticut primary, it's hard to say which group came across looking more desperate and out of sorts: Sen. Joseph Lieberman's bungling campaign staff, universally derided as tone-deaf and slow-footed, or Beltway-based pundits who sounded noisy alarms about the disastrous impact a win by Ned Lamont would have. Progressives would be wise to ignore the pundits' free advice, since it seems to have been...
from CBSNews.com
Hurrah! ETP was delighted today to turn to the CBSNews "Public Eye" blog and find a smart, incisive column by Campaigns & Elections editor Morgan Felchner on how the Lieberman-Lamont coverage didn't accurately reflect the degree to which Americans actually cared. Brava, Morgan — and bravo, and va, to The Public Eye blog, who took my criticism last week about the dearth of women contributors in the "Outside Voices" column like a man, or like a woman who never gets asked to do a column so you can't know how she's taking her criticism.
Last week, I noted that there had been a whopping SIX male-authored columns since my own on June 23, 2006, which had made me only the third woman to contribute to "Outside Voices" since October — and it's a weekly column. To his credit, Public Ey e editor Vaughn Ververs immediately posted my criticism and pledged to address the problem, beginning with actively recruiting women right in the entry's title, "Calling All Women!"
Okay! Score a victory for smart people, good writing, and diversity everywhere! Well, maybe not everywhere....hey, national magazines, yoo hoo! We're here, and here, and here and here and, yes, here. Give a holla!
Harry Shearer
EDINBURGH--Thursday's NYT carried a Susan Saulny story about John McCusker, the TP photographer so depressed he tried to commit "suicide by cop" in New Orleans earlier this week. Here's what she writes:
Then, for months, he lived the misery he had been photographing, having lost his possessions, his family's home and his entire neighborhood to the hurricane.
I'll bet not. I'll bet there was no wind damage to his possessions, home or neighborhood. I'll...
from TVNewser
In an effort to be more interactive with viewers, NBC Nightly news has quietly debuted a new "viewer email" segment wherein anchor Brian Williams reads a few emails from viewers (including a critique of Williams' wardrobe choices from a viewer who obviously doesn't recognize a strong and virile tie knot when he sees one). The Post story cites it as an example of NBC's "stepped-up effort" to "to humanize their news anchors and newscasts," mentioning that it "is also taking the form of blogs posted on their Web sites," which is kind of odd considering that The Daily Nightly is over a year old and well-established in the blogosphere.
Some of you may recognize the headline: It's the jingle from the "Late Night With David Letterman" "Viewer Mail" segment back when David Letterman was on NBC and the Paul Shaffer-led CBS Orchestra was "The World's Most Dangerous Band." That jingle popped into my head fully formed when I read this item; that was back in the day when letters were sent the old-fashioned way, with a stamp that you licked and gently affixed in place. Back then, cellphones were a luxury, dammit, and you had to research your term papers the old-fashioned way, by ripping the pages out of library books so your competitors couldn't see them.
FishbowlDC has the scoop: MSNBC's Tucker Carlson will take his happy feet over to ABC for "Dancing WIth The Stars" where no doubt his predilection for bow ties will fit right in to the ballroom dancing portion of the competition. (For the uninitiated, "Dancing With The Stars" pairs a "celeb" of some sort with a professional dancer to compete in a series of numbers based on various styles of dance. Did somebody say "Rhumba?"). Some of you may remember Tucker's smooth dance-floor moves with his producer Willie Geist back during his "Situation" days; from that, we can assume that he will probably need a little help.on the floor (Tucker, you should probably let her lead). "Dancing WIth The Stars" has been a great PR move for people like Seinfeld's John O'Hurley, boxer Evander Holyfield (who rocked some elegant tux action - the boy cleans up good!), soap star Kelly Monaco, model/Stacy's Mom Rachel Hunter (whose real emotion during the show was actually quite touching), former Jessica Simpson brother-in-law Drew Lachey, and WWE diva Stacy Keibler; it should definitely give Tucker (and MSNBC) a boost once it airs. We were going to end on a lame "hot to foxtrot" joke but that would be beneath us. Cha-cha-cha!
Update: Here's vid of Tucker gettin' jiggy. We're glad he's seeking the help he so desperately needs.
Harry Shearer
EDINBURGH--This is a special moment. Emboldened as usual by failure, the neocon cohort is still cohesive and aggressive, not yet arrived at the necessity of organizing the circular firing squad to deal with the inevitable "who lost Iraq/Iran/Middle East" finger-pointing.
So your assignment needs to be done now, before memories are made to fade and documents to disappear. We need solid, well-sourced reporting on an aspect of the pre-Iraq war debate inside the...
