In the new issue of The Nation, Eric Alterman ponders the usefulness of the editorial page and contemplates whether it's worth abolishing the thing altogether. Alterman claims that the opinions of the editorial page often confuse readers who are unable to distinguish between the news and editorial sides of newspapers; as a result, he writes, they often see bias in the news pages that may not exist. He goes on to claim that the case for editorials helping readers with election endorsements is overblown and, deploying a rather peculiar metaphor, argues that "the stentorian voice of the collective editorial acts as a condom against effective communication--a prophylactic against the accidental conception of wit or irony."
Though Alterman makes a possibly-compelling case -- and really, who wouldn't want to see Paul Gigot out of work? -- I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at some of the claims he makes.
from Vanity Fair magazine
This month's installment of Vanity Fair's "Coaster Correspondence" features three separate pieces of correspondence regarding Men's Health editor David Zinczenko and his purported relationship with the eponymous (and fictional) Edwin Coaster. The letters detail the fictional Coaster's convalescence from a "major stroke" and Zinczenko's assistance with same, including removing all "get-well gifts of booze and chocolate" from Coaster's hospital room, starting him on a regimen of ab crunches and lat pulldowns from his hospital bed, and personally administering a "marjoram enema." All tongue in cheek, but Radar thinks it may have been intended to hit a little closer to home.
Radar's Jeff Bercovici wrote Monday that the column seemed to be an "oh-so-inside dig at Zinczenko's history with deceased GQ editor Art Cooper," with whom Zinczenko was dining in 2003 when Cooper suffered a fatal stroke. Zinczenko later referenced Cooper in an editor's letter about bad workout routines, which, according to unnamed Radar sources, was considered "beyond tacky" by Cooper's widow.
Radar wondered if the spoof was actually meant to satisfy Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's "desire to see [Zinczenko] "brought low"; ETP wondered, too, so we asked. Accordingly to Beth Kseniak, Vanity Fair's Executive Director of Public Relations, it was not. When reached for comment, she replied via e-mail, "Vanity Fair is most appreciative of Dave Zinczenko's help in getting Ed better and, in fact, Dave has sent Graydon a jar of marjoram for his own improvement." (She also then clarified that "the Ed Coaster feature is fiction" which we appreciated; the enema giving, after all, is quite believable, but marjoram? Now that's just ludicrous.)
Radar cites evidence that Carter and Cooper were colleagues, though it's unclear how relevant it is to the publication of the spoof: Radar quotes a source who said that when the deceased GQ editor and Carter would have lunch together, "you could tell Graydon felt he was far superior." (We'll leave it up to the reader to decide if it's beyond tacky to imply that Carter still felt the need to one-up Cooper.)
Reached for comment, writer Bercovici admits he did not speak to Carter for his piece, but stands by it nonetheless: "If the allusions to Art Cooper were wholly unintended, I will eat my copy of What We've Lost." We're sure it tastes great with marjoram.
— Patrick Waldo
Disclosure: This piece was written by ETP intern Patrick Waldo and edited by ETP editor Rachel Sklar, who is friends with both Zinczenko and Bercovici. She does not know Graydon Carter, though they are both Canadian.
New York Times TV columnist Alessandra Stanley has a column today titled "A Historic Event for Women, Still Largely Covered by Men," which correctly points out that the majority of network political newscasters covering the election this past Tuesday night were male. It was indeed a historic night for women, with Nancy Pelosi ascending to the presumptive Speaker of the House, 16 women in the Senate, more than ever before, and 70 in the house, bringing the total number of women in Congress to 86...proportionally, about equal in representation to the ratio of women to men on the networks.
Still, Stanley makes a good point, though she strays from it to dwell on Katie Couric for four paragraphs and neglects to even mention MSNBC, who had women on its in-house pundit team thorughout its all-night coverage, including Andrea Mitchell, Norah O'Donnell and Hillary Rosen (and apparently Campbell Brown joining the fray on NBC). That's sort of a glaring omission, given her thesis. On the whole, though, it is a point well-taken and not an unfamiliar one by a long shot for this industry.
Stanley's brave stand on behalf of women is somewhat undermined, however, by the appallingly sexist comment she makes toward the bottom of the piece. Hypothesizing reasons why women are underrepresented on election night, Stanley writes:
Maybe it's the women who avoid signing on to a lifetime of covering politics; the campaign trail is fattening and requires far too much math.
One can only hope that Stanley was attempting to make a joke, awkward and clunky as she tends to be. Regardless of the intent, she undercuts any serious point she might have about women being underrepresented in the TV news industry by perpetuating ridiculous stereotypes.
Related:
Women Break the Gender Barrier in 2006 Elections [AlterNet]
Elections coverage is fattening [Broadsheet]
from img.verycd.com
Longtime "60 Minutes" newsman Ed Bradley has died of leukemia, CBS News reports. The Emmy-winning broadcaster and investigative journalist had been with "60 Minutes" for 26 years, with no plans to stop working, at least as of this summer when his contract was up for renewal. The fact that he had leukemia does not appear to have been widely known.
The CBS News story details the many accomplishments of Bradley's distinguished career, cut sadly short. More information as we have it.
MSNBC shock-jock Don Imus isn't holding back: Tim Russert blew him off yesterday morning for the "Today Show," and he's pissed. Yesterday, Imus complained on-air that Russert had backed out of a committment to do his show because Today had beckoned, kicking off a rant against the Today Show and its pride of place on NBC: "They're so enamored of that Today show and it is AWFUL!" he ranted. "Do they ever take a look at who is watching? Dead people!" (At this point, the screen froze weirdly and it cut to commercial, but since he repeated the "dead people" comment today, we can assume that was accidental). He also said, "Russert can kiss my ass."
Imus followed up yesterday's pillioring of Russert (including a sulky, "If he thinks the today show is more important, he should do that" and a more belligerent "Russert can kiss my ass.") with another rant this morning, calling the Today show "the worst show on television" and proclaiming Russert banned from Imus until he damn well felt like having him back ("He's in the time out until I figure out when he's not"). Though Imus' staff tried to advoacate on Russert's behalf (his female co-host said "I like that green tie he's been wearing lately" — ETP doesn't know who she is but does know that it's definitely not Contessa Brewer), Imus remained resolute. Interestingly, Russert is scheduled to come on Imus tomorrow morning so it may well be a very short ban, depending on how forgiving Imus is feeling.
Other nuggets include Imus calling Brian Williams "that stiff-necked geek" and adopting a philosophical attitude about the switchover in the House: "I'd rather look at Nancy Pelosi than that ogre who looks like Shrek's dad, Dennis Hastert." Tune in tomorrow to see whether Russert shows; we expect some pretty choice soundbites either way.
Update: Well, that was short-lived — Russert did indeed go on the program. Oh, Imus, you ol' softie.
from abc.com
The votes have been tabulated, and it is now official: The big winners of Tuesday's news challenge are ABC and CNN in an upset on both network and cable. ABC's Charles Gibson-led broadcast beat out habitual winner "NBC Nightly News" and CNN surprised everyone by taking the 25-54 demo (Wolf! Anderson! Carville!).
As TVNewser pointed out yesterday morning, ABC got a nice boost from "Dancing With The Stars" as a lead-in, keeping about half of the 23-million strong audience. WaPo's Lisa de Moraes reports that ABC News had an average of 9.67 million viewers from 9:30 to 11 p.m, including keeping ahead of NBC and CBS in the 25-54 demo.
Meanwhile, MSNBC "suddenly sprang to life" with almost 2 million viewers* — an 107% increase over its 2002 midterm coverage, and more importantly, making it a player in the three-cable newser wars now (in a memo to staff, MSNBC GM Dan Abrams called them "the best competitive ratings in recent memory for a major news event"). Though Fox edged CNN 3.1 million viewers to "just under" 3 million in prime time, as mentioned CNN beat Fox in the demo, and anyway, that's a difference of 0.1 million between CNN and Fox. All in all, a good night for the cable newsers two David's against Fox's Goliath.
*The figure was incorrectly reported as approximately 1 million; MSNBC has corrected that figure and it will likely be reflected in the WaPo story shortly.
