What’s Hot/What’s Not: 05/31/09

What’s Hot:

Mancow and Waterboarding – This subject took up quite a bit of space, particularly in Countdown’s case, as the subject of Mancow’s waterboarding and the alleged impropriety of it all dominated the latter half of the week.

Rush Limbaugh – Proving that, regardless what he says, Rush Limbaugh’s presence still dominates the GOP. Limbaugh’s Sotomayer commentary this week was all over the MSM.

What’s Not:

CNN’s Primetime – When something extremely rare happens, like anonymous staffers squawking to The Politico’s Michael Calderone regarding CNN’s primetime, you take notice. CNN’s reputation as the shop that doesn’t leak negative stories about itself has taken a hit.

Countdown’s bouncing Limbaugh graphic – It was sort of funny the first time around. It’s worn thin really fast…

O’Reilly and Tiller…

TVNewser reports that O’Reilly will talk about murdered abortion doctor George Tiller tomorrow night. Meanwhile Salon’s Gabriel Wynant looks into his crystal ball regarding what O’Reilly may say.

When his show airs tomorrow, Bill O’Reilly will most certainly decry the death of Kansas doctor George Tiller, who was killed Sunday while attending church services with his wife. Tiller, O’Reilly will say, was a man who was guilty of barbaric acts, but a civilized society does not resort to lawless murder, even against its worst members. And O’Reilly, we can assume, will genuinely mean this.

But there’s no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly thanks to the collusion of would-be sophisticated cultural elites, a bought-and-paid-for governor and scofflaw secular journalists. Tiller’s name first appeared on “The Factor” on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O’Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as “Tiller the Baby Killer.”

My question: Will Olbermann weigh in?

A Cup of Joe for Morning Joe…

The New York Times Brian Stelter writes about a new deal between Starbucks and Morning Joe…

Starbucks is becoming a naming sponsor of “Morning Joe,” in what is the closest integration between an advertiser and a national news program in recent memory. Harkening back to the “Camel News Caravan,” an NBC news roundup sponsored by a cigarette manufacturer in the 1950s, graphics and voice-overs will tell viewers that “Morning Joe” is “brewed by Starbucks.”

Referring to the penchant for Starbucks by Mr. Scarborough and the co-host Mika Brzezinski, the president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, joked, “We’ve been doing this for free for a couple of years.”

But coffee beans have not been sprinkled across the show’s logo until now. Along with several Starbucks graphics and mentions during each hour of the 6 to 9 a.m. program, Mr. Griffin indicated other possible pairings in the future. The anchors and the coffee company may team up on charitable initiatives. And the program may be broadcast from Starbucks locations when it travels, as it did last year for the political conventions and this year for the inauguration. The deal also includes promotions at MSNBC.com.

CNN’s primetime “fade”?

In a must read, The Politico’s Michael Calderone writes about CNN and primetime and seeks answers from Jonathan Klein…

Current and former CNN staffers, though, say there’s definite concern inside about how Cooper and Brown are faring against the competition.

Brown’s show has been billed as the antidote to Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor” — which continues to gain viewers post-Inauguration — and Olbermann. But her show’s lack of traction begs the question of whether there’s a way to bring in ratings without the ideologically slanted hosts that have pulled in partisan viewers on the left and right.

Holy Crap. This is the kind of stuff you just don’t see coming out of CNN; anonymous staffers leaking bad news. MSNBC? All the time. FNC? Occasionally. CNN? No. Do not underestimate the significance of these rumblings. They’re huge.

Clark Hoyt vs. Bill O’Reilly…

The New York Times’ Clark Hoyt responds (and then some) to charges leveled by Bill O’Reilly regarding the Times coverage (or lack thereof in O’Reilly’s opinion) of “ties” between Acorn and the Obama campaign…

O’Reilly picked up the allegation two weeks later. During his April 1 broadcast, he said The Times had been investigating links between Acorn and the Obama campaign, then played this excerpt of a voicemail: “Hi, Anita. It’s Stephanie. I have just been asked by my bosses to stand down. They want me to hold off on coming to Washington. Sorry, I take my orders from higher up – ah, sometimes. Anyway, um, I’m sorry about this and we’ll still be in touch. Take care. And let me know if there is anything I can do to help you. Take care. Bye-bye.”

In the context of an accusation that The Times was killing the story, presumably because it would hurt Obama, this message fit perfectly. And O’Reilly said immediately after playing the tape, “Now, if The Times killed that investigation, it’s a violation of every journalistic ethic and may have even influenced the election.”

But O’Reilly had cut from Strom’s message her reason for canceling her trip to Washington to meet with Moncrief about the Obama campaign, Acorn and an Acorn affiliate called Project Vote. Right after “stand down,” Strom had said, “ We’re running a story tonight for tomorrow that, ah, pretty well lays out the partisanship problems that Project Vote may have, ah, based on a report that I got. So, ah, they think that going to do – that’s going to be the story about the partisanship issue, and so they want me to hold off on coming to Washington.”

Putting those words back in paints quite a different picture. David Tabacoff, senior executive producer for The O’Reilly Factor, told me in e-mail that the phone call “was simply edited for time.” That would be like saving space by boiling Dick Cheney’s recent speech on national security to a single quote: “President Obama makes wise decisions.” Cheney actually did say that, but tearing it from the rest of what he said would completely distort his meaning.

Tweet of the Day…

MSNBC’s Alex Witt…

Oh great! We’ve got a segment on Jon and Kate plus Eight coming up on #MSNBC Sat. (much to my dismay) Do u CARE abt J and K? (not kids)

What’s Hot/What’s Not: Submissions…

Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/Whast’s Not. I’ll post the finalists on Sunday night…

Gawker/Mancow/Olbermann: Round 2…

Gawker’s John Cook responds to tonight’s Countdown…

After repeatedly claiming—falsely—that Gawker was alleging some kind of conspiracy when all we are alleging is that a notorious radio faker faked another thing, Olbermann and Muller got into some really heavy stuff, speculating that Gawker is doing Dick Cheney’s dirty work. “Telling the truth, even accidentally even in a small way, can be very dangerous stuff,” Olbermann said.

“There’s dark forces behind this,” Muller said. “I really believe this.”

Jesus.

Also, Muller compared himself to Mike Tyson’s dead daughter and said this was all predicted in Revelations. Seriously. He signed off by admitting that he “plays pranks all the time—that’s the irony here.”

This is the star that Olbermann decided to hitch his wagon to tonight. Bad move.

Um, if Cook is going to summarize tonight’s show he could at least summarize it correctly. Mancow did cite Revelations but he was referring to him and Olbermann being on the same side and appearing on Countdown. It had nothing to do with Tyson’s deceased daughter…

Macke: Update…

Clusterstock’s Joe Weisenthal updates the Jeff Macke situation…

Jeff Macke fans rejoice! You haven’t seen the last of the Mackster on CNBC’s Fast Money.

He wrote yesterday on Minyanville that he’ll be on the show Monday, though according to our source, this is just temporary. As we first reported last week, there are still no plans for him to extend his contract.

FBN tackles government spending…

Talking Biz News scoops that next week FBN will be focusing on government spending and interviews FBN’s David Asman…

1. Why did Fox Business decide to give some much time to this topic?

The sort of philosophy behind Fox Business is you have to stay within your means, whether it’s on a personla level, which Dave Ramsey addresses better than anyone else does, and if it’s good enough for the individual, it should be good enough for the government. What we’re saying is that the government is no longer repsentative of the advice it’s giving to individuals about being more careful with their money.

It’s more than just sort of the traditional looking at pork projects and waste and fraud. It’s saying that we have to restructure, in a very fundamental way, the way government works as a representative of the people and people’s desires. That hasn’t been addresed by either party. Republicans can spend as frivolously as Democrats.

The whole ides of what the government has been doing and what it feels it’s entitled to do needs to be addressed. On “Scoreboard,” we’re going to start by describing the problem, the way the federal government has gotten out of control. On the next night, we’re going to focus on state spending. And then we’re going to work our way into how to deal with all of this, both as a nation and as an individual. We don’t just want to explain the problem; we want to offer some solutions.

Mancow on the waterboarding controversy…

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal writes about the reality of the Mancow waterboarding…

Erich “Mancow” Muller, responding to a report he faked being waterboarded on Chicago’s WLS-AM 890 a week earlier, said Friday that both his experience and subsequent newfound belief that the controversial interrogation technique is torture were “absolutely real.”

Muller said he was scheduled to go on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” for the second time this week on Friday night to discuss the latest developments, including allegations he considers laughable that he and Olbermann were in cahoots.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Muller readily acknowledged thatthe waterboarding stunt was not and never meant to be an exact re-creation of how the technique is administered to detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

He also said that Chicago police, station management and others were misled ahead of time and told “we weren’t really going to do” the waterboarding “until we did”; otherwise, he said, it would not have been permitted.

I tend to believe it was real, not because I doubt the veracity of the email timeline Gawker laid out but because faking it makes no sense. Mancow was a waterboarder supporter/advocate. It makes no sense to fake a waterboarding incident so that he could reverse a position he believed in. It’s a completely self-destructive approach full of risk should the “reality” of the fakery leak out.

Update: Gawker talks to Mancow and tries to put its own spin on it…

Free for All: 05/29/09

What’s on your mind?

Mancow waterboarding a hoax?

Gawker says it has info that Mancow’s waterboarding may not have been on the up and up. After reading this I’m not sure Gawker has a case. But then I’m no expert on waterboarding. I suspect Gawker will make the WPiTW list tonight…

We contacted Linda Shafran last night for a statement about this and she emailed us back with an emphatic denial that anything was faked:

It was NOT a hoax. Early on when we were looking for someone to waterboard, an email was sent out looking for someone to do it and I mistakenly said it would be staged. That was my mistake and a misunderstanding.

But that was early and NOT TRUE AT ALL. It was not staged. NOT AT ALL. When it happened several days later, it was real, honest, actual, not staged.

Any info you have was my mistake. THE WATERBOARDING OF MANCOW WAS REAL!!!!!!

The glaring discrepancy in Shafran’s statement to us is that her emails to Kupcinet are dated Thursday, May 21st, the day prior to Mancow’s waterboarding, while she now claims that these emails were sent out “early on” and that the waterboarding took place “several days later.” Additionally, she even mentions that Mancow “is getting waterboarded tomorrow” in her first note to Kupcinet.

Zurawik vs. Olbermann: Update

The Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik responds to Keith Olbermann…

The headline for most bloggers who wrote about the show is that Lauren Ashburn, managing editor for USA Today Live, and I said that MSNBC and the Fox News channel are bad for America.

I won’t speak for Ashburn, but what I said is that the kind of angry, partisan conversation that MSNBC and Fox offer instead of verified information-based journalism is dangerous to the nation. A democracy is only as strong as the quality of information its citizens receive, and while these two operations call themselves news channels, they are in truth opinion channels, venues of highly-charged, partisan ideology. And that is bad for this country.

Olbermann chose to misrepresent my comments as an attack only on him and MSNBC, and suggest that I am a “blind ideologue” of some kind (presumably of the right) who “screams” his same talking points over and over.

For Olbermann to call anyone a blind ideologue who screams his same talking points over and over gives new meaning to the psychological concept of projection.

Free for All: 05/28/09

What’s on your mind?

CNN to air Latino Doc…

Multichannel News’ R.Thomas Umstead writes about CNN’s plans to air a Latino documentary in October…

Following last year’s successful Black In America documentary series, CNN will turn its cameras on America’s Latino community with the two-part documentary series Latino In America premiering in October.

CNN, which will also revisit the African-American community in July with Black In America 2, hopes to use the In America franchise to draw more attention to the struggles and triumphs of diverse communities, according to Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN Productions.

“The In America brand strand gives us the opportunity to look at groups of people in America that have been misreported or in some cases neglected [by the media],” Nelson said.

Latino In America, hosted by CNN personality and Black In America host Soledad O’Brien, will focus on the growing U.S. Hispanic population and the pertinent issues that face the community.

“We found out with Black In America that many people who watched were not only black but Hispanic as well,” Nelson said. “This is the fastest-growing minority group in America today, but we don’t understand how really diverse this group is. The show focuses on how Latinos are changing America and how America is changing Latinos.”

Alexis Glick Interview…

The Newark Star-Ledger’s Joseph R. Perone interviews FBN’s Alexis Glick… (via Talking Biz News)

Q: Were some financial journalists too cheerleaderish about the stock market?

A: There were just as many naysayers. Let’s be fair. Regulatory bodies fell down. Executives didn’t understand some of their products. Members of Congress didn’t understand the degree to which we were allowing a credit bubble to occur. We all collectively played some role in it.

Merit Raises at NBC?

FTVLive reports that NBC is putting in merit raise clauses in its new contracts in lieu of spelled out yearly raises. I can see the pros of such a move. But the question is will this be…ahem…”universally” applied? Will Matt Lauer or Brian Williams’ next contracts have such clauses put in? Or are they too important to tick off with the insertion of a merit clause in their contracts? See where I’m headed with this? Similar to NBC News’ VJ initiative, there is the danger of accidentally setting up a class system with an “us vs. them” mentality with this approach where there are some talents who get the “treatment” and some who don’t. And that could cause all kinds of morale headaches.

Anchor Wars 2009: Final Showdown…

Ok, it’s the moment all of you have been waiting for (some of you just so the damn thing would be over with). The final round. Given the candidates and the sheer number of vocal FNC viewers here I hesitate to post what will likely amount to an exercise in inevitability. But I kind of figured it would wind up this way when I started this thing all those months ago.

Today: MSNBC’s Lester Holt and FNC’s Shepard Smith…

Final Tally: Shepard Smith.

Olbermann calls out Hannity…

The AP’s David Bauder writes about the Mancow waterboarding incident. Ignore all that and head straight to the bottom…

Muller, a former Fox News Channel contributor, said he talked to his friend Hannity about the experience and had no insights on whether Hannity planned to go through with his offer, or even whether the offer was serious or made in jest during a conversation with Charles Grodin last month on “Hannity.” There’s no evidence Hannity has spoken publicly about his plans since.

Neither he nor a Fox News spokeswoman immediately replied to requests for comment on Wednesday.

“I don’t know how Hannity is rationalizing this, but externally, his inability to live up to his promise pretty much speaks for itself,” Olbermann told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “Plus, he is now less informed on the subject of waterboarding than is Erich `Mancow’ Muller.”

Zurawik vs. MSNBC: Update…

Last night Keith Olbermann put the Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik on the WPiTW list for comments he made regarding the network recently. Today Zurawik was on WYPR/WYPO/WYPF radio to respond apparently. Anyone have details on the rebuttal?

Greta Van Susteren Travel Interview…

USA Today’s Kelly Carter interviews Greta Van Susteren regarding travel…

Q: What’s the best place you’ve ever visited and why?

A: There are two places and they’re very different. One is the Yukon Territory, Canada, because when I was a college student I went on a geology expedition. We lived in the mountains. We climbed mountains and climbed glaciers. It was breathtaking.

The other is Pyongyang in North Korea. Because North Korea has been hermetically sealed from the world since 1950, they have no other culture. They have virtually no commerce but it is interesting. It’s like everything came to a dead stop in 1950. Pyongyang is a port city and there’s a river running through the city. If you can look through the decay of years of not having any money, you can see that underneath is the most spectacular beauty that I have ever seen. Beautiful winding rivers. Old buildings. Now I am certainly not a fan of Communism and Stalinism, don’t get me wrong. But it was absolutely fascinating. It really is their culture. Now, all cultures sort of bleed into each other. You can go to any American city and get food from all over the world, which in some ways, is quite lovely. I love the hermetically sealed nature of one culture.

Free for All: 05/27/09

What’s on your mind?

Glenn Beck Interview…

The Arizona Central’s Randy Cordova interviews Glenn Beck…(via J$)

Question: Why the Common Sense Tour?

Answer: We were going to call it the “Ideas People in the Common Agree On, and Sense As Their Common Natural Understanding Tour” but that didn’t seem to have a good ring to it.

But the real reason for the name (is) because common sense is dead in America. We are trillions in debt and the government solution is to spend trillions of dollars. The solution to the “climate change” problem is more taxes and increasing energy prices for consumers. And our new, more friendly foreign policy includes posing for pictures with Hugo Chavez and his new anti-American book.

We need a good dose of common sense.

Anchor Wars: 05/27/09

Today…

MSNBC’s Lester Holt and MSNBC’s Brian Williams…

Final Tally: Holt in a bit of an upset…

Willie Geist gets 5:30 am MSNBC show…

TVNewser scoops that Willie Geist will get a 5:30 am program. The show will launch on Jun 29th…

Mancow to appear on Countdown tonight…

The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes that Mancow will appear on Countdown tonight, presumably over his waterboarding last week. Mancow used to be a regular on Fox and Friends but I don’t know if that is still the case.

Press Releases: 05/26/09

CNBC (1)

CNBC PRESENTS “THE OPRAH EFFECT” PREMIERING THURSDAY, MAY 28TH AT 9PM ET & 10PM PT

One-Hour CNBC Special Hosted by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., May 26, 2009 — She’s the queen of talk, a cultural and financial icon and her impact on business is worth billions. Oprah Winfrey is the most influential woman in America — maybe the world. Experts have a term for her unmatched and incredible ability to take companies from no names to brand names: The Oprah Effect.

On Thursday, May 28th at 9PM ET & 10PM PT, CNBC presents “The Oprah Effect,” an original CNBC special hosted by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla that goes inside businesses to explain Oprah’s unparalleled impact on their bottom line, their secrets to getting on her show and how the Oprah Effect continues to translate her brand and others into big business and big dollars.

Quintanilla was recently interviewed by “Today” co-anchor Meredith Vieira about “The Oprah Effect” exclusively. You can watch the video here…

Free for All: 05/26/09

Blogging the next two weeks will be mornings and evenings only as I start taking steps to try to re-enter the job market now that my massive Palau adventure (and all the planning headaches that ensued) are over. So, what’s on your mind?

Anchor Wars: 05/26/09

And now we’ve reached the Final Four. Today…

FNC’s Jane Skinner and FNC’s Shepard Smith…

Final Tally: Skinner…