Recently, NBC News led its evening news program with two-and-a-half minutes on Paris Hilton. Coverage of Anna Nicole Smith topped Iraq War coverage on the networks night after night. There is no question that the network news programs have become cogs in the conglomerate machine where news is a profit center. We desperately need a news media that raises the tough questions, acts as watchdogs of the public interest, questions authority—performs the basic duties required of a free press in a democracy.

It's Not About Dan and Katie [The Nation]

We're sure it was fun while it lasted.

Someone's On a Watch List [Media Mob/NYO]
May 8, 2006 Issue [The Nation]

We kind of miss it.

The Nation, Now Profitable, Has a New Commander [NYT]

"Wait," you're saying. "How is that against any grain? Isn't that standard New York liberal boilerplate?"

Sure it is! But that's precisely why it's brilliant — it neatly demonstrates the trick we like to call the Andersen Twist, in which the author, having eloquently espoused a liberal idea or principle, follows it with a bilious attack on all those other liberals. Extra points go to those who can pin the blame for conservative ideas on said soft-minded liberals. Here's Kurt executing a flawless twist:

For several decades the philosophical ground has been softened up by the relativism and political correctness of the secular left, which succeeded in undermining the very idea of objective reality and of calling a spade a spade so now, in the resulting marsh, fantasies like intelligent design (or Scientology or feng shui or 9/11 as a CIA plot) take root and spread like weeds. Liberals pioneered squishy-minded indulgence of their key constituencies unfortunate new ideas, like reparations and criminalized hate speech; now it s the right s turn.

Oooh! "Squishy-minded!" Perfect score!

Seriously, Kurt — you describe intelligent design as a "turning point" in "America s theocratic transformation." Once you start tossing the Christian theocracy charge around, it's time to face facts: you've just written a column for The Nation.

Backward, Christian Soldiers! [NYM]
Darwin and God [The Nation]

"It's eerie and strange and terrifying to see a namesake hurricane of such enormous potency," vanden Heuvel replied, from her summer vacation. Then she directed us to what she'd already written on the matter, on The Nation's website. We had no idea how bad things were for her.

[W]hen Fox News started calling the hurricane Killer Katrina, I started praying some right-wing idiot wouldn't stoop so low as to personalize or politicize this human suffering.

But wouldn't you know, the biggest dittohead on the block, Rush Limbaugh, is calling the storm Hurricane Katrina vanden Heuvel and warning that the left is going to use this tragedy against the right. Jonah Goldberg, who has never seen a bad joke bandwagon he could resist jumping on with both feet, blogged, and I quote, "It would be pretty cool if Fox played to caricature and repeatedly referred to the hurricane as Katrina vanden Heuvel." Not satisfied, he went on to imagine the headlines, "The destruction from Katrina vanden Heuvel is expected to be massive.... The poor and disabled are particularly likely to suffer from the effects of Katrina vanden Heuvel."

So there's the answer: It sucks to be named Katrina today.

Messing With Mother Nature [Editor's Cut/The Nation]

First, The New Yorker played Columbia Journalism Review on Tuesday night, and all we've heard is this terse dispatch from the vanquished:

We got crushed last night, man. I guess when you play one game, with about 30 minutes of practice beforehand, that's gonna happen.

The correspondent was too despondent to give much detail, or even a score, and to the best our knowledge there has not yet been a Dellinger wrapup circulated at The New Yorker.

Next, last night, The Nation played the mighty mighty High Times Bonghitters. Once again, we hear from the losers, who bury the lede — that lefty mag writers sometimes smoke pot. (Who knew?) The Nation's report:

The Nation was basically humiliated last night. High Times won 20-3. It kind of felt like we were the Falkland Islands and they were Britain and America.

They were still kind of cocky and attitudinal about it, but not nearly as obnoxious as they were last year. I don't think we made THAT many errors — it was just a case of them hitting almost every pitch we threw. They did share some kind of "experimental" baked goods with us though. And some of us partook of their after-game ceremony.

Finally, there was also an inter-Conde faceoff between Cargo and Vanity Fair last night, and there's a Today-GMA grudge match scheduled for today. We'll relay details on both as soon as we learn them.

As the man says, DEVELOPING...

Earlier: Softball

One of the open secrets of literary life is that it's easier to get a book deal for a first novel, or for a work of nonfiction, than it is to get a short story or an article published in a serious magazine. This is because book publishing now revolves less around the book itself than around the marketability of the author — physical appearance; ethnicity, race, religion or sexuality; media or social connections — while serious magazine publishing, for all of its shortcomings, is still about writing.

This prompts two thoughts. First: Oh, snap. You're gonna take that, publishing folks? And second: Lee Siegel just made us feel better about ourselves. How unusual.

The Unexamined Life [The Nation]