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citizen journalism
David Gregory: You Say 'Jerk'
Former White House correspondent and current MSNBC host David Gregory just may be taking over for Chris Matthews once Matthews' very expensive contract is up next year. It is hoped, by MSNBC brass, that the kinda well-liked Gregory will be less of a headache than the notorious diva Matthews. But maybe he'll be just as bad! We asked for your stories about Gregory, and you delivered. As we said yesterday, his reputation in DC was not particularly bad for a TV "star." But that town is sycophantic enough to forgive a lot. So far, you all agree that David Gregory is, in fact, a jerk. Your personal stories of jerkdom, after the jump (and feel free to send more). More »
media criticism
Ferguson in DC: "Shut the Hell Up, New York 'Times'"
The annual White House Correspondents' Dinner was held in Washington this past weekend. The dinner awards some prizes and serves as an excuse for the corporations that own media companies to reward rich friends and B-list celebrities with seats at tables that are often within 100 feet of the President himself. Then a comedian does a little routine. This year's comedian was late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson. He was ok. More »
shut up, college
Campus Conservatives Cry Out For Own Victim Status
Bizarre racial thinker and conservative columnist John McWhorter today muses over his run-ins with the smug, misguided intellectuals who infest American higher education with their "radical leftist perspective." It's a standard-issue argument against political correctness, which ignores the salient point that conservatives are just as convinced of their own righteousness as liberals, they just don't have the numbers to assert their will on most campuses. Also, a tip for McWhorter: if you don't want to get argued with, you shouldn't have worked at freaking Berkeley. He says that the documentary "Indoctrinate U," out now, will help strike a blow against closed leftist minds. We agree that liberal political correctness is terribly annoying—almost as annoying as Republicans who use it as a canard to distract the world from their happy march towards fascism. Hey, this post is like a bad Poli-Sci class! The trailer for the film that will save beleaguered Ivy League ROTC students, after the jump. More »
crypto-fascists
'New Yorker' Malkin Profile Hobbled by Idiot Subject's Unwillingness to Participate
Blogger Michelle Malkin is an impressively craven and vile human being, a dangerous demagogue who properly belongs grouped with slavery defenders, flat-earthers and Nixon apologists interned forever in the extreme fringes of the popular discourse, and she's too humorlessly vapid to plausibly attempt Ann Coulter's "it's just a joke" defense. But all that said, she reached her peak of influence and fame a couple years ago, thank god. Still, we'd love to read the New Yorker's forthcoming profile of the reactionary sophist, because maybe it would answer those burning questions about how much influence her insane husband has on her "writing" or maybe it'd just be a ripping good exploration of moral bankruptcy. Unfortunately, shrill Malkin won't cooperate with Rebecca Mead, because Rebecca Mead is a real reporter. Here is a fascinating series of emails demonstrating how not to butter up an unwilling subject. More »
scandals
(Black) Obama Linked To (Black) Rappers In B----, Hoe Scandal, Says Race-Blind Conservative Publication!
Scandal alert: Barack Obama has been complicit with rappers since at least 2006! He has collaborated with their nefarious aims! It's all there in a sordid report from Human Events, which lays bare the undeniable ties between Obama and individuals who have released albums containing rap music at one time or another. He hasn't rebuked them or repudiated them or even renounced them! Not even "foul-mouthed rappers" like Will.I.Am! Not even when, throughout the rap industry, "folks talk so openly and regularly about b—-—-, n—-—- and hoes"! Yo Evan Gahr of Human Events, can you please drop some knowledge on these muhfuckas? More »
hand of god
Corrupt Ex-Mayor Shat Upon By Bird Of Justice
Sharpe James is the old-school corrupt machine politician who ran Newark as his own personal fiefdom as mayor for 20 years before being unseated by Cory Booker in 2006. James' overall distasteful nature was aptly chronicled in the documentary Street Fight. So anyways, there Sharpe was last Friday, standing on the curb after his daily corruption trial, waiting for the bus, and—bam!—a bird crapped on his head. And it's all caught on tape. Was that bird god? That's for god to know, and for us to speculate upon. The instantly classic video is after the jump—the big moment comes about 55 seconds in. More »
femiladyism
National Press Club: Tolerating Women Since 1971
The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. is celebrating its centennial this month. It's only semi-recently since they've tolerated women in the club: "In 1956, the men offered a compromise by inviting women to attend the luncheons, so long as they sat in the balcony and left as soon as the lunch was over. While the men dined below, the women shared the balcony with television cameras, hot lights, and coils of electrical wiring." They weren't allowed to join as full members until 1971, and that was only because they needed money, and capitalism trumps sexism. But women weren't the only ones dissed. Radio news broadcasters (the bloggers of their day) "were also treated as second-class citizens at first, being permitted to join the club only as non-voting members." [Oxford University Press blog] Celebrate the old days with a clip from "His Girl Friday," after the jump. More »
newspapers
What is 'Politico' Up To?
Many months ago, top Washington Post political reporters Jim VandeHei and John Harris left their real newspaper to go be partners in a multimedia cross-platform Web 2.0 venture called Politico, which is actually a tiny little newspaper in Washington, DC. And a website. They lured a bunch of other top reporters over there too, with promises of lots and lots of Internet money, just like the Huffington Post gets, and promises of expansion and fame. It's been a huge success! Maybe! The Observer reports today that Politico is now turning into a TV show, which makes sense, because they are owned by a company that owns TV stations, but there's still not any word on whether this venture is actually making any money, for anyone. Which we're kinda curious about! Is it, as it appears to be, a big vanity project? More »
newspapers
America's Pernicious Pulitzers
America's newsrooms are in a state of excitement: the Pulitzer prizes for excellence in journalism have been awarded. Washington Post, winner in six categories, is said to be particularly febrile. "It's a pretty amazing atmosphere over here right now," one reporter told Media Mob. "The big editors are roaming around with big smiles." (Update: this is what counts as jubilation.) Too bad the payout is only $10,000 per prize: the Pulitzers aren't going to finance American journalism; in fact, one can make the argument that these self-congratulating awards, and the attention devoted to them, are symptomatic of the decline of the newspaper industry. More »
public relations
Mark Penn: You Fool
So Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's doughy chief strategist, finally got booted from the campaign last weekend. The majority of her campaign team hated him for some time, so his departure will be welcomed by insiders. They felt that his strategy was unsuccessful, and they were right. But the specific reason for Penn's departure was his idiot move of meeting with the Colombian government, in his day job as CEO of massive PR firm Burson-Marsteller, to represent them on the opposite side of an issue from Hillary Clinton, while running her campaign. And you know what? This moment was inevitable. The very idea of having a man simultaneously running a presidential campaign and an international PR firm is stupid, and never should have happened in the first place. You fools! More »
new york times
The Pink Lady
Like all good cabals, the New York Times' contingent of gays has some known members—and other figures who remain in the shadows, the uncertainty adding to the paranoia of homophobic right-wingers. More »
blog wars
Manly Blogger Calls Us Gay!
A certain right-wing blogger has a question for us, via email: "Are all of the contributors to Gawker homosexuals, because there's a level of superciliousness that must be directly tied to sexual frustration and the inability to bond with other human beings." Whoa! We'll have him know that Gawker employs a veritable handful of heterosexuals. This guy was ostensibly upset that our coverage of Absolut's pro-Mexico ad (which the company has now apologized for) was not quite xenophobic enough. But what led this Republican internet soldier to target us in our vulnerable gay spot? It's probably his own past as a gay porn star—that does have a tendency to color one's perceptions. More »
the chart
The Most Liberal Sites In America
Nielsen, one of the outfits which tracks where web users spend time online, also asks survey respondents a series of questions about themselves—including, interestingly, their political leanings. So which sites are the most liberal, and conservative? The blue bars represent the proportion of the site's audience who declare themselves to be liberal or very liberal; the red bars represent conservative, moderate and undeclared. Daily Kos and Huffington Post, unsurprisingly, attract an overwhelmingly left-wing audience. Fox News and the Drudge Report draw the highest percentage of conservatives—even though Rupert Murdoch's news network still declares itself "fair and balanced." More ».jpg)
simplifications
Obama Locks Up The Idiotic Facebook Vote
Perhaps the only thing sadder than seeing a friend with a Facebook broken heart in their mini-feed is spotting a friend who has Barack Obama as their Facebook picture. It's one thing to be a "fan" of Barack Obama, or even Michelle Obama, who is admittedly quite fierce. But when a friend changes their profile picture to Barack Obama and joins the supplemental Facebook group, one has to wonder what they're thinking. More »
yes we can
Why the Best Speech Ever Won't Change a Damn Thing
The chattering classes continue to review Barack Obama's 45-minute speech today on race. The TV pundits' instant response was overwhelmingly positive, but it was almost certain to be. The current campaign narrative sort of required that response: they beat up on him for a week, then presented him the opportunity to redeem himself. Because Barack Obama is a brilliant writer, he did a good part of their work for him. Of course, the speech was, in this narrative, supposed to make everyone forget that he has a "nutty pastor." What Obama was trying to do with it was a little different, but that doesn't matter. As you can see in the Slate headline roundup above, people are still talking about the nutty pastor. So, the conventional wisdom, at the moment: it was an awe-inspiring, wonderful, magical speech, but it won't "work." More »
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THEN WE CAME TO THE END by Joshua Ferris
Read the bestselling first novel critics are calling "One of the best books of the year" (New York Times Book Review, Time, Boston Globe). Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. Finally in paperback. $13.99/$15.50CHECK OUT AN EXCERPT AND ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK. More »
eliot spitzer
