Names & Faces, the Post's stand-in gossip column until a new Reliable Source is named, has in its first week of rudderless existence managed to steer generally pretty clear of anything approaching gossip. Perhaps the worst part is that it has remained largely devoid of news regarding Things That Happen in Washington Itself.

Today, though, it contains some Real Life News regarding social chatter in the city--two items in fact.

• First yesterday's National Press Club speech by Pat Mitchell, the president of embattled PBS, which has been locking horns with the administration and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, one of its major government-sponsored funders over whether the network is appropriately conservative.

  Following Mitchell's remarks, Business Week's Rick Dunham, president of the NPC, presented the PBS president with the traditional plaque and mug. The red-faced part? The plaque listed Mitchell as an employee of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

• Second, in party news: Kofi Annan and wife partied Monday night at the Georgetown home of First Media Couple Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn. They were joined by the regular crowd: Koppel, Blitzer, Matthews, Mitchell/Greenspan, Matalin/Carville, and others.