‘The Office’ Actor takes imaginary trip to the Oval Office — In her weekly feature for The Hill, “My 5 Minutes With The President,” Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk asked actor Leslie David Baker of “The Office” (or Stanley Hudson, as he’s known in the show) what he would ask the President, to which Baker said he would ask how the media can “help reshape how the U.S. presents itself globally.” That sounds more like a job for White House PR staff, not the independent and free (maybe?) press. The actor also said the President should keep trusting his gut and recommended some “1963 vintage Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderly… and a hot bath.”

All About Jay — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has been the subject of criticism by much of the media lately in his relationship with the press during briefings on the White House scandals that broke last week. He’s also the subject of Glenn Thrush and Reid Epstein’s story in Politico, which is an analysis of Carney and his embattled relationship with the press and White House staff. The story has a lot of words, but doesn’t say much. There is little new information in the story, and most of the focus is on Jay Carney’s role in the Obama Administration and how much information is actually shared with him. Skimming this one may be a good idea.

Bernie Sanders is Pure Sex — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was debating the farm bill Tuesday, but one thing that wasn’t up for debate for The Daily Caller’s Taylor Bigler was the fact that the senator is “Pure. Sex.” A slideshow by Bigler shows some of Sander’s “hottest, sexiest moments” and features photos of the longtime senator speaking and pointing, and even includes one photo of Sanders wearing a sarong, which is captioned “Sen. Sanders in a sarong? Yes please.”

TWT‘s Emily Miller isn’t exactly shy and wilting. So her story this afternoon, in which she clocks former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) for the way she alleges that he treated female journalists, shouldn’t shock you.

But it might.

Miller’s report includes her own account and that of  her colleague, Susan Crabtree. “He didn’t just treat strange women like sex objects,” she writes, “he harassed female journalists who work on Capitol Hill. Two of us work at The Washington Times.”

And so it begins, the media frenzy that will be Weiner’s bid for New York mayor.

“Weiner clearly doesn’t respect women — whether the ones he sends naked pictures or reporters in the workplace,” Miller told FishbowlDC. “He should have shrunk away in shame after getting caught. The female voters in New York should listen to my tape of his lies before even considering him for mayor.”

In Crabtree’s case, she reports that Weiner gave her the middle finger in front of a gaggle of other reporters in the Speaker’s Lobby. In Miller’s… Read more

National Journal and The Weekly Standard took very different tacks in their coverage of Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George‘s testimony before the Senate Finance Committee today concerning the IRS scandal.

As a student at Harvard Law School… Read more

Forbes‘ annual “100 Most Powerful Women in the World” list published Wednesday. Included on the list is Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren in the 97th slot.

The bio describes Van Susteren as “the longest serving cable news anchor on TV and the most-watched woman on cable news.” It continues, however, to note that “plunging ratings have sparked rumors that the anchor might lose her prime time slot.”

Other newswomen included on the list: Huffington Post Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington (56), NYT Executive Editor Jill Abramson (19) and CBS anchor Diane Sawyer (73).

On her Gretawire blog… Read more

Politico parted ways with Joe Williams after he said in the 2012 election that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wasn’t comfortable being around black people. That, however, hasn’t stopped him from blurting out head scratchers, like the one he made on Current TV’s “The Young Turks” Tuesday.

Discussing the politics of disaster relief for Moore, Okla., which was devastated by a tornado Monday, Williams waded into the global warming debate. “We need to get used to this because climate change is happening,” Williams said. “It’s real.” He  continued, “A lot of people tend to think that it’s just hot winters, cold summers. No. We’re talking about severe weather events — a force-5 tornado, which this country and the world hasn’t seen…”

The Oklahoma tornado was classified as a EF-5, meaning its winds reached at least 200 mph. But where did Williams get his degree in the history of global climate? He was wrong about the world having never seen an EF-5 tornado. Read more

Four journalists will be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the D.C. Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists on June 11 at the National Press Club. Inductees include NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, WaPo sports columnist Thomas Boswell, author and political journalist Haynes Johnson and NYT, CBS News and PBS correspondent Terence Smith.

The dinner ceremony will also include the Distinguished Service Award for Local Journalism, which will go to Steve Geimann, deputy team leader for Bloomberg News’ Washington bureau. Dateline Awards for Excellence in Local Journalism will also be presented.

Find out how attend…

Read more

This morning the news broke that ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) is running for Mayor of New York. Naturally the crew at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” would discuss it.

But how? What parameters?

If you’re the show’s Co-host Mika Brzezinksi, is the best option to behave gingerly and timidly? What, no weiner jokes? No talk of penis selfies? Seems she wants to find a cautious way to cover the story, if only Joe Scarborough will play along.

“Okay, alright, she began, spreading her arms. “Let’s just, no, we’re not doing that.” No one at the roundtable had done anything — yet.

“Chuck, don’t,” she scolded before NBC Political Director Chuck Todd, in Washington, could even speak. “Don’t egg him on,” she adds, referring to Scarborough, who began by introducing Politico‘s Executive Editor Jim VandeHei to the show.

He called VandeHei “head of the Weiner beat.” The Politico editor laughed and said its telling how the show’s guests reacted while watching Weiner’s video announcing his run. “Well, I think that it’s interesting that when you played the video everybody at the table started laughing,” said Vandehei. “That’s usually not a great start to a campaign. … There’s no doubt the backdrop is going to be that embarrassing picture. And, by the way, he said there’s more, there might be more out there.”

“Alright, behave,” said Mika to no one in particular and everyone. “Stop,” she said repeatedly, even when nothing torrid was voiced.

Despite Mika’s weiner policing, the conversation eventually turns a sharp corner to those nasty naked dick pics that Weiner sent to virtual female girlfriends while in Congress.  Read more

Strange times at TWT. On the front of the Commentary section Tuesday was a column by John Solomon on the AP scandal. Solomon is allegedly chief digital officer, a brand new position that was created especially for him at the start of 2013. But he’s not on the masthead. And then there’s that funky ID tagline included in his Tuesday column. It mentions his former employment as editor, but not that he currently works there. Also unmentioned is his affiliation with Washington Guardian, where he is president and executive editor.

It’s a real head scratcher. His ID tagline in TWT reads: “John Solomon, a veteran Washington journalist, is the former executive editor of The Washington Times and onetime deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press.”

Here’s another chunk of weirdness: Solomon’s deputy, Ian Bishop, is on the masthead as digital editor. But not him?

Seems Solomon’s current affiliation should be disclosed. Why wouldn’t it be? Read more

Blogger Dave Catanese, a freelancer formerly with Politico, did the unthinkable for Esquire. He dropped off Twitter for a week just to see what would happen. In the story, he compares his addiction to that of an food addict at an all-you-can eat brunch. So it wasn’t a cake walk. There were moments he wanted to gorge. But no, he didn’t combust. The worst of it: he felt less relevant. For Washington media, that’s dying a thousand deaths. “Gone was the ability to be immediately self-assured that my take on the topic d’jour mattered and held value with my peers,” he wrote. “If it sounds a tad self-absorbed, well, welcome to Washington.”

Some embarrassing details Catanese admitted in his first-person account: 1. Among the first things he does upon waking is he sees how many new followers he has and checks his retweets. 2. He nearly screwed up the entire assignment by  initially clicking on Twitter. Then he remembered. “It was just a split second, though,” he writes. 3. He sometimes falls asleep with his phone in hand: “On some particularly insatiable nights, I fall asleep with the phone nestled in my hand on the pillow.” Seriously, nestled?

The writer admits there were upsides to taking the week off — he read more, he slept without the device cradled in his hand. “I’ll probably gradually ease back into my Twitter habits, mostly because it’s a main avenue to promote my work as a freelancer and for my site TheRun2016.com,” Catanese told FishbowlDC this morning. “But I must say I haven’t gotten back into the Twitter groove just yet. I think being away from it for a week and not missing anything major made it slightly easier to stay away from. I didn’t wake up Monday morning dying to Tweet, but then again it’s only been a few days.”

Still, maybe more importantly, traffic on his website, TheRun2016.com, dipped 30 – 50 percent while he was away from his Twitter buffet.

At one point he writes:

Twitter offers a shield, which allows you to be expressive, bold — even offensive — for all of your most influential followers to witness, without having to confront the awkward social consequences of an in-person engagement. (“How can he be so hilarious on Twitter and yet so awkward in person?” a friend recently asked me about one of the city’s more prolific political Tweeps.)

Naturally we went on a FishbowlDC manhunt to see if we could figure out who this prolific Tweep was.

We pressed Catanese on who this individual is.

Read more

Do you have the New York Times Best Seller list memorized? Do you have a passion for books and want to get into the publishing business?

In this episode of “Score That Job,” career expert, author and mediabistro editor Vicki Salemi sat down with Andrea Weinzimer of Hachette Book Group and got the inside dirt on what they’re looking for in a candidate.

Here a few tips — know the industry and know which authors they publish (hint: rhymes with James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, David Sedaris…). Or just watch the video.

You can view our other MediabistroTV productions on our YouTube Channel.