Throughout ABC’s political drama “Scandal,” the second season of which ended Thursday, it’s been apparent that the writers often have little to no idea how the news media based in D.C. actually works.

In one episode you have a high-profile news anchor sitting on a story that involves a president refusing to be seen until all of his hair grows back on his newly-bald head. That would never happen. Bald or not, the story would fly.

In another episode, the news media is seen waiting for Olivia Pope, the show’s main character, outside her client’s home. Pope waits until the top of the hour when all the TV reporters need to go live. She breezily slips past them. Where were the print reporters and bloggers who would also have been waiting? Apparently forgotten about by the “Scandal” writers. Even the TV reporters would have people who would approach Pope even if they couldn’t during their live shots.

But in the finale, the show finally gets it right.

Pope, who has been able to keep her affair with the married President FitzGerald Grant a secret this whole time, is shown in the final scene walking through her apartment building lobby with a satisfied smile on her face before setting out on a run outdoors. She had just quashed the biggest scandal of the season, one that would have likely ended in the impeachment of the president.

As Pope throws open the doors she’s greeted by… Read more

A story on the battle to liberalize Ireland’s abortion laws published in USA Today Thursday contained edits that grossly altered the original story, according to freelance journalist Caelainn Hogan, who wrote the piece.

Or rather, that was according to Hogan before she changed her mind about complaining about those edits.

Hogan, 24, told FishbowlDC that USA Today‘s version of her story, which was purchased through the freelance writer service Associated Reporters Abroad, added “material I had never seen before” and included “paraphrasing of my own words and manipulation of quotes which I feel distort the original.” Hogan is an Ireland native but is currently in Turkey.

The original version of Hogan’s story, which she forwarded to FBDC, is different from the USA Today version, but mostly by way of inconsequential edits. For example, the original story contained the following quote:

“The issue of abortion in Ireland s [sic] so contentious many are reluctant to discuss it,” said Clare Quigley, 23, a medical student in Dublin.

It was amended to read:

“The issue of abortion in Ireland is so contentious,” said Clare Quigley, 23, a medical student in Dublin.

Not exactly a nefarious edit.

Edits to the story include added quotes… Read more

Kevin Williamson, roving correspondent for National Review, is a theater thug.

But who can blame him for tossing a woman’s phone across the room while he’s trying to watch a show at a theater in New York? After all, as he explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday, he was working. He’s a theater critic and wasn’t watching the show just for his personal enjoyment.

Alyssa Rosenberg. That’s who.

“[M]aking grand statements like Williamson’s is almost certainly more disruptive both to fellow patrons and to the actors on stage than the use of a cell phone in the audience,” Rosenberg wrote in a post for Think Progress. She added that “sending someone else’s phone across the theater at great speed is a much more efficient way to make a martyr of said terribly rude person than to strike a blow for civility.”

Really?

On National Review’s “The Corner” blog Wednesday night, Williamson wrote up a post in which he broke the news, detailing how he just went to a theater in New York for a show only to find his experience repeatedly interrupted by phone users. He complained to the manager who said the problem would be amended, only to return to his seat and find the woman next to him on her phone.

Williamson wrote, Read more

The biggest stories this week have been about a trio of government scandals, one involving the IRS, another with the DOJ and a third with the September attack in Benghazi, Libya. But those aren’t the most of Bloomberg View‘s concerns. The 3-D printer is.

Over the last four days, the Bloomberg View daily morning newsletter blast was sent out with staff editorials on 3-D printing as their top story:

• “Your Future Will Be Manufactured on a 3-D Printer,” 5/13
• “That 3-D Printed Gun? It’s Just the Start,” 5/14
• “How 3-D Printing Could Disrupt the Economy of the Future,” 5/15
• “3-D Printing: the Ultimate Intellectual-Property Threat?” 5/16

To be fair, the Bloomberg publications are primarily financial news publications. Actually, never mind. That doesn’t explain why the dangers of 3-D printing being used to create handguns is more important to BV‘s readers than a conflict involving the IRS. Since that scandal broke last week, BV has published… Read more

You know it’s spring in D.C. when BuzzFeed contributor Michael Hastings makes a TV appearance with an extra undone button on his plaid shirt, showing off just the right amount of chest hair.

Hastings usually does his TV hits with all but the top-most button fastened. Sometimes he wears a tie. Other times he wears a hoodie and T-shirt. But until his Wednesday night hit on Current TV, he hasn’t been seen going all ’70s-porn-star, letting that bushel on his chest run wild and free.

Watch Hastings’ segment here.

Karin Tanabe, formerly a reporter at Politico CLICK, just had her first novel, The List, published in February and she’s already churning out another.

Publisher’s Marketplace, a forum for publishers and authors to promote their work, just posted a synopsis for the forthcoming book titled Lot 24. It reads:

… Tanabe’s Lot 24 [is] about a hot young antique furniture specialist at Christie’s in NYC who discovers a mysterious piece of Middle Eastern pottery that sends her career and her love life into a tailspin…

Tanabe told FishbowlDC that the release date for the book is currently summer 2014. Even though the book, unlike her first one, isn’t about politics and journalism, she said it isn’t “devoid” of either. “It’s hard to totally leave what you know,” she said.

Also unlike her debut novel, which was loosely based on her former colleagues at Politico, Lot 24 will be steamier. “There’s also lots more sex!” Tanabe said. Read more

He’s not a comedian, but the Wall Street Journal editorial board found the humor in one of David Freddoso‘s tweets. So much so, that it was included in one of Wednesday’s editorials about the the Obama administration distancing itself from the IRS.

“The Washington Examiner‘s David Freddoso joked on Twitter that ‘Seal Team 6 is the only govt agency that acts directly on Obama’s behalf,’” it reads. (That’s actually not a direct quote of Freddoso’s tweet but it’s close.)

“Hey, I got a shout-out in today’s WSJ editorial,” Freddoso tweeted with a link to the editorial attached.

It was a clever remark, no doubt. But should Freddoso turn in his pen for clown shoes just yet? How funny was the joke? We’ve requested comment from Freddoso. But in the meantime, cast your vote in our Fish Poll:

Update: Freddoso got back to us after this post published. He told us he wasn’t aware that his tweet would make it into the editorial. “A friend wrote to tell me about it this morning, I had no idea,” he said. “I think some people at the Journal follow me.” Otherwise, he said, they may have seen the tweet featured in a post Slate‘s Dave Weigel wrote Tuesday.

(A sprinkling of things we think you ought to know)

AP-DOJ conflict doesn’t matter to Media Matters– Media Matters for America, the progressive watchdog dedicated to discrediting conservative media, has no coverage of the Associated Press-Justice Department fiasco that blew up Monday night.

A search of MMFA‘s website for “Associated Press,” “AP” and “Gary Pruitt” produce no results related to the conflict, in which the Justice Department secretly seized phone records of some of AP’s staffers. Pruit is the AP‘s president. He called the ordeal “a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”

Republicans in Congress, the conservative media and even mainstream media have all jumped on the story, calling it an example of government overreach. While MMFA is an openly progressive non-profit, the organization generally peddles along with the news cycle, posting stories and sending out email blasts that either rebut the conservative side or provide more context meant to render the story a wash.

We’ve requested comment from MMFA‘s Sr. Director of Communications Jess Levin.

On the other end of things, conservative media watcher NewsBusters, has covered the story.

Greta wonders if you ever feel like a caged feline– FNC’s Greta Van Susteren asked the rambunctious readers of her Gretawire blog this morning, “Do you ever feel like this baby tiger?” In her blog post was a video of what actually looks like a vicious tiger sitting in a glass cage, snarling directly at the camera. “Do you know someone else who currently feels like this baby tiger?” her post continues. One reader replied in the comments section: “Do not call, do not text me first thing in the morning before my first cup of coffee LOL…REALLY!” News reports as of late have Van Susteren possibly moving out of her 10 p.m. time slot.

How to NOT make it about me– ABC’s Robin Roberts, co-anchor of Good Morning America, had a well-publicized battle with breast cancer and subsequent bone marrow transplant over the last few years. GMA seemed to run story after story about her recovery. Even so, Roberts didn’t pounce on the opportunity to make actress Angelina Jolie‘s double mastectomy about herself at all. “Terrific Tuesday at GMA,” she tweeted this morning. “We will discuss Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a double mastectomy. She wrote a moving OP-ED in the NY Times.” And that was it.

Matthew Lewis, who writes for The Daily Caller and The Week, wasn’t invited to deliver the commencement address at any ceremonies this year. But what’s that to stop him from writing 1,200 words of “advice” to new graduates anyway?

In a Monday column for The Week, Lewis offered what was meant to be a series of tips for young people entering the work force and generally speaking, the real world. Instead, it reads more like a personal diary, chronicling Lewis’s own life struggles (he once worked at a gas station) and bits of wisdom from other writers.

An excerpt:

George Santayana observed that Americans don’t solve their problems; they leave them behind. As I became a father, this really hit me hard. Naively, I had believed that I had mastered things that I had merely outgrown. But when you have kids, you rediscover (and relive) your weaknesses.

Here’s a trivial example. For at least fifteen years of my life, I went to a building every day that had some sort of basketball court attached to it. Despite the fact that my dad had been a high school star, I’ve always been a lousy player. But there was no escaping this game, which seemed inexorably tied to my life. And then one day, I graduated. Since I didn’t become a P.E. teacher or something, I have never had another occasion to play basketball. Until now. 

Now I have a son. He will surely play basketball. I may have found a years-long respite from my hardcourt weakness, but in the form of my children, I will have to confront again the weakness I never mastered.

Take that to the bank, graduates. Or your local Public Welfare office. Whichever place will give you more bang for that what the f*** sermon.

It turns out Lewis’s piece reads like a personal letter to himself because… Read more

She may not have a choice, but it would do BuzzFeed‘s Capitol Hill reporter Kate Nocera well to try as best as she can to avoid the swarm of cicadas headed for the Washington, D.C. area. Not that she needs to be told that.

“Guys, I am not ready for the cicadas,” she confessed on Twitter Tuesday afternoon. The big, ugly, winged bugs are believed to begin emerging from the ground starting in late May and will live roughly four to six weeks, according to WaPo.

Over the course of those weeks, there are seven reasons Nocera should stay away from the cicadas.

1. Nocera is terrified of bugs

“I am generally very bug-phobic,” she told FishbowlDC, “but the thought of clouds of horrible bugs everywhere should be terrifying to everyone.”

2. Cicadas give her anxiety

having a cicada anxiety attack. sry.

— KateNocera (@KateNocera) May 7, 2013

Read more