Nearly two months ago Washington Examiner “Yeas and Nays” gossip columnist Nikki Schwab was notified that as part of the publication’s restructuring, she would be one of many staffers let go. We hear she has until early June at the Examiner, but she’s already on the move.

At the start of May, Schwab began posting at The Daily Download, the web media site run by Lauren Ashburn and publicized by Howard Kurtz. Schwab has written four posts to-date on topics like new YouTube and LinkedIn features and a smartphone application that allows users to mimic Michelle Obama‘s fashion.

Schwab is with Daily Download on a freelance basis. She will also be freelancing for Washington Life. “Yes, just doing some freelance, trying to figure out what’s next for me,” she told FishbowlDC.

It’s a story that you almost have to read in a pitch-black room, huddled under a blanket with a flashlight.

On Sunday night Breitbart News published a massive hit piece on New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, who is presently working on a book about FNC and its CEO Roger Ailes. The story appears under the byline “Capitol Confidential” and is mostly a chronicle of the seemingly contentious relationship between Sherman and FNC. But sprinkled throughout are several unsubstantiated “holy shit!”-level digs at Sherman.

One assertion is that Sherman’s book, previously scheduled to publish this past May, has had its release date pushed to next January because the publishing house found the copy inadequate. “In the book world, that’s not a good sign,” the story says. “Typically, it means the publisher deems the manuscript to be unacceptable.” The story makes the additional leap that “desperation is taking its toll on young Sherman’s mind,” as he searches for “new and juicier material.”

Aside from a separate, anonymously-sourced piece in Breitbart that alleges Sherman’s publisher “must be freaking out,” the claim is baseless. One person who works at the top levels of a national book publisher in D.C. told FishbowlDC that any number of reasons can lead to delaying a book’s release. “Most likely, the author missed the deadline,” he said. “That could mean a number of things but a writer needing more time is not uncommon (happens all the time). It could also mean that retailers have asked the publisher for a different date because of potential promotions that can help move the book.”

Asked about the claim and to explain the “Capitol Confidential” byline, Breitbart News provided a statement to FishbowlDC… Read more

One man’s cut is another man’s dip is another man’s “Sorry, I’m not hearing anything.”

On Monday NYT‘s Brian Stelter reported on a bit from an upcoming book by Bloomberg View‘s Jonathan Alter. The part in question alleges that just days before the 2012 presidential election, nearly two months after terrorist attacks on a U.S. consulate in Libya, FNC CEO Roger Ailes personally called one of his channel’s producers and ordered that Geraldo Rivera‘s mic be cut.

In the segment in which Rivera appeared, he criticized his colleague Eric Bolling for what he said was politicizing the attack. As the segment droned on for seven minutes, Ailes ordered the muzzling of Rivera, according to Alter’s book.

Stelter wrote that he sought comment from FNC, which never returned his request (not unusual for the channel’s illustriously choosy PR department). Instead, a spokesperson for FNC went to Mediaite and gave them their side: It was that FNC Executive Vice President of Programming Bill Shine, who called up the producer and ordered not Rivera’s mic be cut, but that the show’s hosts move on to another, less emotionally-charged subject. (The next segment was on immigration, not at all an polarizing topic).

Rivera denied Alter’s account in a tweet. Alter replied, asking why Rivera’s “office” didn’t deny the claim when he called to ask about it. “Specifically to Jonathan Alter, I like you mate,” Rivera countered, “but you never spoke with me about Benghazi and you never asked if Roger Ailes cut my mic.”

Mediaite‘s Andrew Kirell posted the full video from the segment in question, noting that “At no point during the segment is Rivera inaudible.”

Oliver Willis over at the anti-FNC Media Matters disagreed. He also posted the full video, claiming to hear “a change in Rivera’s microphone volume.”

What you can take away from watching and listening to either clip… Read more

As of Monday, John Hudson will replace Josh Rogin in manning Foreign Policy magazine’s “The Cable” blog, according to a newsroom memo by Editor-in-Chief Susan Glasser.

No doubt he has big shoes to fill.

“[W]e’re sure he’ll have a terrific impact on it, as he has helped boost Passport over the last few months since he joined Foreign Policy after a great run at the Atlantic Wire and the Daily,” assures a memo from Editor-in-Chief Susan Glasser.

It was announced earlier that Rogin would be leaving FP for The Daily Beast to work as a senior correspondent covering politics and national security.

Read the full memo… Read more

Howard Kurtz‘s apology, delivered on live national television Sunday, has been received as any dramatic apology would be. Some people are buying it. Some aren’t.

On his CNN media news program “Reliable Sources,” Kurtz offered his side of the story on what led to the mea culpa in the first place: Deadline pressure and his own lack of due diligence were to blame for his erroneous report last week that NBA player Jason Collins, who had just come out as gay, didn’t disclose that Collins his prior engagement to a woman. Collins had, in fact, been open about the engagement, mentioning it in a column for Sports Illustrated.

On Friday we questioned whether Kurtz would cover his own ass by covering his own ass on the show. He did. And for the occasion, CNN brought in NPR’s David Folkenflik and Politico‘s Dylan Byers to probe him.

There was plenty of in-house love for Kurtz. In a separate segment on the show, attorney Lisa Bloom was on to discuss coverage of the Jodi Arias case. Before offering her legal analysis, she said she would take a second to “go off script.” She praised Kurtz for “raising the bar” for journalistic accountability (while rattling off her own media resume).

“Kudos to Howard Kurtz,” tweeted Kurtz’s CNN colleague Piers Morgan. “He took his Jason Collins-clanger on the chin today like a Mike Tyson right hook.”

The compliments also poured in from elsewhere. FNC anchor Greta Van Susteren wrote on her Gretawire blog that everyone should “stop slapping Howie Kurtz.”

“Not one of us is perfect.  We all make mistakes,” Van Susteren wrote. At the start of the year, Kurtz had to offer a separate apology for wrongly attributing a quote to Van Susteren about then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

At TVNewser, our sister site, Gail Shister wrote after the apology that she hopes CNN head Jeff Zucker will continue to support Kurtz.

On the other side of the fence… Read more

In addition to the buyouts of five CQ Roll Call staffers announced Thursday, there have been layoffs of several other employees, FishbowlDC has learned.

A source familiar with the layoffs, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity, could not confirm the number of outgoing staffers but said it was “less than five.” We hear one person shown the door was staff photographer Chris Maddoloni, who won two awards earlier this year from the White House News Photographers Association. Maddolini did not return request for comment.

While the buyout package offered to staffers Thursday is believed to include roughly five months worth of pay (it depends on how long a staffer has been with the company), it is unclear if the laid off employees received any severance deal. Our source says laid off staffers at CQ Roll Call generally do receive something but it depends how long they’ve been with the company.

The layoffs are not related to the buyouts, according to the source. They are part of the long-term strategy CQ Roll Call, a company with about 400 employees, has adopted in shifting its resources from its print product to the digital side.

Update: A separate source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, contests the assertion that the layoffs are not related to the buyouts. This source says “at least one” of the staffers laid off was eligible for the buyout, but did not request it before being shown the door.

Update #2: Another layoff is Todd Kapner from the Advertising Dept., FishbowlDC has learned. A source tells us he did not receive the buyout.

The Atlantic earned two awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors on Thursday: Best Web site and Best Essay and Criticism for Ta-Nehisi Coates‘s “Fear of a Black President” piece in the September issue.

“I’m so happy for Ta-Nehisi and the entire team at The Atlantic,” M. Scott Havens, president of The Atlantic, said in a release. “It’s wonderful to be recognized by our peers for excellence in one of our oldest journalistic forms, the essay, and one of our newest—the work we do every day on TheAtlantic.com.”

Coates’s piece, an analysis on the conflict he says Barack Obama faces as the first minority president, was up against other entries from Foreign Policy, New York, The New Yorker and Orion.

Five employees at CQ Roll Call have been given buyouts at the publication, according to a newsroom memo sent out by Editorial Director Susan Benkelman obtained by FishbowlDC.

The employees are: John Bicknell, editor of CQ Weekly; Robert Healy, senior editor; Melinda Nahmias, deputy editor of CQ Weekly; Lauren Whittington, leadership editor; and Randy Wynn, chief news editor.

We hear that part of the buyout is roughly five months-worth of pay.

“We’re going to set a date for an appropriate, official celebration of these employees’ long and wonderful careers, most likely the third week in May, and we’ll make sure everyone is aware of those plans,” Benkelman wrote in the memo. “In the meantime, please wish them well on this next phase of their lives and careers. We’ll also have some snacks and drinks in the newsroom late tomorrow for these employees’ last day. I’ll bring the wine, and the Kleenex.”

FishbowlDC reported Thursday that several staffers had submitted requests for buyouts and that decisions could come by the end of the day. It looks like that panned out.

See the full memo… Read more

The Brzezinskis are a remarkable crew. Mika Brzezinski is the co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Her father, Zbigniew, was a national security adviser in the Carter administration. And now we know that her mother, Emilie, is a tree sculptor.

On “Morning Joe” Thursday, Mika put in a plug for her mother who joined Twitter at the start of the year, telling viewers to check out the tree sculptures. “I am a sculptor -- Mikasaid I must tweet,” Emilie said in her inaugural tweet back in January.

Since then, Emilie has been tweeting photos of elaborate sculptures made out of tree trunks she says that she has carved herself.

Some examples of the art, accompanied by the names Emilie has given them:

“Cores” Read more

Washington Bureau Chief Howard Kurtz is parting ways with The Daily Beast.

As of Thursday, Kurtz no longer works there, according to Politico. But wait. Will Kurtz address the issue that led up to this fallout on his Sunday CNN show “Reliable Sources”?

It was a massive blunder the longtime media critic made Wednesday when he wrote in The Beast that NBA player Jason Collins, who recently came out as gay, failed to disclose he was once engaged to a woman. Kurtz said the same thing in a video for The Daily Download, though Collins did, in fact, make clear in a Sports Illustrated story that he had been engaged to a woman.

The good news for Kurtz, though, is that he can cover his ass by covering his own ass. On “Reliable Sources” Kurtz can redeem himself in the eyes of at least himself if not Gawker, Salon, BuzzFeed and Politico.

The show has a “Media Monitor” segment in which Kurtz notes the debatable issues of the day, like whether a reporter’s erroneous column was appropriately amended. We’ve reached out to Kurtz and one of show’s producers to find out if he’ll be addressing the matter. But in the highly unlikely event that he decides not to cover his own bungle, we’re going to preempt Kurtz’s media monitoring and do it ourselves.

To review… Read more