Amazing Feats

Today we debut a new feature in which see all the weird and wonderful ways Washington journalists can make the story about themselves. We begin with none other than The Daily Beast‘s Washington Editor and CNN “Reliable Sources” host Howard Kurtz.

At last year’s CPAC I grabbed Santorum in hall for quickie interview. Now you can’t get near the guy. Campaign makes (and breaks) rock stars

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) February 10, 2012

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

DCRTV’s Dave Hughes posted a Happy Birthday message to himself yesterday over on his website. It’s a sure sign that you have a fulfilled life full of meaningful relationships when you have to remind everyone that it’s your birthday. Since Mike Allen didn’t tell us about it in Playbook, we missed it. So, Happy Belated Birthday, Dave. So, here are our Top 3 Birthday Wishes for you..

1 – We hope that you get another glowing profile like this one from Washingtonian. We can only hope that WaPo will get around to including you in their weekend section. If not, GQ may come calling for tips on how to maintain a “Squirrelly and Discolored Metal Beard.”

2 – That someone gives you a huge gift box with a bow on top that is filled with new sources and story ideas so that you don’t have to go regurgitate other people’s content without giving them credit.

3 – That someone buys you a mall gift card so you can replace those filthy looking military fatigues that you have on all the time.

 

Just in case you missed his birthday wishes to himself, Dave continues the celebration today.

 

 

With Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, WaPo‘s traditional “Love Notes” feature is on everyone’s minds. Well, not everyone really, but specifically on that of Tim Condon, WaPo‘s Director of New Ventures, Digital (yes, his real title), who is pimping a special $5 off promo to WaPo employees (and their friends and families) who want to publish love notes in the paper. Who wants to do that? No idea, but we can’t wait. Garden variety readers will pay $29 to publish a love note — this is normally $60. Lucky employees pay just $24.

See the internal memo…

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For some, Greta Van Susteren harkens back to vivid images of the mid 1990s when all eyes were peeled to the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Van Susteren, a former criminal defense and civil trial lawyer, appeared regularly on CNN and helped make sense of the complexities of the trial. She spent eight years at CNN. Then in 2002 she moved over to Fox News where she has been ever since hosting “On the Record” in the 10 p.m. time slot. She isn’t afraid of a good tussle – in January 2011, she blasted a launch party thrown by Tina Brown for Piers Morgan. “It is so different over here at Fox than CNN,” she wrote on her Gretawire blog. I can’t imagine Fox News Channel or a friend of Fox News Channel having some fancy “launch party” at a fancy NYC upper east side address with a bunch of celebrities for a new cable news show.  It seems so out of touch with the rest of the country, doesn’t it?” Today Greta celebrates 10 years at the network. We caught up with her this weekend and asked her to reflect on the last decade of her life.

Congratulations to her on this momentous occasion.

1. When you look back at the past decade, do you feel sentimental about it? I don’t feel sentimental, I feel extremely lucky!  I have had a ring side seat to every major news story in the last ten years.  I have had the thrill to travel the world for Fox News Channel – Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Korea, Haiti, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Kuwait, Jordan, UAE, Egypt, Aruba, Peru, Uruguay, and Honduras.   I have been all over the USA, too, and who can forget sleeping on a bus during Katrina with all my Fox colleagues?  I have had the chance to interview so many fascinating people (Presidents, world leaders, Cabinet members, Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, General Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto) that I can’t help but feel lucky…very lucky.  I have flown with the Thunderbirds, the Blue Angels and even chased the F/A 22 in an F-16.  I have been on a helicopter in Afghanistan and in other parts of the world.  I have also been lucky to interview those in the entertainment world: Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Ron Howard, William Shatner, Katharine McPhee, the Backstreet Boys, B.B. King, Winona and Naomi Judd, Shakira, Josh Groban, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian. I have also interviewed many many athletes: Brett Favre, Joe Theismann, Joe Namath, Cal Ripken, Jr., Bart Starr, Tony Dungy, Michael Vick, Mike Tyson, Bob and Mike Bryan, Joe Montana, and Manny Pacquiao.  Having read the foregoing list, and that is just a sample, can you understand why I feel so lucky?

I am grateful to Fox because Fox has spent a fortune over the past 10 years making sure I can do real reporting.  It is very, very, very expensive to send anchors and correspondents into the field and I know that news organizations have had to cut back. But Fox never has said no to me.  There is a giant difference between getting your news, reading the internet and THEN hosting or anchoring, and actually going into the field and seeing it yourself.

2. Anniversaries are typically times of reflection. What are you thinking about it all? I don’t reflect very much. I really don’t have the time to reflect. I am just excited about the next story whatever that may be.  Each time I do a story I wonder, can there possibly be another as fascinating?  So far, the answer is yes.

3. What are your tried and true interview techniques? First, work at a network that supports you.  That makes a HUGE difference.  Fox has done that for me over and over and over again.  Second, as to specific technique, I learned the trick from Larry King: be curious.  Interviews, as Larry taught me, are not about me — they are about the guests and the topic.  Viewers tune in for the news, not to see the set or the anchor.  It sure worked for Larry and it is working for me. I have been a cable news anchor since Oct. 1995.

4. What was your most memorable work trip of the last decade? I confess, I do find my trips to North Korea fascinating.  It is stepping into a whole different world, different from any other place in the world. I am headed back to North Korea in a few months for my fourth trip. Each time I have gone, I have seen more, and received greater access by the North Koreans. I have met some of the North Korean hierarchy and I have also met workers in the field. (And of course, my trips with Sec. of State Hillary Clinton to Pakistan, India, Afghanistan have been a thrill…as well as the trip all over the Middle East with then-First Lady Laura Bush.)

5. What are you most looking forward to in the years ahead? What do you most want to accomplish? I don’t know….my eyes are wide open!  Each new story is addictive.

 

 

This was sent to an elderly source today from a Washington journo. See if you can find the somewhat ALARMING error.

“Are you still good to go for 1pm Eastern time? And you have the questions BLANK sent over? Remember, we’re going to be raping, so if you need to do a second take, we can always stop and fix it.”

In what has to go down as one of the ballsiest questions of the campaign, video journalist Elizabeth Glover point blank asked Newt and Callista if they are in an open marriage. The question went down at a crowded campaign event in Miami. The funniest part: Glover placates them by first gifting them a commemorative navy silk scarf from Ronald Reagan‘s inauguration. Just after Callista oohs and ahhs over it and once their defenses are sufficiently down, she goes in for the kill. Meanwhile, her partner in crime, Elizabeth Gorman, snaps pictures of campaign party sights that include crowd shots, Callista’s glimmering blond helmet, and an overweight, bosomy woman.

Watch the beautiful footage here on Vice.com.

Navy Times reporter Josh Stewart, who writes the ScoopDeck, finds himself oddly apologizing for puking on a military aircraft.

In a post Monday, he writes of the ordeal, saying:

“I’m just writing to apologize for getting airsick in your C-2A Greyhound. It was certainly unintentional. You handled the plane with steady hands as we flew from Naval Air Station Mayport, Fla., to the carrier Enterprise last week. We even had weather on our side, allowing for a particularly calm flight.” He lamented, “If only my stomach was able to manage my breakfast as well as you flew the COD.”

He goes on to apologize to the cooks who made his breakfast — a banana muffin with green apple syrup. The story itself could make a reader nauseated as he includes a graphic description of the smell of the aviation fuel, the lack of windows and heat. “Please don’t think any less of me for this,” he writes.

Think less of him? Never. Stewart is known for being graphic. One of his biggest scoops at Navy Times involved malfunctioning toilets on the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush.

In a phone interview with FishbowlDC…

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Coworkers of DCists’s newest writer Ben Freed might want to avoid him today. Last night he spent the evening in the ER after falling off his bike. And when we say evening, we’re talking 6:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Colleagues convinced the groggy blogger to get himself checked out after he fell off his bike yesterday, banged his head and skinned his knee.

“Pretty long wait. Anyone wanna hang at the emergency room?” he wrote on Twitter around dinner time.

At first Freed was reluctant to talk about the incident further, but after a little arm twisting, he spilled his guts.

“Fine. Here’s what happened: Yesterday morning, while riding my bike downtown I tried to avoid a car pulling into my lane and in doing so, hit a pothole which sent me tumbling to the pavement. I skinned my knee—Here’s a yucky photo!—and banged my head on the ground. (I was wearing a helmet.) I got up, saw the bike was, save some

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Florida is becoming a mindmeld of Politico reporters this week. In a release directed to reporters and bookers, they report that there are seven reporters on the sunshine beat ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

IN THE SUNSHINE STATE:
Charlie Mahtesian, national political editor
Mike Allen, chief White House correspondent
Jonathan Martin, senior political reporter
Alexander Burns, national political reporter
James Hohmann, national political reporter
Ginger Gibson, national political reporter
Reid J. Epstein, national political reporter

LIVE ELECTION NIGHT SHOW: Hosted by Jim VandeHei, Maggie Haberman and WJLA’s Scott Thuman, the show will also feature Politico‘s on the ground in Florida, including Allen, who will break from suntanning and sucking up to “Morning Joe” to chat with VandeHeeho. The fun begins at 6:30 p.m. EST and will air on News Channel 8 in the Washington metro area as well as at POLITICO.com/livestream. The stream will also be available on iPhone and iPad.

Attention Katie Couric: In Politico Mike Allen‘s famous “Playbook” this morning, he writes that V.P. Dick Cheney will be on the morning shows. We know you read Allen before you even get out of bed, Katie. So we wanted to let you know that he didn’t actually mean that Cheney, he meant V.P. Joe Biden. It’s easy to confuse the two. Both are balding.

Allen, of course, corrected the matter. But not before some media reporters went hunting for Cheney on the morning circuit, thinking the shows had booked him to comment on Pres. Obama’s State of the Union address.