Brag Book

The Atlantic has seen a surge of traffic across its three online platforms at the start of 2012. Between TheAtlantic.com, TheAtlanticWire.com and TheAtlanticCities.com, the publication saw 14.3 million unique visitors in January, according to a press release.

TheAtlantic.com saw the most UVs with 10.1 million, a 98 percent increase from January 2011. But while TheAtlantic.com’s month-to-month traffic is up 15 percent, TheAtlanticCities.com’s is up the most at 40 percent.

“Our growth across the three sites proves to us that there doesn’t have to be a tradeoff between producing quality, ideas-based journalism and succeeding in the chaos of the digital world,” said Bob Cohn, editorial director of Atlantic Digital.

Simon Doonan, the Creative Director at Barney’s New York, will appear at the W Hotel for a book party Wednesday night. This will be his only Washington appearance for his newly published Gay Men Don’t Get Fat.

Clearly he hasn’t met Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

The author covers his bases, including Ke$sha, Washington power players and decorating the White House for the holidays in 2009. Born in England, Doonan, a contributor to Slate, also wrote Beautiful People, which was adapted for TV in the UK. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Jonathan Adler.

He will sign copies of his book between 7 – 9 p.m. The book will be on hand to purchase for $24.95. Hors d’oeuvres will be served alongside a cash bar. RSVP: whappenings@brandlinkdcrsvp.com.

(A Sprinkling of What we Think you Ought to Know…)

Newt’s campaign still upset about tame audience– Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich complained Tuesday about NBC’s Brian Williams requesting that the audience remain silent during Monday’s debate. After experiencing a relatively docile audience during Thursday’s debate, the Gingrich camp is now getting conspiratorial. Kevin Kellems, a senior adviser to Gingrich, accused rival Mitt Romney‘s campaign of manipulating the makeup of the audience. “They definitely packed the room [with Romney supporters],” Kellems told HuffPost. Goddammit. Where are those moon colonists when you need them?

In jealous rage, The Atlantic calls Weigel a “raging jerk”– As bitchy as journalists can be, the ones on the Republican primary campaign trail have a lot to be happy about. They’re in Florida where the temperature is hanging around a balmy 70 degrees. But that doesn’t mean The Atlantic, founded in frigid Washington, has to be happy for them. On Thursday the magazine called out the braggy tweets from journos in Florida. They called Slate‘s Dave Weigel a “raging jerk” for sending out a tweet last week in which he said, “High on the pleasantness scale: That moment the Florida sun retreats behind a cloud.” And WaPo‘s Philip Rucker is “cruel” for tweeting about the “sunset in Ormond Beach.”

Two Speakers sit down for “This Week”– Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will appear on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday to discuss his campaign and the Florida primary with ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper. Then it’s out with the old and in with the orange. Speaker John Boehner will be on after Gingrich to comment on the details of President Obama‘s State of the Union speech. Other guests: conservative columnist George Will, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, former Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, and conservative talk radio show host Laura Ingraham.

Editorial writer recalls “most embarrassing correction” of his career– After The Daily Caller‘s Matthew Lewis found glaring errors in a Thursday morning article about Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio published by Reuters, Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner offered up a quasi-defense of the wire service. In a blog post, he recalled his own time at Reuters and a mistake he once made that resulted in a dirty mudslide of corrections:

“[B]ecause it was the most important news of the day and it was rattling many markets, other Reuters reporters simply grabbed my wording to put into our stock report, bond stories, foreign exchange dispatches, and so on. So after I corrected the story, it triggered what my co-workers teased was a ‘global correction tsunami,’ as reporters throughout the world had to issue corrections because of my bungle. It was one of the moments in my career where I could have starred in a Southwest ‘Wanna get away?’ commercial.”

Klein went on to lambast Reuters for their errors Thursday, saying that it was different from his own experience because “this isn’t the type of breaking news financial news story that needs to be pumped out in minutes. It’s a longer feature that the writer and editor had more time to work on. There’s no excuse for being this sloppy.”

Host of NPR’s Fresh Air, Terry Gross, will be tonight’s guest on The Colbert Report.

Terry had Stephen Colbert in the hot seat last year, so this is his chance for blood. Though no one can know what precisely will come from this epic meeting — Will Stephen get any interview tips? Does Terry like answering questions as much as asking them? – we think it’ll be entertaining.

For behind the scenes details, check out @npr and @nprfreshair on Twitter and search the hash tag #freshaironcolbert.

In HuffPost’s latest attempt at taking over global media, today they launch Le Huffington Post, the first foreign language version of the online news site. Ooh la la! Even reporters’ names like Grég have accent marks. This is going to be spectacular. This marks a partnership with The Le Monde Group and Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendantes to provide HuffPost’s brand of reporting to a new audience. The press release describes it as “politics, entertainment, living, style, world news, technology, and more.” Anne Sinclair will be Editorial Director and Paul Ackermann will be Editor-in-Chief. This is such a big deal that HuffPost felt the need to splash it as their top news item Monday morning.

In a statement, Arianna Huffington says, “I’ve loved France ever since I was 11 and my father took me and my sister to Paris – our first trip outside Greece. So I’m delighted to be launching Le Huffington Post at this crucial time in France’s and Europe’s history, bringing HuffPost’s platform and emphasis on journalism, social media, and community to a country with its own unique sensibility, rich culture and diversity of voices.”

My parents took me to the Kennedy Space Center when I was 11, but we’re not writing Fishbowl Uranus… Unless you count the work we’ve been doing on Gene Weingarten.

Clearly, they are looking to go global brand but have they somehow gone overboard? We’ve already seen launches of HuffPost UK and HuffPost Canada. Still to come this year is Le Huffington Post Quebec, El Huffington Post Spain and L’Huffington Post Italia.

Which makes us wonder. What other markets could Arianna be looking to conquer next? Huffington Gone Postal? An internet newspaper devoted to the happenings of psychotic mail rooms across America. HuffPaint Post? A hazy look at inhalants and the people who abuse them. Maybe just the HuffPo Po-Po? Where they look at happenings inside police precincts around the country.

Any other ideas? Tell us about it at FishbowlDC@mediabistro.com or write me personally at FishbowlPeter@gmail.com.

Five years isn’t really that long, but Politico has seen rapid growth and a lot of success since it first began in 2007. So on a highly self-congratulatory note on Monday, Politico released a video with clips of several high-profile political players roasting the publication on its half-decade mark.

“Five years, it’s a long time. You’re doing generally a great job,” says Donald Trump.

Politico is “truly a news organization that acts its age: a petulant five-year-old concerned with only trivial matters,” host of “MTP” David Gregory says with a smile.

With a few repeats and some intensive listening, Arianna Huffington can be understood as saying, “Just as I was sitting down to write this, I saw that Mike Allen had already broken what I was going to say.”

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Willie Geist remarks, “I’ve gotta recuse myself because I don’t care for Politico, inside the Beltway gossipy garbage. And CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer cracks, “The next thing you know, you’ll be getting your driver’s license.”

Politico‘s Mike Allen‘s note to Politico readers as well as Politico staff is so sweet we think we’ve already contracted Diabetes… “THANK YOU to all of you who believed in us from Day 0. And we’re so grateful to our gifted, inspiring colleagues who make POLITICO so essential, enjoyable and illuminating.”

Other notables in the video include former CBS news anchor Katie Couric, “Morning Joe’s” Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, FNC’s Greta Van Susteren and host of “Hardball” Chris Matthews, who says he enjoys reading the print version because it’s printed on such “thick stock.”

Watch the full video here.

A special skewering for two of Washington D.C.’s finest journos from an obviously gentle soul named “Tom”. We’re blanking out the names to protect at least one of them. Think of this as good old-fashioned online seething from an evidently God-fearing man.

“A special fuck you to hateful bigots BLANK and BLANK. What is your obsession to trashing Tim Tebow on a regular basis. Tim Tebow is a jerk????Seriously, why because he visits with terminally ill children on a regular basis and does a ton of charity work. This is what makes him a jerk? And BLANK, I hate your ugly face, it is you that should shut the fuck up you gutless coward. Also if this was a Muslim praising Allah after touchdowns, you wouldn’t say a word becuse [sic] both of you BLANK and BLANK are a bunch of pussies. I am not even religious and your hate absolutely disgusts me. Both of you go fuck yourselves you Pieces of garbage.
Tom”

Disastrously obnoxious. Disgusting. Shameless.

These are the reactions being tossed about today amongst Washington’s Press Corps. with the release of NYT‘s Jodi Kantor‘s new book, The Obamas, that comes out next week. Reporters are having strong, negative reactions to remarks she made to Chicago Magazine about her relationship to the Obamas that also appeared in this morning’s Politico Playbook. With her boastful tone about interacting with the Obamas, could Kantor be stumbling upon that not so quaint hamlet known as Humblebrag? It’s a place where, not surprisingly, residents toot their own horn. It must be noted that as hard as Kantor tried to get a subsequent interview with the Obamas since her 2009 NYT magazine piece, she never landed it. She did, however, interview 33 White House staffers for the book.

“They know exactly who I am. We have an intense relationship. They really care about the Times, they read the Times. I’ve seen them at the [White House] Christmas party every year. After [Kantor's] big marriage piece was published in the New York Times Magazine, I brought my husband to the Christmas party. I walked up the Obamas, and I said, ‘Well, now you can check out who I’m married to,’ and they thought that was very funny; they pretended to inspect [him].”

This falls somewhere in the category of “holiday cheer” and third grade giggles. Not that we mind either.

Last week, New Media Strategies employee and American Spectator blogger J.P. Freire got a surprise when he went into work and found his desk and his things all wrapped up for Christmas. Was he going somewhere? Had he gotten promoted? “Upon arriving at the office I discover @mattdeluca and others at @nmsosphere giftwrapped my entire desk. Everything,” he wrote on Twitter.

So how’d they pull it off? “JP was out on vacation at the end of last week and it was a great opportunity to use the most awkward and tacky wrapping paper available from the downstairs CVS. Thing is, he’s actually working around the gift wrap now,” boasted Matt DeLuca, J.P.’s coworker at NMS. “I did all the wrapping and JP’s fellow podmates provided moral support and gift-wrapping advice (I’m terrible at wrapping).”

J.P. apparently handled the prank gracefully. “I think he was stunned and surprised – not mad or anything,” said DeLuca. “He unwrapped his phone and computer and left everything else wrapped for now. I am now prepared for retribution.”

As well he should be. We asked J.P. for comment on the incident and he replied, “I loved it. In fact, I kept it wrapped save for the items I needed to use. (He had wrapped the phone, the keyboard, the mouse, the monitor, all individually.) It’s wonderfully festive. And I don’t know if I’d call what I am going to do ‘revenge.’”