Hate Mail - FishbowlDC

Fundraiser Who Calls Herself a Bitch Lashes Out at Journo, Calls Him a Bitch

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:00:45 +0000

Holly Pitt Young, a fundraiser in town, took issue with Matt Laslo, a D.C. freelance print and radio journalist, for announcing a Twitter accomplishment of sorts.

Thanks all – hit 5k. Now I’m going back to Instagram…

— Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) May 5, 2013

don’t be a whiney bitch begging 4 followers then RT @mattlaslo: Thanks all – hit 5k. Now I’m going back to Instagram…

— hollypittyoung (@hollypittyoung) May 5, 2013

Then things got a little ugly.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

PBS’ Gwen Ifill Praises NBC’s Chuck Todd, Gets Gust of Hate Directed Her Way

Betsy Rothstein — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:30:12 +0000

No doubt PBS’ “Washington Week” host Gwen Ifill didn’t anticipate the sleeping beast she’d wake by complimenting NBC Political Director and MSNBC “Daily Rundown” host Chuck Todd.

loving @chucktodd even more than usual right now

— gwen ifill (@pbsgwen) March 20, 2013

But that’s exactly what happened last week when Todd, who is Jewish, traveled to Israel with President Obama and asked one too many questions, three to be exact. “Passover starts in a couple days, I get four questions,” Todd joked. Obama poked at him, saying, “Chuck, how many ya got?” and “Chuck, you’re just incorrigible!” Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also made fun of the reporter, saying, “This is not a kosher question but don’t hog it.”

In a day and age when journalists get verbally slaughtered online for just about anything, including breathing, some of Ifill’s followers were furious about her praise for Todd. There was nothing mild about it. Unlike some journalists, Ifill left it alone and didn’t respond.

Have a look. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Under Pressure From Angry Photog, BuzzFeed‘s Ben Smith Changes Twitter Avatar

Eddie Scarry — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:00:06 +0000

BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith is a thief, a “jerk” and a “shill for right-wing smear merchants.” That’s according to the photographer whose picture Smith has used as his Twitter avatar for more than a year.

Yesterday Daniel Sieradski, a self-employed photographer in New York, went after Smith on Twitter. “I would really like Smith to clarify his relationship to the Washington Free Beacon, Emergency Committee for Israel and Josh Block,” Sieradski said. “He obviously works for them.” The common link is a pro-Israel cause. The Emergency Committee for Israel is a pro-Israel political group, led by The Weekly Standard‘s William Kristol. Block is president of The Israel Project, also a pro-Israel political group. And The Free Beacon was founded in part by Michael Goldfarb, a well-known pro-Israel political activist.

Smith has reported on or published reports on these groups in the past and has paid loose compliment to Goldbarb in the NYT. For those six-degrees-of-separation connections, Sieradski believes Smith is “a shill for right-wing smear merchants.”

And for that, Sieradski, a self-described “left-wing supporter of a progressive Israel,” wants Smith to stop using the photograph he took. He tweeted at Smith: “I would still also really like [him] to cease and desist from using my copyrighted photograph as his avatar without my consent.” Sieradski also linked to his personal Flickr account that contained the original photo, taken at the American Jewish Press Association 2008 Annual Conference.

“About time to change the avatar anyway,” Smith replied. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Mailbox: Journo Miffed About Headline

Betsy Rothstein — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:13:05 +0000

On Tuesday we published a post about Lizzie O’Leary, formerly of CNN and now a freelancer for NPR, who opened up to Cosmopolitan.com about her sex life, her painful periods and a gynecological condition called endometriosis. Our headline and item said as much: Lizzie O’Leary Opens Up About Her Sex Life, Why She Couldn’t Stay at CNN and Living With Painful Endometriosis.

But O’Leary took issue with our coverage and wrote in late last night to let us know. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Morning Rationale: It’s the ‘Lord’s Way’

Betsy Rothstein — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:16:00 +0000

Current TV “Full Court Press” Producer and FBDC Contributor Peter Ogburn received this note this morning from a concerned viewer after revealing a recent bout of food poisoning, which, incidentally, involved raw oysters.

“Food Poisoning was the lord’s way. Too bad you survived. The lesson you should have learned is when you break the lord’s laws, you will pay the price. Next time you baby killers *will* die!!!!!”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

WaPo’s Weingarten Gets Hate Mail

Peter Ogburn — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:01:15 +0000

A recent piece from WaPo’s Gene Weingarten did not go over very well with a reader. Dave Starling, from Ashburn, took time to write into WaPo about this piece, which mocked the way Southerners speak. They ran this Letter to the Editor.

“I am deeply offended by Gene Weingarten’s Magazine column mocking Southern speech [“The trial,” Oct. 21]. The only purpose of this column was to make fun of Southerners such as myself.

The Post may consider it politically correct to mock Southerners, but I do not. Weingarten owes all Southerners an apology, and The Post owes its readers an apology for publishing such offensive tripe. As an online commenter noted of the column, you wouldn’t publish anything similar mocking the speech of African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican immigrants or any number of other groups. Why do you publish this garbage mocking Southern Americans?”

You might not believe this, but we actually have Gene’s back on this one. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Daily Caller’s Hot Potato Goes After Media

Betsy Rothstein — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 09:45:14 +0000

This should make things nice and cozy in the White House Briefing room.

Today The Daily Caller‘s Questioner-in-Chief Neil Munro sets his sights on the press corps, critiquing them for not asking the right questions. Or better said, asking lame questions instead of questioning President Obama about “the meltdown” of his Muslim outreach policy.

Instead, writes Munro, the press squandered its time on “low impact” questions about whether “officials timed today’s announcement of a new lawsuit against Chinese auto part makers to aid the president’s two campaign stops in Ohio.” Other “softballs” according to Munro included: 1. A question about the beautiful weekend weather and President Obama not being out on the golf course and about 2. How the President is monitoring the situation in Afghanistan.

Questions Munro thinks the media should have been addressed… continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

WCP Removes Jewish Slurs From Site

Betsy Rothstein — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:30:03 +0000

Washington City Paper removed a slew of Jewish slurs from its Loose Lips section last night. The blog, written by the Jewish-sounding Alan Suderman, received a number of insulting comments about his supposed religion that had nothing to do with his stories.

Editor Mike Madden explained that most of the deleted slurs went something like this: “The gist: ‘SUDERMAN THE BLOOD-SUCKING JEW.’”

Well, it turns out Suderman isn’t even Jewish, which Madden, who is, noted in an early evening tweet: “To the commenter who keeps calling @AlanSuderman anti-Semitic names on @wcp site: Suderman is not Jewish. I am the blood-sucking Jew here.”

Madden explained to FBDC that “the comments, aside from being offensive, had nothing to do with the posts they were left on and added nothing to the discussion, so we treated them like spam. …I don’t know who left them or whether they’re on Twitter, but figured some of our readers might have seen the comments before we got to them, so I’d note them.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Pundit Faces Nasty Insult Head On

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:00:57 +0000

As many Washington journos and pundits know too well, appearing on TV means opening themselves up to an infinite cast of critics who assess their looks. CNN Democratic Political Contributor Paul Begala took exception to a recent insult.

I prefer “fugly.” MT”@drtesla33: @alexiabutcherBegala is on tv all the time, people who have seen him in person say he’s ugly”

— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) September 8, 2012

It can’t be a coincidence that the woman who insulted Begala has the last name “Butcher.” But all ends well that begins horribly as Washington can have that absurdly small town feel. A web developer then questioned Begala on where he gets his hair cut, wondering if it’s Louis’ Barber Shop. “Was in there a couple years back for a haircut and could have sworn you were sitting their waiting as I was leaving,” said web developer Joel Housman. Sure enough, Begala said he has gone to the barber shop for the past 20 years.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Reader Calls us ‘Idiots’

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:45:33 +0000

We get a lot of poisonous mail here in the Fishbowl. Sometimes the hate comes in waves and other times one sharp jab stands out in the mix.

This week we wrote about The Daily Caller‘s Executive Editor David Martosko, who, at the moment, is more obsessed with his cigars and biweekly cigar columns than anything else. During the first night of GOP Convention speeches Tuesday night, he ignored NJ Gov. Chris Christie and mentioned some of the others in his Twitter remarks. One thing he didn’t ignore that evening was an offer for readers to get cigar alerts. So we wrote about his impeccable timing.

A reader wrote in, “You people are idiots. Martosko has his pigmotional tweets automated, like everyone with a big audience. Morons.”

For starters, we’re the “idiots” and “morons?” Maybe so. But when the Executive Editor of a daily online pub feels the need to promote his cigars ~~bullshit~~ on an important evening of speeches, it should be noted. On a brighter note, we adore the word “pigmotional” and hope you won’t mind if we borrow that. And a “big audience?” Hilarious! We love self-promoters and braggarts! As my cohort Peter Ogburn remarked to me, “He could at least TRY to hide that it’s him.”

Thanks for writing in Martosko!

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

WaPo’s Capehart Gets Called N-Word Daily

Betsy Rothstein — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:15:25 +0000

This morning WaPo Columnist and MSNBC Contributor Jonathan Capehart responded to and exposed a man who called him the n-word on Twitter. But it’s hardly the first time and won’t be the last. The journalist, who is black, receives these kinds of insults daily. The slur was likely in response to a column he wrote late Tuesday on Veep Joe Biden‘s “They’re going to put ya’all back in chains” remark at a Virginia rally that included hundreds of black people. “Yeah, that was wince-worthy,” Capehart wrote, before laying out all the reasons why people ought to be more concerned racially with Mitt Romney‘s campaign than that of President Obama.

RT @jones17doug: @capehartj You really are a dumb frekin N**** aren’t you.//Hmm….well, at least you showed SOME restraint. #unbelievable

— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) August 15, 2012

Some followers wondered why Capehart felt the need to give a person any attention whatsoever. “Gotta expose hate no matter how many followers it has,” Capehart replied to them. He added, “Hate shrivels in the daylight.”

Capehart says he receives slurs like this often. “I get at least one of those a day,” he told FishbowlDC. “Last week was a particularly nasty week. So much so that I started collecting them. People ask why do I retweet such filth. I do it because hate cannot be ignored — no matter how many followers they don’t have.”

Number of followers of the man who called him the n-word: two, one of whom is “TheRosaceaCure.” Jones, if that’s his real name, appears to have a fixation on MSNBC — he follows just eight people, five of whom are on MSNBC. He does not follow Capehart.

See more examples of racial hate hurled at Capehart… continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

AnonymASS Tipster of the Day

Betsy Rothstein — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:00:07 +0000

As we reported yesterday, our TV Tips this week elicited some surprising reaction. Imagine that, we’re a media site offering TV tips and analysis — who would have dreamed that up? But fair is fair and we like to give you a glimpse of what happens inside the Fishbowl, even when it’s someone who thinks we’re wretched.

We’ve blanked out the name and gender to protect the innocent. As we informed yesterday, I looked into the reporter’s health concerns the writer speaks of and can assure you they don’t come anywhere near Down Syndrome. We’ve never written about Down Syndrome in a joking or lighthearted way, nor would we.

ASS writes,

“Enough is enough!!! In case you don’t know BLANK has health problems, and you are fucking making fun of BLANK. You are a sick frecking witch!!! I wish with all my heart that if you ever have a child he is born with down syndrome to see how it feels to have a child with problems and have a sick woman like you making fun of him. I hope God punishes you for that action!!! YOU ARE A VERY SICK PERSON!!!”

Memo to ASS: I may be a sick, frecking witch (whatever that is), but you just wished Down Syndrome on my future children. We’ve included you in our morning FishbowlDC prayer circle, as we think God might be frowning on you as we speak. Namaste.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

AnonymASS Tipster of the Day

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:00:25 +0000

We’ve received a number or AnonymASS emails over our TV Tip posts that we ran Tuesday. Who knew it would be so emotional? (See here and here.)

One writes:

“How can you people be so evil to make fun a person with health issues? YOU ARE A BUNCH OF CO…K SUCKERS”

Note to AnonymASS: We inquired about the “health issues” that the writer speaks of and they’d hardly and we do mean HARDLY prevent a person from making sure their hairdo is not a tarantula up-do.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

AnonymASS Tipster of the Week

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:40:33 +0000

We’ve recently had a wave of lefty readers label FishbowlDC as a conservative site. The reason? We covered Politico‘s obviously left-leaning ex-White House Correspondent ~~and domestic violence expert~~ Joe Williams. As with any correspondence we receive, we take it seriously and try to respond whenever possible.

AnonymASS writes in, “Anyone who worships Britebarf, like you, is a conservative website. Gavin used to cover real journalists, not the rightwing neanderthals you tout all the time.” The tipster is, of course, referring to Politico‘s Patrick Gavin, who formerly wrote FishbowlDC.

Dear ASS, Please keep this between us. You’ve discovered that we’re rabid, fire-breathing Republicans. Just Google us! But don’t read anything because your arguments are best supported sans facts. Meanwhile, back in reality, we believe in covering right and left wing media and everything in between. In your view, simply writing about them means “touting” or “worshiping.” To us, it’s coverage. In other words, Monday.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Daily Caller Draws Journo Ire

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 13:00:12 +0000

On Friday The Daily Caller stirred up sticky emotions within the left wing media when they tweeted what some felt was poor taste. The topic: The 70-year-old Akron diner owner who died from a heart attack Friday just three hours after meeting President Obama. The body was likely still warm when The Daily Caller made the crack.

Were they trying to antagonize? Take a look.

Daily Caller: “Obama might have lost a vote in Ohio.” They linked to this, a story by Justin Green that was a mere 93 words and packed with basics and a quote from the Akron Beacon Journal.

HuffPost political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui: “Show some class.”

TPM‘s Brian Beutler: “And perhaps some side boob.”

Mother Jones‘ soon-to-be full-time Washington-based Social Media guru and National Security Correspondent Adam Weinstein remarked, “You don’t have to be a loyal opposition. You don’t even have to be respectful. But can you at least be humane? @DailyCaller”

And the DNC’s mouthy Social Media coordinator Greg Greene weighed in, saying, “They could do worse. They could send Neil Munro to cover the funeral.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.