Is This News?

Friends of Bloomberg News‘ Margaret Carlson: Don’t fall for the email many of you may have received this morning at the crack of dawn. No, she’s not in Madrid on an “urgent” trip recovering from being attacked on the way back to her hotel. And for God sake, do not send her money via wire transfer.

From: margaret carlson
Date: Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 6:13 AM
Subject: Big Problem

Hi. Just hoping this email reaches you well, I’m sorry for this emergency and for not informing you about my urgent trip to Madrid, Spain but I just have to let you know my present predicament. Everything was fine until I was attacked on my way back to the hotel, I wasn’t hurt but I lost my money, bank cards, mobile phone and my bag in the course of this attack. I immediately contacted my bank in order to block my cards and also made a report at the nearest police station. I’ve been to the embassy and they are helping me with my documentation so i can fly out but I’m urgently in need of some money to pay for my hotel bills and my flight ticket home, will PAY BACK as soon as i get back home. Kindly let me know if you would be able to help me out so I can forward you the details required for a wire transfer. I will expect your response soon.

Thanks
Margaret

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Many Washington journalists get a daily dose of hate mail. This morning, a Washington scribe, who shall remain nameless to stay out of further trouble, received this nastygram:

“BLANK, you consistently fill in for other broadcasters.  Could any of them reciprocate when you are unavailable? Having BLANK fill in is a torture to endure with his L-O-U-D, juvenile, and hyperactive behavior.  It detracts from the quality of your show. Please hire professional guest hosts when you will not be available in the future. Thank you!”

Forget Propofol. As one might imagine, reading a Q & A interview with CNN’s John King could easily serve as a sleep aide for the perfect afternoon snooze. But before you slumber, one brief part of the interview caught our eye: What led King into journalism? The interviewer is Joseph Basco, who met the CNNer behind the broadcast tent at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, the site of the recent GOP presidential debate. Basco, the News Editor of student-run Spinnaker blog, said King made himself entirely available and didn’t turn away any question.

Why did you get into journalism? “Curiosity. I’m just a curious person, and I was at school, and I just wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I had a Shakespeare professor who said: ‘You know, you really like to write. You should go try some journalism.’ So I said OK. I took a few courses, and I had a smart enough professor who said: ‘I can only teach you so much in class. If you really want to do this, try an internship.’ I got an internship with the Associated Press. I got to cover trials, fires, cops and robbers, the state legislature and the governor. And I said: ‘Wow, they pay people to do this?’”

Read the full interview here and enjoy your nap!

Washingtonian has its own whodunit mystery theater going on in the world of Capital Comment writer Carol Joynt. She has been inexplicably deleting items and lines — not an overwhelming amount, but one on her personal blog, another on the magazine’s website.

The latest of which occurred Monday.

On its surface, the item on Washingtonian‘s website appeared to be an innocuous item on Rob Lowe visiting Washington, where he dined with six lovely ladies at The Four Season’s Bourbon Steak. Among them was NBC “MTP” Exec. Producer Betsy Fischer, CNN’s Jessica Yellin, Lobbyist Jack Quinn’s wife, Susanna Quinn, a friend and Washington liaison to Lowe, and Washingtonian Publisher Cathy Merrill Williams.

In the next sequence of the mystery, Joynt wrote up the item and included this line: “Lowe’s son has stayed in the past at the home of Quinn and her lobbyist husband, Jack Quinn.”

But soon the line involving Lowe’s son disappeared.

We asked Joynt: “Why did you remove the line?” She declined to comment. We also wrote Washingtonian Editor Garrett Graff. So far, he’s not talking either. Lowe’s son, Matthew, spent the summer interning for House Maj. Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). And yes, he bunked at the Quinn’s humble abode.

In other disappearing Joynt item news…

Read more

The News and Observer, out of Raleigh, NC, sat down with Bret Baier to talk about his “meteoric” rise from a local reporter to hotshot nightly anchor at Fox News. Baier got his start at the local WRAL and got his first break covering tornadoes. The News and Observer chronicles how Baier started at the Atlanta bureau of Fox News and ultimately hosted the Fox News/Wall Street GOP Debate last night from Myrtle Beach. Apparently, in the early days, the “bureau” was nothing more than “a cell phone and a fax machine in his apartment.” The interview drags on and on and never really draws anything interesting out of Baier. In fact. That’s the most interesting thing about the interview. It’s not interesting. Baier has textbook answers to textbook questions and never strays far from prepared answers. One would think that with the state of South Carolina voting in their primary less than a week away, SOMETHING interesting would come of that? Sadly, no. Baier also gets the obligatory question about the health of his son, Paul. Paul has several heart defects that have kept him in and out of hospital visits over the course of his life. Baier says the next surgery is set for after Super Tuesday.

Washington D.C.’s Dupont South Metro towering escalator is shutting down for eight months and an unknown writer is clearly upset about it.

That’s putting it mildly.

The anonymous blogger is posting items on Metroescalator.wordpress.com from the point of view of…the elevator. So far two entries and a few things are abundantly clear: 1. Children and old people should not read this blog. 2. The writer hates fat people. 3. The writer has no sympathy … for anyone. 4. This could be funny in the long run.

From Jan. 16:

“You’ve probably met me before… you’ve probably walked up and down me.  In fact, if you are super lucky, I might have actually transported you up or down. But, for the most part, I’m broke d–k.  That’s the story of my life.”

From Jan. 17:

“I am going on vacation sucka’s and you can hoof your asses up and down my steps for two thirds of 2012. … In any case fatties, get ready to lose some of your porkbellies.”

 

 

Whoa! Gridiron Club Sec. Carl Leubsdorf got to first base early this morning. What?!

USA Today‘s Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page tweeted this unusually personal message to CBS Political Director John Dickerson this morning at 5:05 a.m. “@jdickerson We’re up because Carl was trying to make it to first base in a dream and fell out of bed. (He was on the Yankees, BTW.)”

Dickerson replied, “Yes, but did he beat the throw?”

 

As we always like to say, if it’s Wednesday, it’s Wendy Wednesday.

Today we have Washington publicist Wendy Gordon. We’re calling this one simply, “Super Wendy.” We hope this was for Halloween, but one can never be too sure.

 

 

One notable journo who made waves in the Fields of Opportunities in Iowa this week was Politico’s Mike Allen. Who else can land in Iowa and obtain an EXCLUSIVE with second-tier candidate Rick Perry? With the latest showing Perry in FIFTH place among the field, surely he’s a very busy man. So, today, we present Shot/Chaser, an examination of Allen’s presence in the Hawkeye State.

SHOT – Mike Allen sits down stands up with Governor Rick Perry to talk about the recent rumors from Perry’s staff that his campaign was poorly run. When Allen asks Perry if he took some responsibility for the dysfunction in the campaign, Perry will hear NONE of it.

All Perry can do is look at Allen asking “Got a name?” over and over again. To his credit, Allen bounces back strongly by staring at Perry the way my dog looks at me when I turn on the coffee grinder in the morning.

CHASER - Mike Allen. LITERALLY. According to Michael Shear of the NYT, Allen chased down an SUV with Mitt Romney to give him a gift.

Spotted:@mikeallen handing out swag (t-shirts I think) through the window of the Romney SUV. Not sure what was on the shirts. #iowaweird

— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) January 3, 2012

Politico’s Roger Simon tweeted to Shear that they were Politico T-shirts. What else would they be, FishbowlDC T-shirts?

If you don’t think that Mike Allen’s Playbook is the holy grail by which all other political newsletters should be judged, you’re wrong. At least, that’s what Politico thinks. They take the daily blast SO seriously, that Patrick Gavin examined a year’s worth of Playbooks to give us the autopsy of 365 days of the MUST READ daily digest. Poor Gavin joins the endless circle jerk of Allen fanboys. Here’s a sample of what he found.

-      1,132,401 total word count. It’s not like anyone ever accused Allen of being “concise.”

-      Mentions of “JMart” – 45. Mentions of “Jonathan Martin” – 133. This led the pack for journo mentions inside Playbook. Frankly, we are STUNNED that a Politico journalist would lead the way in that category. A reporter from Politico is reporting on the mentions of a reporter from Politico by a reporter from Politico.

Gavin goes so far as to examine all of the baby mentions from the year of Playbook and finds that Allen “welcomed” 55 babies into the world and the average weight of the babies was 7.48 lbs. He also takes the time to look up the five biggest babies, which included his own 9lb, 2 ounce cherub.

Check out the entire list of data compiled by Gavin. It really is a classic example of Politico patting itself on the back JUST because they are Politico. For the record, I let out 17 audible groans while reading Patrick Gavin’s piece. We reached out to Gavin to see if he had a comment on his school project. He assures us that Politico didn’t put him up to it. Sigh. This was his idea.