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

Is John King disappearing?!– Two days in a row now CNN’s John King is missing from our Google alerts. Typically the real John King appears in at least one of the results. Instead, here are the “John King”s who have turned up and we’ll be honest, they’re not all sounding so hot.

1. Former Director of Jail Authority Operations John King of Charleston, W.Va: This King was arrested Tuesday night on suspicions of drunk driving. It marked his third arrest related to driving while intoxicated within the last two years. In April 2011, King was found parked in his driveway with his car still running. His blood alcohol content level was .239. In February, he was arrested after almost driving into several parked cars. His BAC was .191. It’s illegal to operate a vehicle in any states with a BAC of .08.

2. Aviation educator John King: This King has been selected by the National Aeronautic Association to receive the Brewer Trophy for Aviation Education this fall. The award is meant to acknowledge the “passion and dedication in making aviation knowledge more accessible to pilots worldwide by combining elegant technology with clear, fun teaching featuring courseware that simplifies complex concepts for students,” according to a really poorly written NAA release.

3. School Board candidate John King of Indiana: This King is running to unseat an incumbent on the school board in Jasper, Ind. But it turns out he might be a white supremacist. King was once involved with a website called savewhitepeople.com and even cut a video for them. From TriStateHomepage.com:

The video begins with an introduction from King. “I’m John King from the White Voice at savewhitepeople.com. I’m here to talk to you on the subject of global white genocide.” Following King’s opening dialogue, the video transitions into photos, some gruesome, of Caucasian people who King claims were injured by people of different races. Then he goes through graphs and numbers explaining why he believes the white race is rapidly declining and at risk of extinction.

“I am not against anybody. I’m just talking about a ecological scientific problem that exists worldwide,” says King, who compares white genocide to whales in danger of extinction.

Nate Silver shares his media diet– In an interview with AdWeek Nate Silver, who runs NYT‘s “FiveThirtyEight” election blog, said he consumes a wide variety of news sources. “If you’re keeping yourself in the bubble and only looking at your own data or only watching the TV that fits your agenda then it gets boring,” he said. “I think reading broadly, but skeptically. That’s key. You have to try to avoid the temptation to jump on the bandwagon with political news, especially on Twitter where things go viral every couple of hours. In a campaign you don’t have game-changing events every single day. Most of these small viral things burn out. So it’s kind of about waiting those things out but not blinding yourself to the news.”

“Leave Britney Alone” guy visits D.C.– Back in 2007 Chris Crocker gained a little notoriety when a YouTube video he created went viral. In the video, Crocker, eyes smeared with black makeup, hysterically cries to the camera, “LEAVE BRITNEY [SPEARS] ALONE!” It came at a time when Spears having something of a public meltdown. We found Crocker was in Washington at a bar in Dupont Circle. Earlier in the day he had visited the White House. Crocker wouldn’t let us question him at the bar. The gentleman who was with him (he identified himself as Crocker’s manager) said it would be best for Crocker to do the interview when he hasn’t been drinking. So we caught up him today and learned more. He’s in town promoting a documentary about himself, titled “Me @ the Zoo.” The Hirschhorn museum is hosting a public showing of the film tonight at 7:45 p.m. Below is a picture Crocker tweeted yesterday: “In the White House briefing room,” he wrote. Crocker told FBDC that he went on a private tour of the White House and described it as “surreal.” Asked about his D.C. experience as a whole, he said, “It’s a beautiful city.” But he didn’t know what to expect considering what he’d heard. “I actually used to have a tranny friend who lived in D.C. and she used to tell me how the park had needles,” he said, referring to McPherson Square.

It takes a certain amount of clumsiness to break something that’s already broken.

The Hill‘s Alexandra Jaffe broke the news yesterday that Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was distancing himself from remarks made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in,” Brown told The Hill. He was referring to Romney’s recently surfaced comments that labeled “47 percent” of Americans as people who feel “entitled” to government benefits.

Jaffe’s story was picked up by HuffPost, Political Wire and Politico, all of which attributed The Hill for breaking it.

The AP also picked it up.

Shortly after Jaffe’s story broke, AP reporter Steve LeBlanc wrote the same story, correctly paraphrasing Brown’s quotes. What was missing, however, was any attribution to The Hill.

LeBlanc’s story was updated later with actual quotes from Brown, the same quotes from Jaffe’s story. But LeBlanc’s article attributed them to a statement from Brown’s office. The first version of his story did not attribute to any statement.

Pictured is a screen capture of LeBlanc’s original story.

The Boston Herald‘s Hillary Chabot wrote the same story, attributing the same quotes to a statement. NYT did the same.

We requested comment from the AP media relations, LeBlanc and Chabot. A publicist is looking into it.

We’ve also sought comment from Brown’s campaign office to clarify if they sent out a statement with the same quotes after The Hill‘s story was published. But even if that is the case, the paraphrased version of LeBlanc’s story still did not cite The Hill for breaking the news.

UPDATE: AP’s Paul Colford explains…

Read more

Would you wear one of these Ezra Klein?

The Media Research Center is giving out these little ditties today at the Family Research Council’s annual Value Voters Summit at the Omni hotel. No, it’s not a pack of tissues– it’s a T-shirt with an Uncle Sam graphic that shrieks “Don’t believe the liberal media!”

It was handed to us by a cautious staffer working the MRC booth. “It’s a small, but you can have it,” he said. Thanks, I think.

A list of  MRC products and their prices is on the back of the package. This shirt typically sells for $18.75. Other items sold by the MRC:

• Notable Quotables: “A bi-weekly compliation of the most outrageous quotes in the liberal media;” twelve issues for $30 (FBDC tip: you can find these on Twitter for free);
• Flash: “A monthly newsletter full of interesting bits of bias, photos, campaign updates and much more; twelve issues for $25;
• MRC book How to Identify, Expose and Correct Liberal Media Bias; $22.75 per copy.

Congratulations are in order for New York mag’s Frank Rich and the crew at HBO’s Veep. The send-up of Washington politics just picked up Emmy nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series,  Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series.

Rich is an executive producer for the show and by far one of the most likable Media Beat guests we’ve had, so we couldn’t think of a better person to get such an honor. Don’t believe me? Check out the video for yourself.

Part 2: Frank Rich Compares New York Times and New York Magazine
Part 3: Frank Rich on the ‘Great Theater’ of Politics and Pop Culture

In the third and final part of our Media Beat interview with Adam Richman, the man behind Man vs. Food talks about his latest Travel Channel project, Adam Richman’s Best Sandwich in America. Instead of taking on food challenges, this time, our host travels the nation region by region (10 in all) and narrows down the best sandwiches in each based on what he calls his “BITE” system. Like March Madness itself, there can only be one winner in the end.

This and all MediabistroTV productions can also be viewed on our YouTube Channel.

Part I | Monday: Adam Richman on Bloomberg Soda Ban: ‘We Are In a Very Precarious Situation as a Society’

Part II | Tuesday: Adam Richman on Landing ‘Man vs. Food’ and His Health Regimen

In Part II of our Media Beat interview with Adam Richman, the Travel Channel star discusses the lengths he went to in order to land the hosting gig for his staple show, Man vs. Food, and how he kept healthy and in shape during its run. One interesting tidbit Richman reveals is that he has it in his contract that there must be a gym in every hotel he stays at. View the rest of our one-one-chat below.

This and all MediabistroTV productions can also be viewed on our YouTube Channel. Be sure to check out Part III of our chat with Richman tomorrow.

Part I | Monday: Adam Richman on Bloomberg Soda Ban: ‘We Are In a Very Precarious Situation as a Society’

Travel Channel’s Adam Richman, the man behind Man vs. Food, its spinoff show Man vs. Food Nation and now Adam Richman’s Best Sandwich in America, recently sat down with us for an enlightening chat about his background, MvF and his new show among other things. In Part I of our Media Beat interview with him, Richman discusses New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s proposal to ban extra-large sodas in the Big Apple.

This and all MediabistroTV productions can also be viewed on our YouTube Channel. Also, be sure to check out Part II and III of our chat with Richman tomorrow and Wednesday, respectively.

In the final installment of this week’s Media Beat interview, Frank Rich, New York magazine columnist and executive producer of HBO’s Veep, discusses the meshing of politics and pop culture. Having covered Broadway for years, he says the nonstop spectacles, gaffes and minutiae that become “news” just make his job more fun.

“To watch [President Obama and Mitt Romney] grapple on the one hand with the changes in the news media [and] on one hand with the world of The Voice and American Idol, The Daily Show, and SNL, it’s fascinating,” Rich explained. “But people forget this didn’t used to be the case. It was considered a huge deal when Bill Clinton played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show 20 years ago. It’s a development that’s spiraling; it’s developing. It’s interesting to watch. It’s great theater.”

Watch the full video for Rich’s take on that supposed liberal media bias and to find out what he thinks the “real danger” in today’s news reporting is.

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

Part 1: Veep Executive Producer on DC: ‘Young People Jockeying for Power in Offices that Look Crummy’
Part 2: Frank Rich Compares New York Times and New York Magazine

“People outside of Washington, you know they come on high school trips, they think it’s all like movie sets.  They think it’s all like ‘The West Wing,” longtime political columnist Frank Rich, who is an executive producer on the new HBO series “Veep,” said in the first part of our “Media Beat” interview with him, talking about DC.

“In fact, it’s a lot of oftentimes young people jockeying for power, doing mundane jobs, trying to stab each other in the back… and often in offices that look crummy” (video below).

For more mediabistroTV videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

Part 2: Frank Rich Compares New York Times and New York Magazine
Part 3: Frank Rich on the ‘Great Theater’ of Politics and Pop Culture

Erik Wemple, media blogger for WaPo, was called out last night on the “O’Reilly Factor” by author and media critic Bernie Goldberg. The topic: media bias. Goldberg was responding to a short post by Wemple questioning the conclusion reached by FNC’s Bill O’Reilly and Goldberg that “media bias doesn’t matter.”

“Last week Bernie and I were talking about media bias and organizations that are in business not to inform anymore, they’re just pushing an agenda,” O’Reilly said on last night’s show. “The Washington Post weighed in on their blog and you [Goldberg] want to say something about that?”

Goldberg cocked his gun.

“Erik Wemple… this fella ended his piece by saying ‘if the impact of media bias is so trivial, why do these guys’– you and me– ‘why do these guys harp on it each week?’ Well first of all, we don’t harp on it. We talk about it.”

Aim.

“Secondly there are many smart, thoughtful, serious people who write about the media,” Goldberg continued, “but Erik Wemple, sadly, is not one of them.”

Fire!

Goldberg went on to lecture Wemple and “everybody else” why media bias does matter.

“Those words really hurt,” Wemple told FBDC in an email last night shortly after the segment ended. “After all, not long ago I’d credited Bernie for raising an interesting point about the NYT, one that I had followed up with my own reporting. In the case of the media-bias thing, I do believe that both Goldberg and O’Reilly on that [previous] program glibly dismissed the impact of alleged media bias and I am glad that Goldberg finished out his argument [in tonight's edition].”

In a follow-up post this morning Wemple wrote:

“It’s fine that Goldberg thinks something I wrote was dumb, less fine that his rebuttal rests on insulting my intelligence. Though I have criticized Goldberg in the past, I have also credited him. What I hope is consistent across all my mentions of Goldberg is an unwillingness to reach conclusions about where his opinions situate him along the continuum of media-critic IQs. That doesn’t seem relevant to anything.”

If nothing else, Wemple can be grateful that Fox News producers used a photo of him looking kind of bad ass. Maybe even a little dangerous.