Newspapers

A story published by the Seattle Times about Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) this week is making the rounds among Washington reporters and operatives for a spectacular variety of reasons.

For one thing, a headline with the words “With Dicks in” is always a crowd-pleaser however awkward it may be. For another, author Kyung M. Song left what appear to be incomplete sentences with lines slashed through them smack in the middle of her story. The most recent version has been corrected, but here we show you what it looked like with them contained in the text of the story.

Read the most updated version of the story here.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Instead of giving us the blockbuster cover we expected after President Obama’s new stance on gay marriage, the New York Post, among some of the nation’s other big newspapers, left us high and dry. The NYP gave a one-liner to Obama and focused on actor John Travolta‘s masseur scandal. Guess that sort of pertains to gay marriage. The award for most creative (and it wasn’t even that creative but it’ll do) goes to WaPo’s Express. But trust us, the competition wasn’t tough.

All covers were obtained from the Newseum website.

Looking for the deal of the century?

Living Social may have it today as they feature a 24-week subscription to The Washington Times for $15. They’re calling it a $90 value. They’re also claiming that TWT caters to both donkeys AND elephants. Since when, since pigs fly? So far 95 people have signed up.

An excerpt of the enticing ad:

“Around the Beltway, some people listen to donkeys and others to elephants — but, frankly, you want to hear what both representatives have to say. Score an even-handed take on the news with today’s deal: Pay $15 for a 24-week subscription to The Washington Times, including home delivery anywhere within…”

TWT‘s Emily Miller and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown went shooting at a gun range in Virginia last Friday. Miller detailed the experience in a column published Tuesday.

A bit from the piece:

Mr. Brown was not afraid of the gun. On his first try, all his rounds landed in the blue part of the silhouette target. “Great job,” I said, after bringing back the target to get a closer look.

“Not good enough. Put it back out there. Let’s do it again,” he said. … We decided he needed a new paper target to show his improvement. “I’m gonna tear this up,” he said, clipping up another blue target, and he did.

Brown apparently enjoyed himself. On Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Miller handed Brown a copy of the newspaper featuring his picture (a good picture; not the kind Brown usually sees of himself in the Washington Examiner, which notoriously runs shots that make him look like he has just been taken down to the station) on the front page, next to Miller’s column. Miller snapped a shot of Brown admiring the spread along with Councilwoman Mary Cheh.

Miller explained that the picture is…

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To celebrate the relaunch of its paper product, Human Events spent Monday treating hungry people to food from the DC Empanadas food truck.

The line was long when the truck parked for the lunch hours at Farragut Square. Betsy asked me if it was as long as the famed gargantuan Lobster truck lines. I’d say longer.

Human Events‘ Publisher Joe Guerriero, Editor Cathy Taylor, Senior Reporter David Harsanyi and videographer Pat Frank were out to help promote the publication. But while Taylor occasionally worked the line, plugging the paper, most of the promoting was done by the sign on the food truck that said it all: “Human Events, it’s on us.”

VP/Group Publisher Joe Guerriero remarked to FBDC, “Wish I owned the empanada truck.  More than 700 meals today.”

FBDC took a look at the paper’s new design. It’s printed on full-color tabloid and contains more content than before. The editorial content has been moved closer to the back end. Taylor told us her goal is exclusive content by Human Events in every story. A new website for the publication launches in about two weeks, she said.

As an aside, I tried the Mr. Miyagi empanada. Two, actually. (This empanada can loosely be described as chicken and vegetables in a teriyaki sauce “with a kick.”)

Carl Hulse, the deputy bureau chief for the NYT, has a band called The NativeMakers. Hulse is an accomplished drummer and the band has quite the following around Capitol Hill. They are best known for their covers of classic rock songs by the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers, among others. Something tells me they won’t be covering Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Niggas in Paris” or Justin Bieber‘s “Boyfriend.”

The band has invited all of Washington D.C. to see them perform at the 18th Amendment this Saturday night at 9pm in a concert they are calling “Rock and Roll Apocalypse.” Previous gigs have lured Luke Russert and Rahm Emmanuel into the crowd, so you never know who might show up.

Contrary to what this photo suggests, the Washington Examiner‘s Paul Bedard is not in prison, so don’t try to “free” him.

But when we passed this Examiner news rack at the corner of 17th and Corcoran, we wondered if a promise of heavy publicity was part of the contract when Bedard signed with the paper in January. After all, that’s a big-ass promo for Bedard. And when the Examiner‘s website got a makeover in February the homepage featured two separate links playing up his “Washington Secrets” column. Bedard didn’t get this kind of boost for his old “Washington Whispers” column at U.S News and World Report.

Examiner Executive Editor Stephen Smith tells FBDC there was no such promise.

“We never discussed any kind of promotion when we approached Paul about coming to the Washington Examiner,” he told us in an email. “We just felt his work was so good that it was worth bringing it to the attention of readers with rack cards.”

 

WaPo‘s executive editor Marcus Brauchli sent out a memo yesterday saying that the publication would be offering voluntary buyouts to “some newsroom employees.” You might wonder if one of those employees might be media blogger Erik Wemple after a post he wrote about it.

Wemple, whose loose cannon tactics on this matter are being applauded within the newsroom, wrote that portions of Brauchli’s memo send a “destructive message.” In particular, the part that said the objective of the buyouts was to have “limited staff reduction that won’t affect the quality” of WaPo. Wemple interpreted that to mean that some employees are “dead weight” to upper management.

In an email to FishbowlDC, Wemple told us that Brauchli didn’t seem “bothered at all” by the language he used in his post. He said they had a “cordial” exchange and that Brauchli “reacted to what I wrote just the way you’d want an executive editor to react.” It’s worth noting that Wemple doesn’t report to Brauchli, but to Fred Hiatt in editorial.

Last May after Wemple joined WaPo as a media reporter, he said he wasn’t interested in writing about the publication anymore…

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does Tom Hanks Look Like Bill Murray? – According to The Atlantic’s John Hudson, some people can’t tell the two actors apart. We’ve never had that problem, but Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has. Hudson reports that when Attorney General Eric Holder appeared in front of a Congressional hearing on the Fast and Furious program, Kucinich said Holder must feel “like Tom Hanks in Groundhog Day.” While Kucinich quickly amended the record to reflect that it was Murray in the movie, Hudson explains that it’s a common mistake. Director of the movie, Harold Ramis, actually admitted that he went after Hanks for Murray’s role, but decided against it since Hanks appeared “too nice.” As an added bonus, YouTube has put up the entire movie for free. You can watch it here.

Hillary as a Bond Villian - The Daily Mail has a story on the wardrobe of U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. It shows her latest outfit and says that she is beginning to dress like an “old-School Bond villain.” This once again highlights the difficulties that professional Washington women face when they are in a position of power. Former Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice faced down criticism whenever her coiffe changed over the years. As does FLOTUS over her dress choice or her bare arms. But, the whole thing did get us thinking of a good Bond villain name for Clinton. Maybe Secretary of Hate?

Politico Profiles Political Prankster – Politico‘s Patrick Gavin writes on comedian Joe Mande riling up the Twitterverse in an early morning story. Mande has been making waves on his Twitter account by cracking on various politicos. Favorite targets include MSNBC’s Meghan McCain, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Fmr. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin among MANY others. We follow Mande, and our personal favorites involve his quiet retweeting of obnoxious celebrities and politicos like this one:

I met @TheScienceGuy this morning while at @foxandfriends! twitter.com/THEHermanCain/…

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) February 1, 2012

While many politicos have blocked Mande, including Vitter, others have joined in the pranking. As Mande explains, “Andrew Breitbart, I used to give him shit, but what he would just do is retweet what I wrote to him, and his psycho followers would attack me for hours and hours. So I say: ‘Touché, Andrew Breitbart.”

Paul Singer is joining USA Today as their new politics editor. Singer, who was been a star reporter for Roll Call, will be joining the Washington bureau for the paper to cover the 2012 campaign. He has been an investigative reporter for Roll Call since 2007.

The full memo from Roll Call is below

Nearly five years to the day after he arrived at Roll Call, Paul Singer

is leaving to become the Politics Editor at USA Today. 

Singer joined Roll Call Feb. 20, 2007 as the paper¹s investigative
reporter. He was later named Associate Editor and given various
editing/management duties, including helping Jennifer Yachnin create Roll
Call¹s ethics beat.

Singer¹s investigations have resulted in at least two ethics
investigations of sitting Members of Congress, helped feed the FBI¹s
investigation of Rep. Jack Murtha, and led Congress to cancel wasteful
projects. Singer¹s discovery of repeated failures by Members of Congress
to report profits from stock sales on their annual financial disclosure
forms led the House to redesign the forms with a box that more clearly
indicates the capital gains reporting requirement.

In 2011, Singer set up our influence/ethics/investigations unit and
assembled the crack staff now lovingly called Team Wasta. He also created
the HowGovtWorks Twitter feed and homepage.

He¹s been a willing workhorse in our newsroom. He¹s been a steady
advocate for excellent journalism, a tireless contributor to every spoken
(and sometimes unspoken) need. It¹s hard to believe sometimes that he
does it all without sugar.

We will miss him, but we wish him the best.