Online Media

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

Al Jazeera English Grabs Major Award – Al Jazeera English was given the Grand Prize Award at The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism for its documentary film “Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark.” The movie focuses on the crackdown of protests in Bahrain in 2011. The film was written and directed by May Ying Welsh. The footage was obtained mostly through hidden camera and undercover reporting.

Local Worker Crowned “Commuter Idle” – WTOP has been on the hunt for the person with the worst commute in the region and they have announced their winner: Brenda Wells from Sparrow Point, MD. According to WTOP, “Wells travels nearly 100 miles, 5 hours a day from Sparrow’s Point to Washington, D.C., and back. Her day begins at 3 a.m. and her commute includes a 45-minute drive (complete with two tolls), a 50-minute train ride, two metro rides, a short walk, and a metro bus ride.” And you thought YOU had it bad by having to spend 20 extra minutes in rush hour. Wells wins $1,000 in gas money and a limousine ride for one of her future commutes.

Results of our FishPoll – Yesterday, we asked for your vote on whether or not conservative commentator, S.E. Cupp, had a case against Hustler for photo-shopping an inappropriate picture of her. Here are the results. The vast majority of you, 45.54%, say that yes, she does have a case. Meanwhile, 30.69% say that she is fair game because she is a public figure. Interestingly, 20.79 also weighed in saying that she didn’t have a case, “but she should make things as uncomfortable as possible for Hustler’s legal team.”

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.

An editor for The Blaze, the sister site of GBTV, says conservative commentator S.E. Cupp won’t likely try to sue Hustler for photoshopping a penis into her mouth for a new feature. More on their minds is who will denounce it?

On his Twitter feed, Glenn Beck, her boss, is already asking, “Where is N.O.W.?”

“It doesn’t sound like a lawsuit is what S.E. has in mind,” says The Blaze‘s Editor-in-Chief Scott Baker. “It’s more a question of seeing who will condemn this.”

Baker called Cupp  “fierce” and “feminine” and said Hustler will have regrets. “Obviously there won’t be a lot of defenders on moral grounds. But will NOW — for example — say anything?” he asked. “And the counter scenarios raise good questions as Glenn Beck did on the radio — if this had been a picture of Michelle Obama what would happen? This is obviously a disgusting move by the morally hampered.  We intend to say so and we’re looking to see who else will.  S.E. is the true definition of fierce and feminine — I’m pretty confident Hustler will regret their depiction and their decision to publish.”

On Tuesday, we reported on notorious content thief, DCRTV’s dirty bearded Dave Hughes, who didn’t give proper attribution on a story we wrote on Buzzfeed opening a D.C. bureau. It’s impossible to write about Dave without pointing out that he has a piece of dead roadkill residing on his face, but some people have a problem with us talking about it. Like this week’s AnonymASS.

“WOW could you and DCRTV be more petty. How about everyone grows up and acts like adults. And comment on someone’s beard, ghee if he likes then who the fuck are you to call him out about.”

Memo to ASS: As difficult as it is to understand your sloppily written question, we’ll take a crack at it. Here’s the thing, ASS. Hughes is a thief. Plain and simple. Any self-respecting media outlet credits someone for breaking a news story. So the fact that we called him out on NOT doing that hardly makes us petty. As for the beard, how in the world are we not going to mention that thing? It looks like a hunting accident. That beard is what it would look like if someone took a nightmare, threw a bunch of gray hair over it and then hot glue-gunned it to a psycho’s face. Hope you enjoy the Memorial Day weekend.

Our ongoing series examining the tweets of Washington journos is about to take a wild turn. Last year, Yesha Callahan was looking for a relationship on Craigslist and Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY) replied in the creepiest way possible: flexing his shirtless arms while showing his face. The whole scandal ended Lee’s political career. Callahan continues to blog and tweet at lightning speed on JUST about everything under the sun. It’s a blistering Twitter feed that pulls no punches on ANY topic. So, let’s take a look to see What Yesha is Tweeting today.

Yesha’s first few tweets of the day seem to focus on semen. If that bothers you, then read no further, because we are about to submerge ourselves in baby batter. Yesha tweets, “I swear women need to stop swallowing all willy nilly & for recreation…got men out here expecting it from other women like it’s a given.”

Wait. Where the hell are all the women who are “swallowing all willy nilly”??? Is that REALLY a rampant problem? Yesha continues, “My best guy friend from hs….apparently told me that it’s expected from anyone he dates.” It’s EXPECTED???  We hate to go all Penthouse Forum here, but if you find someone who loves sack sauce THAT much, you may have just found marriage material.

Callahan isn’t done shooting her load quite yet. She tweets, “I posted the article abt the semen cupcake on fb…here’s Carla’s sister ‘where can I get one of those?’ Grosd.” A semen cupcake? We must have missed that recipe on the latest episode of Paul Wharton’s TV show.

Editor’s note: Stay tuned for more episodes of “What’s Yesha Tweeting?” In the meantime, Peter is gargling with Purel.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a reason to write about that bearded weirdo, Dave Hughes, of DCRTV. We brought you the news earlier that Buzzfeed would be opening a DC bureau this summer. It’s been making the rounds. As is standard practice, legitimate media outlets have credited us and linked back to the story. We say legitimate because DCRTV doesn’t mention “FishbowlDC” and failed to link to the piece, but rather to the Buzzfeed homepage. Cute, Dave. Try to be a big boy and give credit where it’s due. Look a little harder for that link next time. Maybe it’s in that dirty beard of yours.

Pinterest is probably the most innocuous corner of the Internet. It’s a social media platform dominated by women who like sharing recipes, cheesy family photos and hairstyle tips.

It’s essentially the last place on Earth you’d go if you had an annoying political opinion you wanted to foist on other angry individuals. It’s a magical place free of shame and judgment.

Or, it was until the hyper partisan Media Matters for America set up an account on the site and brought the never-ending hate it has for radio host Rush Limbaugh and Fox News with it.

Here what the people of Pinterest enjoy sharing on any given day:

• This white puppy in a wicker basket lined with flowers.
• This home decor suggestion that turns a birdcage into a classy wall ornament.
• These paper doily envelopes that a user described as “quite fetching.”

And here’s the type of thing MMFA is posting on its own account:

But MMFA isn’t the only offender here. Its conservative counter part, Media Research Center, is also casting a dark cloud over the innocence that is Pinterest:

FBDC reached out to both publications to ask if either believed their partisan screeds might be jarring in a squishy forum largely devoted to sharing pesto recipes and scrap booking tips. “No,” said the succinct spokeswoman for MMFA.

So far MRC isn’t talking.

Today Roll Call‘s HOH has a head scratcher of a story on singer John Mayer. There’s not a single spicy thing in there because the whole point is that Mayer is trying to transform his image from sex crazed sicko to dull. For anyone who missed it, he once told Playboy that sex with Jessica Simpson was “sexual napalm.” He said she was like crack and that he wanted to snort her. Fast forward to now: Boring is the new black. Life is a Boringland. And if his quotes are any hint, his fans will be soon be sleeping. He says he doesn’t want to weigh in politically on anything, saying it’s all been exhausted by the pundits. So instead he utters this nonsense.

“It’s very seldom that I see something and think, ‘Well, this is what people aren’t talking about,’” he told HOH when he was recently in town. “We live in a world where you can see [and hear] every shade of pro and anti. I made one record on Twitter [2009’s “Battle Studies”] and it wasn’t as enduring or dense as I wanted it to be. And I made this last record without ever picking up my phone.” Yaaawwnn.

WaPo media opinion writer Erik Wemple is on the receiving end of threats today after writing about the purported plagiarism of TWT and UPI Columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave (pictured here). He reported today that the columnist has taken a leave of absence. With heated stories comes heated emotions. And nasty threats like these from a prominent Washington Attorney issued in the comment section of Wemple’s De Borchgrave story today. FishbowlDC has confirmed through Timothy Naegele (pictured below) that he wrote the commentary. “The comments speak for themselves,” Naegele told FishbowlDC. “If you bothered to read other comments about Arnaud de Borchgrave, and the attacks on him, you would realize that other people feel exactly as I do.” Oh, we bothered to read the other comments, Naegele. Touchy, touchy.

by Timothy D. Naegele
9:07 AM EDT
It bears repeating, Wemple, that you are a hack writer and nothing more. It is what you will always be.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is brilliant, and he has done more in his lifetime than you would ever do if you had 20 lifetimes on the face of this earth. However, you must be salivating about what has happened to de Borchgrave.

Lots of us will be following your every word from now on, to trip you up. And yes, rest assured, we will call for your swift ouster from the Post when you make any mistakes, which you surely will.

Hopefully we can say “good riddance” to you, very soon.

Another reader doubted the attorney’s comments were really from him, saying, “I think this post must be from a troll masquerading as Naegele. There is no way that an experienced attorney would publicly post something like this.” (Well, there is and he did.) We also reached out to Wemple for comment, asking if threats make him nervous, if he wishes he had half the life of De Borchgrave or, for that matter, his sexy name? Erik de Borchgrave or Arnaud Wemple both have a nice ring, don’t they?

Wempled replied to FishbowlDC: “Whenever I see stuff where people are taking aim at me, yes, it’s a little jarring at first. But what he’s proposing to do here is to become a very loyal reader, which I appreciate. As for the scrutiny, well, that already applies to me, and you, and the rest of us in this line of work. Wemple continued, “I cannot dispute the commenter’s claim that I haven’t done a fraction of the things that de Borchgrave has done on the face of this earth. He’s had a long career. To your question as to whether I wish I had, no: I’ve been very happy. For years and years, I have enjoyed seeing his name. It’s much cooler than mine.”

A third commenter takes Wemple to task for a different reason — his caricature. We’re going to practice Wemple’s pointed eyebrow raise in the mirror later today. Read what that person has to say after the jump… Read more

Hola Fishbowlers. We know that Politico’s Mike Allen has recently taken some time off. We were told that he was off fishing, but when we got Playbook on Tuesday morning, we were afraid that he might have spent time in a mental institution (you know, for locos). This is how Playbook starts out:

Feliz martes por la mañana desde Los Ángeles, donde Playbook está pasando el día después de un viaje escénico por la ruta 49, creada por la fiebre del oro de antaño, cuyo sobrenombre es la ‘Autopista del Mother Lode’, que incluye el pueblo de Rough and Ready:

Jesús puto a Cristo! ¿Mike Allen perdió su mente puto?!?! We were SO confused as to what the hell was going on. Turns out it was just a complicated ruse to sell ad time to Univision within Playbook. After Allen spends the first THREE graphs writing en español, he lets us in on the secret by asking, “Isn’t it confusing when politics doesn’t take place in your preferred language?” Yes, Papi Chulo, it is genuinely confusing when you write in Spanish.

In closing, we’d just like to say quizás debe han despegado un poco más de tiempo antes de volver corriendo y dedicar la apertura de ‘Playbook’ a un idioma extranjero de puto!

Translation? Um, we better not.

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

Shuster Faces Down Snake – Current TV’s David Shuster was recently on vacation in Morocco and engaged in what would appear to be a stereotypical tourist activity when visiting the area. He posed with a giant cobra. Don’t believe us? He tweeted the following picture as proof. As Shuster notes, handling snakes is nothing new. “Years in DC made this a breeze,” he told FishbowlDC.

Kurtz Self-Pimps Throughout Latest Story – We hardly think it’s breaking news when Newsweek/Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz uses his pieces to talk about himself. His latest on Walter Cronkite is no exception. It’s an examination of a new biography on Cronkite that claims that Cronkite wasn’t the most ethical of newsmen. There are tantalizing details in the piece, but Kurtz makes sure we know about HIS relationship with Cronkite right up front. He’s barely three graphs in when he tells us, “I got to know Cronkite after his anchoring days as a charming, hard-of-hearing, slightly stodgy spokesman for old-fashioned news values against the encroachment of tabloid entertainment.” Thanks, Howard! We were dying to know your experiences with Cronkite.

SNL Dings Sharpton…  Again – We can’t really blame Saturday Night Live for lampooning MSNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton. Let’s face it. When you have a subject that consistently churns out unintentionally funny lines with the regularity of Sharpton, why stop? Check out the video below to see Sharpton Lettuce’s take on “JiP Morgan.”