Earlier today we published a story highlighting the marked increase of women in leadership roles at Politico. The publication, clearly founded by two males, has been dogged since it began in 2006 over the heavy presence of males in top roles. Insiders have said repeatedly that the reports were overblown. But that didn’t stop WaPo‘s Erik Wemple from highlighting the startling numbers of women who have left over the years. Or TNR from recently questioning VandeHarris over the reputation of “overt sexism” at the news outlet.

As we reported earlier today, as some top male editors are leaving the publication, they’re being replaced by women. Before this, women had already assumed top roles. We asked if this, as well as a number of other females in high-ranking roles, is a concerted effort to beat the bad rap.

Editor-in-Chief John Harris told FishbowlDC, “To be clear, I don’t  believe in our many years as editors and reporters either Jim or I were ever ‘accused of being anti-women.’ It is true that due to the circumstances of our launch we were for a time kind of top-heavy with men in ways that did not reflect our vision for POLITICO. By no means are any recent moves a reflection of some sort of ‘concerted effort’ on gender grounds. Instead, they flow naturally from our determination to get the most talented and ambitious people in jobs where they can have the most impact on our newsroom, on our business, and for our readers.”
Read more

Are women on the rise at Politico? If you recall, in a recent interview with TNR, Executive Editor Jim VandeHei and Isaac Chotiner got in a verbal dust-up on the matter when Chotiner uttered the phrase “overt sexism” and suggested that Politico has a female problem. “I think women would find the premise deeply condescending,” VandeHei shot back at him, saying no one who presently works at Politico would make the charge. And the facts are what they are. Even if you argue this may just be for appearance sake, there are a lot of females in high-ranking roles.

In recent months Politico has been a steady procession of men out of leadership posts. With what looks to be a substantial overhaul of Politico management, the winners are all women. Tim Grieve, who had repeatedly been accused of treating women unfairly, is out and now at National Journal, where his new colleagues say he couldn’t be nicer; Craig Gordon, the highest ranking male outside of VandeHarris is gone as of today — he’s off to Bloomberg News, where he’ll be Deputy Managing Editor. Females in high-ranking roles at Politico include Susan Glasser, who they’ve hired to run a longform magazine project and one their newest hires, Denise Kerston Wells, who they snagged from Washingtonian, to be a senior editor for the longform project. Danielle Jones, meanwhile, is the highest ranking woman in editorial who beat out Gordon and Grieve for job, Kim Kingsley is the COO and Rachel Smolkin, who will take over for Gordon.

We asked Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris if this has been a concerted effort combat the rap and put women in top roles and will report back if he replies.

See the extremely complimentary memo from Politico on Gordon as well as Bloomberg‘s announcement… Read more

Slate announced today that it will no longer refer to Washington’s NFL team as the “Redskins.” Instead they will refer to it as “Washington’s NFL team.” It joins Washington City Paper, the Philadelphia Daily News and Buffalo News in the cause. Editor David Plotz says of the team name, “It’s extremely tacky and dated—like an old aunt who still talks about ‘colored people’ or limps her wrist to suggest someone’s gay.”

In a story published today, Plotz reasons, “Time passes, the world changes, and all of a sudden a well-intentioned symbol is an embarrassment. Here’s a quick thought experiment: Would any team, naming itself today, choose ‘Redskins’ or adopt the team’s Indian-head logo? Of course it wouldn’t.”

An excerpt:

“Changing the way we talk is not political correctness run amok. It reflects an admirable willingness to acknowledge others who once were barely visible to the dominant culture, and to recognize that something that may seem innocent to you may be painful to others. In public discourse, we no longer talk about groups based on their physical traits: No one would ever refer to Asians as yellow-skinned. This is why the majority of teams with Indian nicknames have dropped them over the past 40 years.“

Slate is owned by the Washington Post Company, which just sold WaPo to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Plotz writes, “Speaking as a Post subscriber, I wish they would change.”

DCist Editor-in-Chief Ben Freed has been fired after fighting with his employer about publishing a story for BuzzFeed. The news was first reported by WaPo‘s Erik Wemple.

Wemple writes that Freed was given the axe after he freelanced a story for BuzzFeed on the impact of the $250M WaPo sale on local D.C. news. The part of the story that is still a mystery, and we don’t get why Wemple didn’t ask this, is that Freed’s Publisher, Jake Dobkin, told him to spike the story. BuzzFeed said they would be amenable to spiking the story, but also thought it would bring attention to DCist.

And yet… it still ran.

We’ve reached out to BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith on whether he’d hire Freed as well as the details of why the story was not spiked. Unfortunately Smith is on vacation until Aug. 12 so we’re reaching out to other BuzzFeed sources.

Developing…

On Monday we brought you the news that Stateless Media, a new film company based in Washington, had created a film about a man murdered in a Sri Lankan coastal town in 2011. Amid the crime, the man’s girlfriend was raped. At the time, the government imprisoned eight suspects, including a Sri Lankan politician, for 11 months and then released them. For a year and a half, the story stilled.

The murdered man, Khuram Shaikh, was from Manchester, England. His family still lives there. To many Brits, it’s outrageous that Britain is sending its prime minister, David Cameron, and Prince Charles to take part in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) this year in light of the fact that Sri Lanka is hosting it.

The film was released last week and posted on The New Yorker website. Since then, there has been an apology from Sri Lankan senior officials as well as an indictment of all eight suspects. (Yeah, the Sri Lankan court system is nothing like what exists here so don’t even try to equate it.) What’s important — we guess — is that the suspects are once again being asked to pay for their crimes.

“‘The Brothers Shaikh’ has been getting lots of clicks in Britain, and my suspicion is the British High Commission, in Colombo, told the Sri Lankans it was getting hard to justify sending Cameron and Prince Charles to this big meeting that the Sri Lankans will be hosting,” explained Stateless Media founder Peter Savodnik. “That probably scared the Sri Lankans. Hosting the Brits means a lot to them. It’s like a debutante ball. It means: We’re modern and democratic, and we don’t kill Tamils or Muslims; we’re not Buddhist zealots or fascists, which is what they are becoming, slowly. Still, there are two things to remember: First, the government has only said that it will indict the Tangalle Eight; it hasn’t done that yet. And second, we only made a movie about one man, Khuram Shaikh; there are thousands of Sri Lankans whom we will never make any movies about.”

Stateless Media is now producing films – they call them shortreals – in New York and Berlin. They have shortreals under development in Burma, Cairo and Los Angeles.

A media marketing company based in Tampa is offering New York mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner the chance to learn how to use Social Media without setting his life ablaze. Bits of the news were first reported on TMZ Sunday. Among other things, he’d learn how to shoot his schlong on Snapchat without getting caught as well as use the DRUNK DIAL app. Shouldn’t these be musts for all lawmakers?

Trent Silver, who runs Silver Visibility, has given us the full letter he sent Weiner.

The bottom line: A lot of people want a piece of Weiner. The company would negotiate a fee with the serial sexter, which they would then donate to the New York Fire Department.  “In essence, we would be sort of the Robin Hoods, taking the money from Weiner for our services and giving it away to FDNY,” Silver told FishbowlDC.

Asked how his company feels about Huma Abedin standing beside her Weiner, he replied, “I have a lot of respect for her,” said Silver. “It’s obvious Anthony Weiner has a problem, just as some women’s husbands might have a drinking problem. That doesn’t mean you just give up on the person. If he gets the help he needs personally, and we help to restore his reputation, eventually I believe their relationship could withstand all of this drama and perhaps come out stronger in the end.”

Why the New York Fire Department? “So they can put out his fires as well as the cities,” cracked Silver. On a more serious note, he said, “FDNY is actually the perfect organization to benefit – they are selflessly doing good for New York every hour of every day. We would request a $10,000 retainer from Weiner, which every penny would then go to FDNY for their great work.”

See the letter… Read more

NPR’s Scott Simon‘s mom is near death—and he’s been live-tweeting it all weekend.

“Her passing might come any moment, or in an hour, or not for a day,” he wrote this morning. “Nurses saying hearing is last sense to go so I sing & joke.”

Some moments maybe should still be private, right? Live-tweeting a death is… well, we’re not quite that comfortable with it yet, and we’re not sure we ever should be. Sometimes it is okay to flip off the reporter switch and just be with your loved ones in a time of pain and grief. Losing someone close to you is  hard enough as it is. Do you really want to share the moment-by-moment with a million people like you’re just filing some story?

Read more

In rather distressing news, Sophia Nelson, a motivational author and writer for publications such as Essence, theGrio.com, HuffPost, and Daily Beast, was involved in a serious bike accident. The incident happened Wednesday morning. In this feature, we usually write about the amusing comings and goings of Sophia, but today, we ask you to put her in your thoughts as she recovers from significant injuries.

Some 19 hours ago, a message from her always active Twitter account read as follows:

Tonight’s chat w/ @IAmSophiaNelson is cancelled. She was in a biking accident this AM. She is in the hospital. Keep her in your prayers. Tx!

— Sophia A. Nelson (@IAmSophiaNelson) July 17, 2013

And then in a group text last night, Sophia’s mother, Sandy Nelson, filled friends and associates in on how she was doing. “She is home resting in bed. She is pretty banged up. Some bruised ribs, spleen, but no internal bleeding, which is what we feared. It’s too early to see what is going on in her left pelvic region, where she is in lots of pain. … I will keep you posted. It’s safe to say no more bike rides for Sophia.”

Sandy said Sophia fell into a drain while biking. “Pray for her!” she wrote. “Thank you for calling, caring and loving Sophia. Two good Samaritans helped her and got the ambulance. She was on the side of the road in a drain. Thank God for good people.”

While some may think Sophia might prefer her privacy here, it’s safe to say she wouldn’t mind us sharing her mother’s words. As she put it to us by text a few nights ago, “You know I put my business all on blast.”

Well, most of it, anyway.

Sophia – please get well soon.

The Family Research Council, a conservative org that doesn’t care much for gay marriage, issued a “Call 2 Prayer” event in response to the recent Supreme Court DOMA ruling. Take Action News, hosted by liberal David Shuster, thinks their ad is absolutely hilarious in that he thinks the cartoon figure is either performing fellatio or having sex doggy style, not that he knows anything about either one of those acts.

He and his producer, Daniel Marans, have quite the raw discussion about it and get through it with a lot of laughter. In a promo for the segment, they joke, “Whenever these right-wing groups try to appeal to the young folks it never turns out well.”

Watch here.

AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt gave a speech today at the National Press Club to lay out a plan to ensure press freedoms in the aftermath of DOJ secretly seizing AP phone records.

He outlined five steps to safeguarding freedoms. They include a chance to be heard before docs are taken, judicial oversight, updated guidelines at DOJ (he says they’re antiquated), enacting a federal shield law and assurance of follow-up to what AG Eric Holder has stated regarding reporters: “The Justice Department will not prosecute any reporter for doing his or her job. The Department should not criminalize — or threaten to criminalize — journalists for doing their jobs, such as by calling them co-conspirators under the Espionage Act, as they did Fox reporter James Rosen. This needs to be part of an established directive, not only limited to the current administration.”

Pruitt’s full remarks are on the AP website. See them here.