Television

CNN Contributor Roland Martin continues to serve his suspension for incendiary comments he made on Twitter. He’s still making the rounds and apologizing to anyone who will listen, but he continues to generate SEVERAL tweets over the course of the day. We have been fascinated to follow him to see what a person who has been suspended for his tweets will talk about. Today, Martin writes about the groundbreaking ceremony for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He even included this picture to prove it.

Denyce Graves singing at the groundbreaking of the National Museum of African American History and Culture twitter.com/rolandsmartin/…

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 22, 2012

It’s such a big event that POTUS showed up for the groundbreaking. What a powerful moment. America’s first African-American President on hand to break ground on the museum dedicated to African American History. Martin tore through several tweets chronicling the event and then moved on to an area of  equal importance.

Any of y’all catch “Paul Mooney: The Godfather of Comedy”? This boy is a straight fool! — rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 22, 2012

Thanks for the tip, Roland! Stay tuned for another edition of everyone’s favorite tweeting “straight fool”, Roland Martin, when we meet again for “What’s Roland Tweeting”.

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It’s the time of year that journos, especially those on TV dread the most. Flu season. It strikes when you’re least expecting it and it can wreak havoc on your work schedule. Fortunately, for now, Bret Baier of Fox News has avoided it. But, his family has been touched with the illness, as he tweets this morning.

Good morning – heading in early.The 24 hr Flu hit my house – this has been a sick winter for the Baier household- Thoughts on the day?

— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) February 21, 2012

Well, at least he left the house early. Leaving his wife and kids to fester in their own sea of germs and disease. You gotta love that attitude… ‘My family is sick, so I’m getting the hell outta Dodge!’

CNN contributor Roland Martin continues to serve a suspension for Twitter comments that were interpreted as hateful and promoting violence towards gays. While Martin has already apologized profusely for the comments, he just can’t seem to stop begging for forgiveness. This weekend, on his TV One show, “Washington Watch”, he talked about his ongoing conversation with GLAAD. GLAAD issued a lengthy release about “Why Language Matters” and accepted Martin’s apology yet again. At some point, this theater will get tired and played out. But, for now, keep it coming! And make sure to check back in tomorrow for another edition of “What’s Roland Tweeting.”

Since Jeremy Lin entered the New York Knick roster as starting point guard, the team has won seven straight games and his heroics have brought the team back to a .500 record. As the Legend of Lin grows, more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon. The latest is Al Sharpton, who has this new promo for MSNBC.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

While, it’s no “Bluebery Pie” ad, it’s still pretty good and shows that everyone is wrapped up in Jeremy Lin hysteria. Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes for a Presidential candidate to start bringing his name up?

 

 

Earlier this week, we started paying closer attention to the Twitter account of Roland Martin. After all, when someone gets in as much trouble as he did for his Twitter comments, we were DYING to know what he could possibly say. Well, yesterday we found a very sad Martin. He was in mourning. Yesterday was the funeral for legendary Soul Train host, Don Cornelius.

“Tough day in LA for many Blacks in Hollywood. The funeral of Don Cornelius is being held today at 3 pm. I know many who are attending.”

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 16, 2012

It only gets worse. We not only lost Cornelius, we lost Whitney Houston as well. Martin says the pain is simply too much for some people to bear.

Then a number of folks are headed to New Jersey for Whitney Houston’s funeral. Lots of pain. Many couldn’t do my show because it’s too soon

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 16, 2012

America thanks you, Roland. Just like football after 9-11, you’re helping us heal.

 

When Al Gore hired Keith Olbermann to anchor his primetime line-up, he knew he was getting a bomb-thrower more than a newsman. Just how much more, he might not have known.

On Monday, Current’s Chief News Officer created an uproar when he and guest Markos Moulitsas joked about alleged rapes at Occupy Wall Street protests. This is always a dumb move. He later doubled-down on the stupid when he tweeted “No Occupy rapes, no cover-up, no apology, no retraction…” and accused BigGov’s Andrew Breitbart of creating the whole thing in an attempt to discredit the protests.

When Big Journalism Contributor Lee Stranahan complied all the rape and sexual assault stories about Occupy in one post for the world to see, you’d think that would’ve been the end of it. But Olbermann’s ego won’t allow anyone to have the last word on anything, so he “debunked” each one, one by one.

Unfortunately for Keith, the Breitbart websites are not the silent, wallflower types even if their writing is sometimes abominable.

In his “debunking,” Olbermann changed his tune from “No Occupy rapes” to “Because almost none of the allegations are of rape and most of this list are duplicated…” to “2 stories duplicated” to “Occupy MEMBERS were victims.” That’s quite a journey in just one day, especially without ever acknowledging his position completely changed.

Even still, where he ended up, that the victims and not the perpetrators were the only Occupy people involved in these rapes and sexual assaults, isn’t the truth. After Olbermann’s “debunking, Stranahan was back a few hours later with a section by section debunking of what Olbermann said. Keith then went silent, maybe to bed, maybe to play with his baseball cards, or maybe to Stuart Smalley in the mirror to calm his nerves.

On a final note, Olbermann tweeted, “Here’s a wager: @DLoesch (Editor-in-Chief of Big Journalism) and @AndrewBreitbart will NOT post the video of tonight’s debunking.” They did. No terms were offered, but here’s a wager: Olbermann won’t admit they made a fool of him.

 

At or just before 8 a.m. this morning, a caller phoned into C-SPAN to ostensibly discuss the “the budget.” The guest of the hour was retiring 16-term Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) But like some C-SPAN callers these days, “Frank” from Largo, Fla. went rogue and quickly began asking questions about closeted Republican members of Congress, specifically mentioning Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as being one.

Barney said, “I have no comment to make about any individual, and no knowledge about any individual. There are some members of Congress who have not made that public.” He added, “You pay no penalty for being honest about your sexuality.” He said there are great pressures in Republican Party to not be too open about being gay. He said they will tolerate gays in their party “as long as they don’t appear to be too happy about it.”

Watch here. “Frank” from Largo is the very first caller to Rep. Frank.

Our brother site TVNewser has a story out on “Politico TV” today. That’s right…Politico has filled out a new trademark application with the U.S. Patent Office for “Politico TV.” As my colleague Alex Weprin notes, “the filing is a ’1B,’ which means that the company has intent to use it.”

But where would Politico TV exist — online or on cable? So far, Politico brass isn’t talking.

And maybe we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for it to happen. After all, back in October, we reported that Politico had filed a trademark application for “Wall Street Politico.” So far that has happened either. Stay tuned…

 

In the wake of Roland Martin’s suspension from CNN over his comments on Twitter, all eyes have been focused on his feed to see if anything juicy comes out. So, until Roland comes back on the air at CNN, we are starting a new segment here in the Fishbowl: What’s Roland Tweeting? We’ll be watching to see what Martin could possibly tweet about when everyone is watching.

Yesterday, we sat down to sift through his feed and, if nothing else, he’s certainly prolific. Martin begins the day by asking his followers if they would ever get a tattoo. And then spends the better part of an hour replying and retweeting to them about their experiences with getting inked. After he tires of that, he moves into politics just as POTUS unveils the 2013 budget. As the President began speaking, Martin starts retweeting @WHLive, the official White House Twitter account. In fact, he retweets them 25 times in a row. All quotes by POTUS as he discusses the budget. But…  25 times?

Martin then gets a question regarding his employment with CNN. When asked if he’s still employed, he simply responds “Yep.” See the exchange below.

@_TheSalesman yep

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 13, 2012

Fox News and The Daily Caller‘s Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson had to be hyped for this morning’s interview on Fox and Friends. Couldn’t have been more of a win-win. Carlson’s a Fox News Contributor. Steve Doocey is obviously not someone who looks at Media Matters of America with any fondness. This was a major opportunity to beat up on the liberal media watch dog group with “tax exempt” status as Doocey emphasized.

So how deflating that the satellite failed when they first tried to beam in Carlson from Miami.

“Problem with the satellite, we’re going to take a break,” said Doocey.

When they returned, they had Carlson by telephone. Then a few minutes later, without warning, there he was by satellite live from Miami! “The level of paranoia around David Brock is really remarkable,” said Carlson of the MMFA founder. Doocey and Carlson chewed on the red meat of internal memo in which then-employee Karl Frisch proposed hiring PI’s to get dirt on Fox News employees. “People do not write this down,” Carlson stressed. “But they did.”