Yahoo! News‘ White House Correspondent Olivier Knox, often the jokester on Twitter, has his heartening moments. Most often they involve his son, whom he calls Nibbles, and the heartbreak involved in having a job that keeps you on the road through life’s big moments.

Like Halloween.

As some may recall, Nibbles went into a heartbreaking tailspin of tears in December of last year when his father had to be in Des Moines for his birthday. Thankfully Halloween won’t be a disappointment. Get the tissues.

Nibbles, last night, sadly: “I’ll bet I know where you *won’t* be for Trick or Treating: Here.” Actually, my little Ninja, I will be.

— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) October 31, 2012

Knox scored points with females like Roll Call‘s Meredith Shiner who wrote,  “This is the best tweet I’ve seen in days. Travel safe!” And AARP’s Social Director Tammy Gordon remarked, “Aw. Nibs.”

Quotes of the Day

What are you, STUPID?

“Surprised I have to explain this: the President declaring NY+NJ ‘major disasters’ enables those states to expedited federal aid.” — ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper.

Ali Velshi drys out

“OK, got a few hours of sleep & largely dried out. Back on CNN w/ latest from Sandy 7aET” — CNN’s Ali Velshi, who has been receiving widespread concern and criticism for all the time spent in the rising waters of the storm. Today some of his followers appear to be worried for him, asking him when he sleeps and telling him not to tweet while driving.

Deep Thoughts With Nate Silver

“Media reporters are often the very best or very worst journalists at their outfits.” — FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver. To which FakeJimVandeHei RT and CC’d HuffPost‘s Michael Calderone and Politico‘s Dylan Byers.

From the Road…“Campaign life is watching a friend try to walk up to the McDonalds drive thru window at 1 AM. #7 Days” — Politico‘s Juana Summers.

See Journo Hate Mail, and an apology for Sandy mishap… Read more

Despite the fast pace world of today’s journalism, reading before writing should still be a given.

But last night this was a non-issue for The Daily Caller‘s conservative blogger Jim Treacher, whose schtick is excessive sarcasm and general bitchiness when it comes to talking about liberals like POTUS. He calls out hypocrisy and logical fallacies of the left when he sees it and sometimes, it’s even funny. But last night Treacher shared an ABC News story with a tweet so misleading that the only possible reason for it was that he didn’t actually read the story. We get him. He hates President Obama and doesn’t want him reelected. But hey, we’re still under the weird assumption that facts matter…

Read more

For those who had power on Monday night, it was some great TV. Dramatic waves crashing into NYC. Winds toppling a crane that perched dangerously over the city. Idiot anchors flailing around in the hurricane. Who did it better? Now’s your chance to vote in today’s Fish Poll.

David Meyers, who has been managing editor of Member Information and Research for CQ Roll Call, is moving over to the business side of the publication. He will take over StateTrack, which follows legislative developments on the state level. As Meyers settles into his new role, CQ Roll Call‘s Editorial Dept. will be looking to replace him very soon.

Meyers fun facts: He has worked at CQ for 16 years. In addition, the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Assoc. awarded him first place in the sports feature story category for “50 Years of Baseball: A Natural Camaraderie,” which detailed the long tradition behind the Congressional baseball game.

See the internal memos… Read more

I’m terrible at giving advice. But, that doesn’t stop hordes of people from taking it upon themselves to give their advice on a range of issues. So, I’m going to take various advice columns from around the internet and answer it with my own fishy advice. It can’t be much worse than the professionals.

Today, I’m taking on WaPo’s @Work column and one sensitive word that seems to be causing a lot of headaches these days… Read more

By now, we’ve seen the destruction that Superstorm Sandy bombed onto the East Coast Monday evening. Hopefully, you all prepared and stocked up on batteries, non-perishable items and such. We know that FNC’s Dana Perino‘s dog, Jasper, certainly banked some sleep. We know this because Dana tweeting out a picture of him cat-napping before the storm hit.

In fact, she kept us in the loop on the dog’s happenings all throughout the storm… Read more

When The Guardian‘s and Salon‘s Jim Newell and obvious daredevil Dylan Byers of Politico contemplated venturing out last night on Capitol Hill, an older journo had words of wisdom.

You could tell Newell was getting restless when he wrote, “I guess the dearth of DC storm tweeters means nothing too bad is happening! (In Columbia Heights at least or wherever you fuckers live).”

Around 10:30 p.m. when Byers announced that he was contemplating heading out, Newell jumped at the chance to hang out with such a cool cat. Byers: “Alright, folks, venturing out for a Capitol Hill #Sandy report. Pictures TK. Can’t promise anything like New York.” Newell: “Are you going to the actual Hill or just around the neighborhood?” he asked. “I kind of want to go out and see too.”

Byers soon wound up at Tunnicliff’s Tavern. UPDATE and CORRECTION: Around 2:30 p.m. we heard back from Newell, who said he never made it out last night. Why did he take so damn long getting back to us? “Sorry, I was sleeping,” he replied. (We have changed the copy to reflect that Newell never made it to the bar.)

But not without sound advice from The Guardian‘s Richard Adams… Read more

The biggest reporting botch during Hurricane Sandy goes to the National Weather Service with CNN as a close second. Meanwhile, credit for correcting that report goes to Politico‘s Ben White.

Asked if something felt off about CNN’s report, White told FishbowlDC, “The reports seemed unlikely to me and poorly sourced so I reached out to a source of mine.”

In the 9 p.m. hour EDT on Piers Morgan‘s show Monday, CNN’s Chad Myers cited “a report” from the National Weather Service that the New York Stock Exchange floor had flooded. WaPo‘s Erik Wemple has more on how this played out with CNN retracting the report, fessing up that it was based on a chat bulletin and then later stating that once again it was an official report.

At BuzzFeed, Andrew Kaczynski tracks how one anonymous Twitter user helped spread the false report, among others.

Emerging as the hero here is White, who reports on finance and Wall Street… Read more

1. Stormy Strip Club — There are few things more disturbing than waking up to CNN and The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz tweeting about sexy strippers. This morning he highlights a story by Lauren Ashburn on their Daily Download site in which Ashburn passes through Georgetown last night and notices a light on. Sure enough it’s the Good Guys Club. She writes about how she had to stop for the sake of the story — sex sells, a new concept, right? She spoke briefly to a stripper in a blonde wig who won’t give her name. “Georgetown Cupcake is open down the street,” the “well-endowed, slightly overweight stripper” told Ashburn.  “I know men would much rather come here.”

2. Frankenstorm Style — WaPo Style Section writer Emily Wax brings us the lexicon of Hurricane Sandy this morning. She asserts that the “cliches” and “neologisms” are a way of trying to control the uncontrollable. She explains the words and images that cropped up for Sandy, including “ponding” and Sandy from “Grease.” Read here.

3. Reporters covering Sandy – In a piece published at the crack of dawn, The Atlantic‘s Conor Friedersdorf writes about reporters covering Hurricane Sandy. The story takes a distinct point of view — namely that reporters shouldn’t be out in the storm. He writes, “The notion that it is safe to stand in waist high floodwater and gale force winds, given a bit of experience, is nonsense. And it undercuts rather than strengthens the message that people should stay inside.” He calls it “pure entertainment” value that has little other value. Read here.