It’s almost time for the Congressional Women’s Softball Game. It’s the annual event that pits female lawmakers against female journalists in a softball game that benefits the “Young Survival Coalition.” It’s always a fun affair, but it’s not something that participating journalists or politicians take lightly. It’s competitive. They practice for weeks leading up to the game and play hard when it comes around.

This time, they’ve even started talking smack in the lead-up to the big game, which takes place on Wednesday, June 26. It all started with NBC’s Kasie Hunt, who tweeted a shot of herself in the batting cages, telling Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) to “look out.”

Wasserman-Schultz responded. Read more

We are All Just News Junkies Online. If you follow Marty Rudolf on Twitter, you’re used to frequent attempts at conversation. Randomly, he’ll ask questions like, “Does any Sports Fans or Journalists/Bloggers feel like chatting?,” or “Any “Y&R”, “Days” or “B&B” Soap Fans on here?” He’s a lovable oddball who will often tweet directly to actors, journalists and anyone else who will listen. Sometimes, they actually respond.

You never know who may give Marty a response. Read more

Ask anyone who watches the news and they’ll admit that this wasn’t the finest hour for the media. CNN botching facts, NYPost putting pictures of innocent men on their cover, InfoWars saying this is a government coverup. OK, it’s a stretch to refer to the jerkoffs at InfoWars as “media,” but, suffice it to say, it got ugly out there.

Welcome to the wee hours of Friday morning, when a manhunt got underway to bring the alleged Boston bombers to justice, and Twitter tried to keep up. It was a great source of breaking news and information. It’s also an incredible way to spread total bullshit very quickly. In the midst of everything, some people just didn’t know WHAT the hell to tweet. We’ve rounded up choice comments that left us scratching our heads and wondering what the hell they were trying to say. Read more

The Media Critic

The new Prince book from Toure sounds interesting. – CNN’s Jake Tapper

Spring Fever

You guys, this is the last Friday of the year for which baseball is not an option. - Roll Call’s Meredith Shiner

Never Forget

The song “Friday” by Rebecca Black is two years old this month. – Politico’s Byron Tau

Conversations Between Two Journos

“Somewhere in my family’s junk there is a receipt, signed by Lincoln, for a bunch of fixed roads/sidewalks in dc. No joke.” – Politico’s Ben White

WaPo’s Plumline author Greg Sargent writes back, “uh, dude? might be worth digging that out.” White replied that he’s “been on hunt for some time.” Best of luck, Ben.

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

CPAC’s Saddest Panel – Now that CPAC is over, Twitter will be a LOT less interesting. I think we’ll kinda miss all the pictures of weirdos wearing “Zombie Obama” face-paint, sad Presidential mascots and Newt Gingrich. One of the sadder events that was featured at CPAC was an event called, ““Stop THIS: Threats, Harassment, Intimidation, Slander & Bullying from the Obama Administration.” Catchy, right?

On the panel was Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro, who has been getting a lot of attention lately. Unfortunately for him, all that attention doesn’t translate into attendance at CPAC. Little Green Footballs snapped this shot of the panel, which looks emptier than minibar in a CPAC hotel room.

WaPo‘s Weingarten thinks he can play baseball and Tapper’s debut…

Read more

TV One’s Roland Martin tweets A LOT. He’s approaching his 100,000th tweet. Sure, he’s gotten in trouble for his tweets in the past, but that hasn’t stopped him from churning out tweets that range from thoughtful to insane.

On Tuesday morning, Roland took Twitter to church. It was a soulful Roland, who went on an epic series of religious messages. He started out by tweeting his morning bible study.

This morning while reading Deuteronomy 1:29, it was made clear that God wants us to be in position for a blessing, but we must trust Him

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) December 4, 2012

Praise the lord and pass the iPhone! Roland was on a roll. He wrote several notes praising Baby Jesus. He even said that it’s impacting his work life. For instance: “I’ve felt it among co-workers, even church members! I’m often asked why I can smile in the midst of hateful folks. Because God’s got this!” Martin, a CNN contributor, might want to consider referring to Jeff Zucker, his new boss, as “God,” because if anyone controls his fate, it’s him.

Dropkick me Jesus and bring me more Roland tweets! Read more

Like many media-watchers, the first thing I do when I wake up is pull a giant bong rip to prepare myself for the onslaught of stupid D.C. bullshit I’m about to to face check my email. In my foggy, newly-awoken state, I glance through my phone at online sales, bad guest pitches and fan mail. (Hey, it could happen.) Most of all, I’m looking to see if I missed any major, Earth-shattering events while I was slumbering. So, Breaking News emails usually catch my eye. So, imagine on Monday morning when I have a Breaking News alert from CNN. Did we reach an agreement on the Fiscal Cliff? Did we find life on Mars? Did we kill Osama bin Laden (again)?

No, it was something FAR more important than that… Read more

If you haven’t watched Karl Rove attempt to throw a giant rotten peach at Fox News’ election coverage Tuesday night, do yourself a favor and watch it here, thanks to Politico.

Rove had predicted that Mitt Romney would handily win the presidential election and threw a toddler-sized tantrum when it started to look like he was wrong. Fox News called Ohio for Barack Obama and instead of commenting on the win, Rove stabbed Fox News in the back by saying that they were calling it prematurely. It. Was. Awkward. It got so weird that Megyn Kelly got up, left the set, and went back into the bowels of Fox News to talk to the Decision Desk, a crew of smart white men navigating the numbers.

Naturally, Rove’s performance elicited reaction from journalists and here we give you the best offerings… 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