Francis Ford Coppola

This Week In Pool Reports

By Patrick on December 11, 2007 1:56 PM

Hopped up pine cones decorate the White House this holiday season, Miss Beazley is lonely, Barney is packing on the holiday pounds and who knew attending church is so expensive?

“The president, accompanied by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, stood in front of the fireplace. The mantle was festooned with greenery, gold ornaments, and gigantic pine cones that looked like they had been on steroids.” — Dave Cook, Christian Science Monitor

“After his meeting, Bush allowed the pool in at the bottom. When we arrived, he was sitting at the head of a U-shaped table. You will have the transcript shortly; the only unscripted moment came at the end when Bush ignored a shouted question about Iran’s demand for an apology but grinned broadly. ‘You can mark down I chuckled,’ he said.” — Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post

“First honoree was Scorsese. Kind words offered by Cameron Diaz, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert DeNiro. Ms. Diaz said Scorsese’s genius lies in his ‘understanding of the depth and disturbance of people’s ambitions.’ Said DeNiro to Scorsese: ‘If you were directing me tonight I would have already whacked Steve Martin.’” — Ken Herman, Cox Newspapers

“Rev. Leon also reminded all that it’s budget time at Saint John’s and pledge cards conveniently were placed in the programs. For the math challenged, the card includes a handy by-income annual gift chart. For example, if your annual household income is $150,000, your ‘approximate annual gift’ would be $4,500 if you opt for 3 percent and $15,000 if you opt for 10 percent. Please submit your cards ‘as soon as possible,’ says Rev. Leon, ‘so we can prepare a sober budget for our parish.’ Which brings us back to today’s attempted pool-report theme, which is sobriety and why it’s good for you. By way of theme development, we note these schedule items in the church program. On Wednesday, there is an AA meeting at noon and, at 7 p.m., a champagne tasting. Ideally, nobody will be at both events.” — Herman

“While all of you were still sound asleep (you missed a spectacular sunrise, plus a wicked cool pattern of vapor trails in the cold blue sky over the White House), your pool was herded into press vans on the South Lawn. Your commander in chief, unlike you, was not abed (no visions of sugarplums dancing in his head). He was in the Sit Room at 7:30 a.m. (not clear if there was a ‘situation,’ or whether he was there in a suit, his biking outfit, or a bathrobe). No word if he talked on the Maxwell Smart Code of Silence phone there, either.” — Joseph Curl, Washington Times

Two Marine One choppers flew the river as the motorcade crossed the bridge, fueling speculation that the President would, as rumored, head off to catch the noon Army-Navy game in Baltimore. But as The Most Powerful Man in the World waited at the light at 14th and C Street, press wrangler Chris Byrne said nuh uh, full lid coming. As the stream of suspicious black vehicles turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, the standers on the sidewalks figured out who was behind the tinted windows of the SUV loaded with Trek bikes, and waved. It was noted in the Press One van that every one of them waved with all five fingers. Back at the White House, Miss Beazley sat alone in the sun on the South Lawn next to a soccer ball, and got quite yappy as passersby petted the portly Barney.” — Curl

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Taking Out The Trash

Morning Reading List, 12.10.07

By Patrick on December 10, 2007 9:33 AM

Good morning Washington.

For those of you wondering why we’re not including the Politico, Roll Call and The Hill in our “Pictures of Morning Papers” feature — which we’d love to do — it’s because a.) Politico and Roll Call are usually a day behind in posting theres and b.) The Hill hasn’t put one up since Nov. 28.

Quickly navigate Morning Reading List:

You don’t think the Hillary Clinton campaign is sitting on some big story on Obama.

NEWSPAPERS

Washington Post’s Deborah Howell writes, “Stories about rumors are tricky and easily misconstrued. A Nov. 29 story and headline that explored Barack Obama’s ‘connections to the Muslim world’ and rumors that he is Muslim were met with a swift Internet reaction that left some staffers stunned at its ferocity. Even Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles was ‘so upset’ that he took the unusual step of taking potshots at the story in an editorial page cartoon.”

AP reports, “Newspaper publishers, entering 2008 with some of the worst economic conditions in many years, said Wednesday they hope to bring even more readers — and ad spending — to their Web sites with expanded offerings of news, advertising and video.”

New York Times’ Clark Hoyt writes, “On Oct. 12, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top military commander of American forces in Iraq, delivered a scathing denunciation of the Bush administration’s ‘incompetent’ management of the war — and an equally blistering denunciation of the news media.”

Bloomberg reports, “Tribune Co., the newspaper publisher being taken private by real estate billionaire Sam Zell, plans to reduce borrowings by $500 million and confirmed the deal will close this year, sending the stock up nearly 8 percent.”

Page Six reports, “There’s a reason why it took so long for Ben Bradlee, 86, to receive the Legion of Honor from France, as the legendary Washington Post editor did last week. In the 1950s, when Bradlee was Newsweek’s Paris-based European bureau chief, he was expelled from the country for trying to interview leaders of Algeria’s revolutionary rebel army. His expulsion was repealed many years later, but the French are slow to forgive.”

Forbes.com reports, “You know what ails The New York Times Co.–eroding circulation, falling advertising revenue through the first three quarters of the year and the looming threat of stronger competition from The Wall Street Journal and its soon-to-be-owner Rupert Murdoch.”

Poynter Online reports, “Adapting to a changing news, information, and advertising economy means that newspapers must adapt the technology they use — not just online, but for print editions too.”

“Four veteran black sports journalists are taking a voluntary buyout offered at USA Today, wiping out its NBA coverage team, the USA Today staffers told Journal-isms on Saturday.”

SND Update Blog reports, “J. Ford Huffman, deputy managing editor of design at USA TODAY, one of the paper’s original architects and a 25-year veteran, has accepted a buyout — one of as many as 43 rumored to be pending (management sought 45 according to recent media reports).”

Slate’s Jack Shafer reports, “The World Health Organization publicly spanked the New York Times last week for breaking an embargoed study about measles. The offending article was a 60-word news brief by Celia W. Dugger in the paper’s Nov. 29 edition. No matter that the Times broke the embargo accidentally and apologized to WHO. The organization issued an e-mail announcing to the press corps the punishmentâ€”a two-week suspension of all Times reporters from the WHO media distribution list.”

The Center for American Progress reports, “Think Again: Reporting Iraq Is a Lot Harder than it Looks”

Bill Walsh, “national copy desk chief at The Washington Post and proprietor of The Slot: A Spot for Copy Editors, offers up the next set of well-edited bites” for Metrocurean.

Jeff Gannon writes, “The Old Media barely missed a toe-tapping beat in their relentless coverage of the Larry Craig ‘scandal’ to mention that a staffer for Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell was arrested last week by the FBI after showing up for a sexual rendezvous with someone he believed to be a 13 year-old boy. The handling of the ‘incident’ by the Old Media provides a textbook example of pervasive liberal media bias I discuss in my book, ‘The Great Media War, A Battlefield Report’.”

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“NBC Now Will Air Freedom’s Watch Ad”

“Satellite TV on the Move, at Fox News” (and more from TVNewser)

An ABC release announced, “ABC News Nightline will air original programming next week. Shows for the week include: a story about Oprah Winfrey campaigning with Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama, an interview with Kay Warren, wife of famous evangelist Pastor Rick Warren and a profile of Francis Ford Coppola.”

BusinessWeek reports, “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has suffered a number of setbacks in his increasingly lonely fight against the cable companies. Martin, of course, is determined to place tighter regulations on the industry by restricting the reach of companies and allowing subscribers to pay only for the channels they want. Now, Democratic and Republican lawmakersâ€”as well as Martin’s fellow commissionersâ€”are questioning his selective use of data to support his campaign.”

USA Today reports, “Here’s a bit of cheery news for media executives concerned about the softening economy. Political campaigns likely will spend more than $4.5 billion on ads and marketing in the 2008 election season, a 64% leap from 2004 â€” the last cycle with a presidential race — research and consulting firm PQ Media says in a report out Thursday.”

Times Online reports, “James Murdoch, the chief executive of BSkyB, is expected to step down today to take on the job of running News Corporationâ€™s European and Asian operations. Mr Murdoch will be replaced by Jeremy Darroch, who is the chief financial officer of BSkyB. Sky is 39.1 per cent owned by News Corp, parent company of The Times.”

TVNewser reports, “Last week’s CNN/YouTube debate propelled the CNN program into the top 10 in all of cable news programs, the first time in more than two years that a single CNN program has cracked the top 10. The ranking is compiled by total viewers, Live +SD.”

B&C reports, “Some 1,500 communications attorneys, lobbyists and their guests, including a few ink-stained scribes, took refuge from the picture-postcard snow to gather at Washington, D.C.’s Hilton hotel Wednesday night for the annual Federal Communications Commission chairman’s dinner.”

Reuters reports, “According to the New York Post, the most recent rumblings rise from NBC, which is expected top make cuts in its news division, particularly at NBC News and MSNBC.”

A release announced, “MSNBC’s Decision 2008 coverage continues
with a ‘Super Tuesday,’ Dec. 11, highlighted by in-depth analysis of the latest local and national poll numbers as the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary approach and the races heat up.”

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ONLINE MEDIA

Washington City Paper’s Black Plastic Bag reports, “In response to the broken neck suffered by CNN anchor John Roberts, the media-insider blog FishbowlDC went with a Busta Rhymes reference. For the record, we here at BPB would’ve gone Shaolin-style with ‘Protect Ya Neck.’”

Slate launched its first portable widget: the official Bushisms Generator. You can read random Bushisms, hand-picked by Slate’s editor Jacob Weisberg by embedding the widget on your site. To embed the widget, visit this URL and hit “code” to copy and paste the HTML code directly on your site: http://www.clearspring.com/widgets/471f80ec102ef440

James Brady “is raising the question of just how much help you are allowed to have in putting your own name on the title page of a serious book. Am I nitpicking here or raising a legitimate question?”

Arianna Huffington writes, “Huckabee Tries to Shoot the Messenger, But Wounds His Campaign Instead”

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MAGAZINES

A reader says, “scherer worked at salon, mother jones and the nation. hmm, i wonder what his political inclinations are? and yet, if time hired someone who had worked at the weekly standard, national review and wash times, there would be an uproar.”

TVNewser reports, “Macrovision, a California-based distributer of digital content, is buying TVGuide in a $2.8 billion deal.”

National Journal’s Bill Powers writes, “According to the media, we’re supposed to have learned all kinds of things from the rise of Mike Huckabee. … What I’ve taken away from the Huckabee phenomenon is that we should stop worrying so much about horse race journalism.”

NewsBusters reports, “Try to remember a time in September when it was reported that the Hillary Clinton campaign showed its ‘hard-nosed media strategy’ by getting GQ magazine to spike a piece on Clinton team in-fighting by threatening to pull access to Bill Clinton for GQ’s planned December ‘Man of the Year’ cover package. Well, that ‘Man of the Year’ issue is out, and there was no bucking, only fawning.”

Can you answer CQ’s Political Trivia for Dec. 7?

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RADIO

“Fenty offers part of budget surplus for Radio One development”

From DCRTV:

WAMU’s Diane Rehm picks up a CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Palliative Care Award from the Greater Washington Partnership For Palliative And End-of-Life Care. For a January 2007 interview with author Calvin Trillin concerning “About Alice.” The award will be presented tonight during a reception at DC’s Sibley Hospital…..

In a recent online chat, Going Out Gurus took “a moment to remember Tom Terrell, the critic, promoter and DJ, who passed away last week after a long battle with prostate cancer.”

Public Eye reports, “You probably donâ€™t know this, but there was yet another presidential debate the other day. You didn’t see it. But don’t feel bad — not that you would — but nobody saw it. It was on National Public Radio. And the reviews have been positive, save for the little ‘it put me to sleep’ factor. But all the plaudits got this writer thinking how you could repackage the debate, draw a crowd and inform a potentially large size of the electorate.”

WEST WING REPORTAGE

Texas Monthly interviews Dan Bartlett.

The New York Post reports, “Karl Rove, the controversial and long-time senior adviser to President George W. Bush, is shopping a memoir in an auction that will kick off today and likely result in a seven-figure payday.”

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REVOLVING DOOR

A tipster tells us that the new Communications Director for Rep. Brian Baird is Rachel Irwin, former Maine Press Secretary for Senator Olympia Snowe.

Maura Judkis is the newest addition to U.S. News as a web producer. “She will be working closely with Ben Harder on the new Science site and with Sara Clarke on the Money & Business site.”

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JOBS

Nationaly Syndicated Radio is looking for Top level support staff.

National Journal is looking for a Staff Correspondent.

Regent University is seeking a Journalism Professor for Interactive Journalism program.

AARP is looking for a Multimedia Producer and a Daily News Editor.

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Hat Tips: DCRTV, TVNewser, IWantMedia, Romenesko, MediaBistro, JournalismJobs, JournalismNext

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