Howard Yoon works the room at Local 16.

The Ross Yoon Agency: Jennifer Manguera, Gail Ross, Anna Sproul, and Howard.

About 120 local writers and journos showed up to Local 16 last night to toast editorial director Howard Yoon’s newly promoted role of partner at the Gail Ross literary agency, including Bitch is the New Black author Helena Andrews; Politics Daily‘s Bonnie Goldstein; WCP‘s Michael Schaffer; NPR’s Miranda Kennedy, Lisa Shepard, and Madhulika Sikka; Sridhar Pappu; WaPo’s Steve Luxenberg, Rachel Weiner, Ylan Mui, and Alexandra Petri; Roll Call’s Emily Heil; HuffPost‘s Arthur Delaney, and ABC’s Robin Sproul (mother to the agency’s aforementioned Anna Sproul).

The Gail Ross Literary Agency will change names to The Ross Yoon Agency sometime next week, as soon as their new web site is complete.

In an article by Jeremy Peters today the New York Times looks into the burnout rate of reporters for online news outlets – most specifically, Politico.

Peters talks to Jim VandeHei and John Harris who disclaim the notion that Politico is sweatshop but don’t deny tales of VandeHei pacing between desks while questioning which reporters have recently broken news.

Peters also checks in with former Politico reporters Helena Andrews who refers to the outfit as “boot camp” and Anne Schroeder Mullins who shares the story of co-workers frazzled by an April Fool’s joke that may have hit too close to home. Check it out here.

Former Politico scribe Helena Andrews is calling the date that NYT columnist Maureen Dowd set her up on with Obama aide Reggie Love “racial profiling.” Andrews writes about it in the latest issue of Marie Claire.

How dare Dowd assume she wants to date a black man?

A Web site called The Nytpicker has the scoop.

An excerpt
“I’ve got a guy for you,” Dowd told Andrews. “He’s so hot, it’s perfect.” A few days later, Dowd’s assistant called to confirm the connection.

Now, in a brief recollection published in the latest issue of Marie Claire, Andrews has placed the event in the context of “racial profiling” by white people like Dowd, who assumed she wanted to date only black men. She even notes that her own mother tried to fix her up with a black man she met at Ikea. The nerve of her!”

Please note the black dog in the picture. Pure coincidence.

It was a Mardi Gras-themed party to be sure. Partygoers at The Daily Caller’s second big soiree got a bit raucous last night during the new publication’s SOTU watch party held at George in Georgetown.

Most of the publication’s journos were on hand wearing beads around their necks. Big star Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson arrived after 9 p.m. due to a previous speaking engagement at the Metropolitan Club. Co-creator and publisher Neil Patel was there mingling along with opinion editor Moira Bagley and spokeswoman and booker Becca Glover Watkins.

Things got dicey when Carlson arrived with his wife, Susie. Carlson told FishbowlDC that Susie initially couldn’t get in because she didn’t have ID to prove her age – which is 41. So how’d she get in? “I finally said, come on guys, knock it off,” Carlson said.

By that point, the party was in full swing and packed with a decisively beer-drinking crowd. All five TV’s were turned to Fox News. Partygoers booed Obama on several occasions, with one male yelling out, “Show us your tits!” Daily Caller journos shuddered in response to the remark. Another shouted, “Boring!” When FNC contributor Sarah Palin came on to speak, the crowd whooped with joy. “Thishh ishh a right-leaning crowd,” said one attendee who’d obviously had more than a few beers.

Nevertheless, Patel said he has received no complaints that the Daily Caller sways right. Instead, he said, people remark on the “breadth” of stories they have.

Jim Treacher, the Daily Caller’s blogger, more often known as “Treach”, live-blogged the evening, which was a sight to see. “I’m blogging like a mother f-ker,” he said.

The emcee for the evening was Mark Stern (aka “Nigel” of the Tony Kornheiser show), who happens to be Carlson’s old high school roommate at the boarding school, St. George’s. “I remember the first time he wore a bow tie,” Stern told the crowd. “It was at Chippendales. No one can shake their ass like Tucker Carlson.” Later Stern asked rhetorically, “Who said Washington has no balls? Give it up for Daily Caller!”

Sadly, advice columnist Matt Labash was unable to make it – he’s in Haiti. “No parties for me,” he wrote by e-mail. “Just dead people and malaria.”

Guests in attendance: Politics Daily’s Helena Andrews, GOP commentator Doug Heye (who was interviewed there by a German TV station), GOP lobbyist Juleanna Glover, Politico’s Kiki Ryan, Washingtonian publisher Cathy Merrill Williams, Pundit Amy Holmes, Reason magazine editor Michael Moynihan, TNR’s James Kirchick, The Atlantic’s Chris Bodenner, The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack, The Hill’s Christina Wilkie, former Bush speechwriter John McConnell, and Roll Call’s Elizabeth Brotherton. Neshan Naltchayan, a freelance photographer who worked as a photographer in the Bush White House, was there to snap pictures.

See party pictures after the jump…

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This seems waaayyyy more fitting a conversation amongst the Kardashian sisters, Valley girls or the women of ABC’s “The View”. But ok, we’ve got the Politics Daily women bitching it up on their web show, “Women’s UP” about the “rude” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) who called an airline stewardess a “bitch” under his breath.

Politics Daily Editor-in-Chief and host Melinda Henneberger invites UP’s Bonnie Erbe , Emily Miller, Patricia Murphy and Helena Andrews (author of Bitch is the New Black) on the show to discuss bitch politics (see must watch video below).

“Not good Chuck Schumer, not good at all,” Henneberger said, scolding Schumer like she’s a female Mister Rogers.

Among their topics was whether it’s ever ok to use the b-word.

Ever? We’re beyond the fifth grade, but let’s see what these beyotches have to say.

Andrews turned confessional: “Some people might see me as a bitch.”

Erbe was compassionate toward Schumer to a point: “I was actually ganged up one time,” she said of an airplane experience on which we so wish she would have elaborated. Still, she declared the b-word off limits to politicians like Schumer, and the n-word and the k-word (she’s of Jewish “background,” she explained).

Murphy: “I’d be lying if I didn’t call some of my friends, “Hey Ho, what’s up?” (It’s a Southern thing.) But “Hey Bitch?” Like, no way would that ever, like, be, like, acceptable.

Miller vented over the ladies’ inability to say “bitch” on the web (she says the full word “bitch” five times). “Say bitch if you want to say bitch,” she said.

Her first reaction to the incident?
“Chuck Schumer? Of course. We all know he’s not the most polite man in the world,” she said.

Miller also brings us this gem: “The word gay is back,” she declares, as in “dorky or queer.” She knows. She verified it with her 20-something and 30-something gay friends.

Politics Daily’s Editor-in-Chief Molly Henneberger is sick as a dog (not a bitch) with the flu. But the bitch of it is, she has had to “rouse herself from her sick bed” (the e-mail reports) to take Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) out for his bitch remark to an airline attendant.

She does just that in today’s column in Politics Daily.

Is she bitching about Schumer?

Well, yes, and no. It’s commentary on why the vulgarity affects women badly. She points out the mistruth of New York Democrat Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand sitting next to Schumer, who it appears fibbed about Schumer’s politeness toward the attendant he has since said he called a “bitch.”

Now couldn’t that make Gillibrand a “lying bitch?” Hennenberger never suggests it; nor does she say Gillibrand had a choice. She writes that Schumer’s admission “made a liar out of” Gillibrand.

Then she brings David Letterman into the mix and calls Schumer and Letterman “boobs.”

And more: Henneberger brings up Helena Andrews (a Politics Daily contributor) whose book, Bitch is the New Black, is becoming a screenplay. She is happy for Andrews, but says bitch is no friend to women.

Noteworthy: Henneberger authored If They Only Listened to Us: What Women Voters Want Politicians to Hear.

Good morning Washington.

Got a blind item, interesting link, funny note, comment, birthday, anniversary or anything of the sort for Morning Reading List? Drop us a line or let us know in the tips box below.

We’ve got your morning mix of media Muesli after the jump…

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Good morning Washington.

After the jump, you’ll find the finalists for FishbowlDC’s Rising Star competition. Congrats to everyone for being nominated and making it into the 2nd round in our first “Rising Star” competition. The winners will accompany mediabistro.com and FishbowlDC to the National Press Foundation Dinner, with a seat next to a high-profile guest (and if you’re a high profile guest who wants to go, let us know).

Plus: We’ll be giving away seats to lucky winners we’ll pick at random. Click here to enter the raffle (send your name, affiliation and contact info).

Now, before you write in to complain about so-and-so not getting included, etc., etc., let’s explain a few things.

1.) If you didn’t get nominated, you didn’t get considered. The pool of contenders was chosen by you.
2.) Some (actually, many) people were not included because, in our opinion, they were already “risen”, not “rising” (For instance: Ed Henry was nominated. Funnily enough, so was Helen Thomas). So, for some of you, it’s a compliment.
3.) We did our best to limit the number of finalists from each publication, from certain beats, and from each medium (print, radio, broadcast, etc.).
4.) Most importantly, we’re well aware that the list is imperfect. We did our best. Our apologies in advance if you felt snubbed. Dorian, Inky and Patrick discussed the finalists but the finalists were mostly determined by consulting with employees at various news organizations for their insight, thoughts and advice.

Okay, so this is how it’s going work: After the jump is the list of finalists. If you’re already attending the National Press Foundation Annual Awards Dinner on February 22, let us know. Unfortunately, we’ll have to remove your name from consideration, since that means you won’t be able to sit with us (*tear*). Also, if you simply don’t want to be considered, please also let us know. Then, with the list tweaked as/if needed, we will open up voting Thursday morning and it will go through Monday.

Click below for the finalists…

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