Jim Farley - FishbowlDC

FishbowlDC Interview With Paul Brandus

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:50:33 +0000

Say hello to Paul Brandus who writes West Wing Reports and a column for The Week. He’s an independent White House Correspondent who writes a blog and has a Twitter account in which he doesn’t use his name. How come he goes nameless? “Here’s a question for you,” begins his standard refrain about it. “Name the CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN & Fox reporters at the White House 10 years ago. How about five years ago? This may come as a disappointment to many folks in this egocentric town, but most people can’t remember the names. And that’s at the most visible beat in Washington. Names fade quickly. But brand names have enduring market value. People have no idea who I am personally. I’d prefer they know my brands, one of which is West Wing Reports. Brands can be licensed, flipped, monetized in more enduring ways.” Even so, let’s get to know the man behind the brand, shall we? Brandus was a foreign correspondent in Moscow for five years. He worked for the U.S. Embassy, eventually NBC and NPR and did some magazine work. While in Moscow, he bought the broadcast rights to the Super Bowl from the NFL. He later worked at MSNBC and Fox — he says the concept of this makes people’s heads explode. “I helped launch MSNBC back in 1996,” Brandus explains. “Worked for Steve Capus, who went on to become President of NBC News. Good man. I was a writer, but apparently too good of a writer because they put me in charge of editing all the other writers. That’s where I learned the 80/20 rule: 20 percent of your people will cause 80 percent of your problems. At Fox News, I was a senior prime time producer in New York, working on news cut ins every half hour. If the you-know-what hit the fan, we had to run into the control room across the hall and break into Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity & Alan Colmes. Great fun.” Brandus worked on Wall Street for several years, cashed out and started another media company, his own. In 2011 he became a columnist for The Week. He moderates conferences for them on energy and cybersecurity. He also works with a Northern Virginia venture capital firm. Brandus won’t be found on the Washington cocktail circuit. Instead, he spends his weekends with his 18-month-old daughter or family horses in Fairfax County.

Now let’s proceed to the really important stuff.

If you were a carbonated beverage which would you be? Cherry Coke Zero

How often do you Google yourself? Once or twice a year.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to an editor (or vice versa)? My old boss, Jim Farley, who hired me twice – first at NBC years ago and later at WTOP – taught me WGAS: “Who gives a shit?” It has universal applications today and I’ve used it to great effect in various times and places. WGAS is also text-friendly.

Who is your favorite working journalist and why? Anyone who understands it’s not about them. Anyone who eschews the limelight and simply focuses on finding things out, communicating about it well and not pretending to be an expert or feeling compelled to have an opinion on everything.

Who is your favorite White House reporter and why? The wire service folks are usually the best. Not flashy, just solid, nose-to-the-grindstone types day in and day out. I really admire them.

Do you have a favorite word? “Dada.” Uttered by a certain 17-month old little girl.

What word or phrase do you overuse? “Dumb ass.” Use it a lot.

Who would you rather have dinner with – CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, CNN’s John King or CNN’s Piers Morgan. Tell us why. I think John King is an honest, hard-working, straight shooter guy. You know what I like about him? He made a mistake during the Boston coverage and dealt with it in a transparent, humble and honest way. People err – and it’s how they deal with it – for better or worse – that I remember. I tend to get along well with people like that.

What is the most interesting conversation you’ve had in awhile in the course of your work and who was it with? If I hadn’t hung up on Ronald Reagan in 1990, it might have been the time when, on a dare, I called him at home in 1990. This was a year after he left the White House. The Reagans were living in Bel Air and I never thought he would answer the phone himself. But I heard that famous voice: “Hello?” on the other end, freaked out and hung up. To use my favorite word, I was such a dumb ass. So I guess the answer would be the time I downed vodka shots with Boris Yeltsin at a Fourth of July party at Spaso House, the home of the U.S. Ambassador to Russia. I was lurking by the bar when he came over and we wound up downing a few and chatting. That’s what you do in Russia. Drink. Talk. Drink some more.

Tell us a funny story from the White House Briefing Room. Can be long or short. There used to be a guy named Lester Kinsolving, who used to show up in the briefing every day. Haven’t seen him in many months. He used to ask the most bizarre, completely out of left field questions imaginable on completely obscure, irrelevant matters. Bush’s flacks and now Obama’s used to call on him as a diversion. And, in this digital age, he used to carry a giant cassette recorder around with him like it was 1983 or something. Not picking on Lester, he is a nice guy. Hope he’s OK.

Without naming names, tell us some shitty thing that happened in the course of you covering the White House… continued…

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On BuzzFeed, Boogers and Ethics

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:00:08 +0000

Writing a story about someone else’s booger feature is no easy task. On some email requests I put a simple, bland, “request for comment.” On others, I went for shock value: “BuzzFeed’s booger post.” It wasn’t plotted. I imagined some might find it funnier than others.

On Tuesday night, BuzzFeed‘s Benny Johnson took Washington’s political and media worlds by surprise by creating a GIF feature about House Speaker John Boehner allegedly checking out his boogers. BuzzFeed Political Editor McKay Coppins promoted the story, even guided readers to it on Twitter.

The headline reads: “John Boehner Looks at His Boogers During the State of the Union.”

Who among us would have the mental fortitude to look away from a Boehner booger post? “It looks like a first-step by BuzzFeed into honest coverage,” said former TWT Editor and Public Affairs exec Sam Dealey. “After all, everyone — the Speaker, the public and evidently BuzzFeed’s reporter too, was bored by the speech and looking for anything even remotely more interesting.”

Boogers are interesting. But by and large, the editors and journalists around town that we interviewed opposed the booger post. “Dumb and dumber; political coverage as booger op? What next: beaver shot?” asked Washingtonian‘s media writer Harry Jaffe. WTOP’s Jim Farley also expressed journalistic outrage. “I believe it is over the top,” he said. “It would have been like showing video of George H.W. Bush throwing up on the Japanese Prime Minister at a State Dinner. A private moment. Would we show video of Michelle Obama’s skirt blowing up on a windy day?”

Um, there’s actual video showing Bush throwing up? As it turns out, there is.

And by the way, there’s no judgment here. We’ve written about everything from Larry King passing gas on air and a journo popping a zit at a party to females showing ample amounts of cleavage and breasts on TV. Suffice it say, BuzzFeed can write about the Speaker’s alleged boogers if they want to and there won’t be any ethical bitching from us.

And yet we couldn’t help but wonder, is this, in part, the psychological result of our miniscule attention spans and around-the-clock reporting? That we now require boogers to grab our collective attention?

“Poking fun at people in power has always been been part of political journalism,” Coppins told FishbowlDC when asked to comment on the matter. “Dead-tree newspapers used to do it with political cartoons; now the internet does it with GIFs and memes. What actually struck me most about this State of the Union was how many other news sites were competing with us on that front. A year ago, we would have been the only ones GIFing Marco Rubio’s reach for the water bottle; this year we were racing with The Atlantic‘s Twitter feed.”

But some journalists thought BuzzFeed had slipped beneath themselves. “That’s certainly a headline you don’t see every day,” said a longtime Washington editor who preferred to remain anonymous. “But regardless, this is over the line. A classic example of something that gets hits, but is in poor taste. The post appeals to the 10-year-old in all of us, and that’s not a good thing. BuzzFeed is better than this.”

A cable news insider agreed, saying, continued…

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Journalistic Faux Pas or Just Lacking Class?

Betsy Rothstein — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:58:46 +0000

Washington D.C.’s CBS all-news radio station, WNEW News (99.1 FM), appears to be lacking in social graces today as they tweeted out the names of a murder-suicide in Calvert County before next of kin were alerted. They reported on their website only that a man, woman and 2-year-old child were all found dead inside a home in Owings, Md., but left them unnamed.

The offending tweet can be found here. It reads as follows: “WNEWNews: Couple In Owings Murder-Suicide Have Been Identified By Neighbor As…”

We reached out to WNEW’s News Director Michelle Dolge for comment on obtaining the information from a neighbor and releasing it before police. So far, zilch.

WTOP GM Jim Farley explained that their reporter on the scene, Michelle Basch, was waiting for family to be informed before they reported the names. “Flunking Journalism 101: you don’t ID the victims until the Sheriff notifies the next of kin, which they had not done at that point,” he wrote to FishbowlDC. “Common courtesy. How’d you like to find a close relative had been murdered by reading it in a tweet?”

At the very least WNEW offended traditional reporting rules. “Typically the onus is on official authorities, not media, to notify next of kin before releasing the names of the deceased,” explained a local City Hall reporter speaking on condition of anonymity. “If the government agency released names to the media without prior notification , that would be a mistake of the agency, not the media.”

Then again, WNEW acquired the information from a neighbor. “Now if the media outlet got the name through nonofficial police sources and reported it, then that would be rather tacky, to say the least,” the reporter added.

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Hooray for WTOP’s Farley!

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:20:12 +0000

WTOP’s VP of News and Programming, Jim Farley, is this year’s recipient of the Freedom of Speech Award. Farley will be presented with the award at a new media seminar in New York City on June 7, 2012.

TALKERS Magazine, a trade publication, is honoring Farley with the award.

“I am thrilled on behalf of the men and women in the WTOP Newsroom whose hard work is protected by the First Amendment,” said Farley in a release. “They do all the heavy lifting and I get credit for THEIR hard work.”

The Freedom of Speech Award is a non-partisan honor given to those talk media figures whose work demonstrates the First Amendment in action and raises awareness of its principles.

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The Plotkin Thickens

Peter Ogburn — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:26:00 +0000

While many are speculating that Mark Plotkin’s exit from WTOP has something to do with the new all-news station in town, 99.1 WNEW, we are hearing a much different story. We have heard from inside WTOP that the station’s “hand was forced” to terminate Plotkin. WaPo’s Erik Wemple confirmed with WTOP head boss, Jim Farley, that Plotkin was let go by the radio station.

Earlier this month, WTOP ran a story on it’s website reporting on a “screaming match” between D.C. Councilman Kwame Brown and Plotkin. A former colleague of Plotkin’s says that the political analyst’s temper was of major concern. We were told, “the worst kept secret in the building is that Mark has severe anger issues.” Another veteran of Washington D.C. radio reports that Plotkin “has a reputation of being a total motherfucker.” We have heard that Plotkin’s legendary temper dates way back to his days at WAMU where he displayed “major temper issues” and was considered “a loose cannon.”

We wrote Plotkin for comment.

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Plotkin Out at WTOP

Peter Ogburn — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:09:29 +0000

Mark Plotkin and WTOP are parting ways. Jim Farley, Vice President of News and Programming for WTOP, has confirmed to WaPo‘s Erik Wemple that Plotkin is no longer with the station. Farley also confirms that the decision was made by WTOP. Radio journalists around town are already suspecting that 99.1 WNEW, the new all-news station in town, is licking their chops at the opportunity to snatch up Plotkin. One radio executive wondered if he had already been talking to WNEW, which prompted his release from WTOP. FishbowlDC has reached out to Steve Swenson, Senior Vice President and Market Manager for CBS Radio Washington, D.C. for a comment.

Developing…

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Good Morning FishbowlDC Readers

Betsy Rothstein — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:51:09 +0000

Quotes of the Day

Politico has closet Snooki

“I found a Groupon for half off a mystic tan session on the @politico copier recently. It named name. It was amazing.” — Politico‘s Laura McGann to The Atlantic‘s Molly Ball, a former Politico reporter. McGann would not reveal who the tanning fiend is.

Condolences to soon to be Reuters scribe Sam Youngman on the death of his grandfather this week.

Not so sexy

“These little blue pills won’t put hope in your rope. They could make you sick.#viagra #counterfeit #China” — WTOP’s Jim Farley promo-ing an online story about U.S. Customs officials seizing a thousands of shipments of potentially dangerous pills made of rat poison, sheet rock and wall paint. Read here.

From the Dept. of Complaints…

“If you have questions or comments about the work of other journalists you should take it to them.” — ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper.

HuffPost scribe mocks Demi-Ashton breakup

“I’ve just informed the Huffpost DC office that they can leave early if they’re too shaken by the Demi-Ashton news.” — HuffPost‘s Sam Stein.

Journo has special affection for Diane Keaton

“I don’t think it’s possible for me to love someone more than I love Diane Keaton.” — WaPo Style writer Dan Zak.

Realities of White House travel

“I think jetlag is trending in northern territories,” — CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Norah O’Donnell to ABC News’s Tapper. The White House scribes were in Bali Thursday.

Belated Happy Birthday wishes for Washingtonian’s Harry Jaffe. His birthday was Thursday.

“On the #NRCruise, I have to write my Tweets out longhand and attach them to carrier pidgeons, where they fly to Twitter-equipped buoys.” — National Review Online‘s Jim Geraghty, who apparently would rather be anywhere else. “One of the highlights of this #NRCruise: Missing last night’s Jets game. Urgh.”

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WTOP’s Farley Joins APME

Matt Dornic — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:51:13 +0000

Jim Farley, VP of news and programming for WTOP, has become the first broadcaster to join Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) since its founding in 1933. The news radio vet has also been nominated to the APME board of directors.

Farley joined WTOP in 1996 after eight years with ABC News in New York as managing editor and general manager of programming for the ABC Radio Networks. Prior to that role, he spent 13 years with NBC News (radio and television) and was the last NBC News vice president of Radio News before NBC sold their radio networks in 1987. He began his career at all-news WINS in New York City in 1966 as a copy boy.

For more info about APME, visit www.apme.com. Congrats to Farley!

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WTOP Reels in Slew of Awards

Betsy Rothstein — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:25:23 +0000

WTOP received five awards over the weekend by the Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters, including the best website award for wtop.com. During a Saturday luncheon, the station received four top level awards in the Superior class and one Meritorious Award.

WTOP’s National Security Correspondent J.J. Green was honored with the Douglas Southall Freeman Award for Public Service through Journalism for his series titled “Dignity Denied.” Political Analyst Mark Plotkin was recognized for his editorial work with the “Mark Plotkin Commentary.” Reporter Brennan Haselton was awarded best in the Feature/Human Interest category for “Whiskey! Huzzah!” and Michelle Basch in the same category for “Jailhouse Rock!.”

Jim Farley, V.P. of News and Programming, said in a release: “The entire newsroom works incredibly hard and they work amazingly well together. It’s great to see them get the recognition from their peers.”

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WTOP Blasts Fox 5 for No Attribution

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:31:51 +0000

It happens all too often. Sometimes unintentional, sometimes not. Either way, a publication or TV network gets its paws all over your work as if it was their own and doesn’t credit you. In other words, theft.

In a letter to WTTG Fox 5′s V.P. and News Director Phil Metlin this morning with the subject line “Requesting a professional courtesy”, WTOP’s V.P. of News and Programming Jim Farley accused the network of running news reported by WTOP without attribution. The story was by WTOP’s Mark Segraves, who reported that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty sought an endorsement from President Obama.

Asked how he knew for certain that Fox 5 had stolen the interview, Farley replied:

A) The Fox reporter admitted it when Mark Segraves called him and confronted him with stealing his story without credit.
B) Fenty aides confirmed to Mark the Mayor talked to no other reporter on the topic.

Read the letter from Farley to Metlin after the jump…

We’ve requested comment from Metlin. He did not immediately reply to our request. So far, Metlin has not replied to Farley, nor has there been bounce-back that shows Metlin is on vacation.

continued…

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Even in Dog Days, WTOP Strikes its Rich

Betsy Rothstein — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:46:45 +0000

WTOP scored high in Arbitron ratings for July. The station’s V.P. of News and Programming Jim Farley sent a congratulatory note to employees. “It feels great,” he told FishbowlDC. “WTOP has become a reliable utility for news, traffic and weather on the radio, online, in mobile apps, e-mail and text alerts. In fact, rather than a radio station, we see ourselves as a digital news organization.”

The internal memo:

It’s Summer…schools are closed, teachers and school bus drivers are off the road…people are on vacation…traffic is lighter…but WTOP still managed to win July both 12+ and 25-54.

12+ # 1 in every daypart, and 7th straight month with a double digit full week (10.9)

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WaPo Flushes WTOP Info Down Toilet: ‘Ma’am We Have Our Own Reporters’

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:32:52 +0000

A water main break with toilet flushing restrictions is no small thing. But it appears a newspaper correction on water restrictions is a humongous undertaking for WaPo, especially when a journo from another outlet phones it in. When a WTOP editor told WaPo of a Saturday error (one that could affect many people), a WaPo employee on the Metro desk reportedly replied, “We have reporters.” WTOP’s V.P. of News and Programming Jim Farley remarked, “Can you spell a-r-r-o-g-ant?”

The backstory: On Saturday, WaPo reported that the city of Rockville had lifted water restrictions. But that was wrong – it hadn’t. WTOP’s Assistant Editor Kit Rockhill noticed the error, and as WTOP puts it, a professional courtesy, called WaPo‘s metro desk.

Rockhill wrote an e-mail to her boss, Farley, telling her version of what had happened. With the subject line, “Washington Post Rudeness,” Rockhill wrote:

“We got a breaking news alert from the Post saying the water restrictions were lifted in Rockville and citing a police dispatcher. Amy called both Rockville’s Public Works PIO and the City Government’s PIO (Craig Simoneau and Shannon Lumis respectively) and they both said it was not true that restrictions were still in place.

“We decided to call the Post and tell them so they could issue a retraction. I called the Post, asked for the Metro section. A woman answered and transferred me to someone (name sounded like Robert but didn’t quite catch it.) I explained I was with WTOP and wanted to have him talk to our reporter who confirmed restrictions were not lifted. I was told direct quote “We have reporters here ma’am.” I said I understand but…then I was cut off and told again direct quote “We have reporters here ma’am we don’t need to talk to your reporter.” It was all said in a very condescending and frankly quite rude voice and then he hung up.”

Farley told FishbowlDC: “The main motto of the WTOP Newsroom is “First get it right…THEN get it first.” FishbowlDC has requested comment from WaPo and we’ll bring it to you when and if we get it.

WaPo ultimately settled on this correction approximately 30 minutes after WTOP called…

continued…

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WTOP Wins Four Murrows

Betsy Rothstein — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:08:02 +0000

The National Edward R. Murrow Awards are being announced today.

For the second year in a row, WTOP wins more than any other radio station with four awards. In the “Major Market” radio category, no other station won more than one national award. WJLA ABC 7 was the only TV winner in Washington. WBAL Radio also won a national Murrow award.

Jim Farley, WTOP’s VP of News had this to say: “This is a tribute to (WTOP) News Director Mike McMearty and a newsroom full of hard-charging, competitive people. Any reports on the demise of Radio Journalism are entirely premature.”

Congratulations to WTOP, WBAL, and WJLA.

> Update: NPR has won four Edward R. Murrow in the category of networks. (FYI: WTOP competes locally.) The awards for NPR recognize NPR.org; NPR’s news and talk show Tell Me More, on its weekly commentary series, “Can I Just Tell You?”; sports reporting for the series “Friday Night Lives”; and news coverage of the bombing of a U.S. Stryker vehicle in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.

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McConnell Celebrates 45 Years at WTOP

Betsy Rothstein — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:14:24 +0000

Capitol Hill radio correspondent Dave McConnell is an icon around the hill. If anything is going on, he’s always in the gaggle.

This month McConnell celebrates a whopping 45 years at the WTOP. He came to the station in 1965 and became the full-time Capitol Hill correspondent in 1981.

But don’t expect a party – not because they don’t want to give him one, but because he doesn’t want the fanfare. “He is really quite self-effacing,” said Jim Farley, McConnell’s boss and V.P. of News and Programming at WTOP.

McConnell, who won’t reveal his age but says he’s “old enough to collect Social Security,” says Capitol Hill still entrances him. “Once you think you’ve done everything you can do, something new happens, the so-called underpants bomber, then the upturns in politics, the Harry Reid incident,” he said in a phone interview.

McConnell has zero plans to retire. “As long as I have a seat covering the greatest show on earth, and can witness history being made, I’m going to keep on reporting,” he said. “I get to cover statesmen, scalawags, gentlemen (and gentlewomen) and scoundrels, issues, drama and histrionics.”

His favorites are many. “People who stand out in my mind, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy who I covered and did know personally as a reporter. [Another] on the Republican side would be John McCain. You would certainly think of him. Sen. Robert Byrd — the venerable Sen. Byrd. He has, frankly, such a unique character. … He’s our bridge to the past up here and I mean that in a positive sense.”

So how will he celebrate this monumental occasion? “I will celebrate like I always do by getting up early, working my sources, going to news conferences, going to floor debate, and just keep doing my job,” he said.

McConnell’s anniversary date is January 18.

He is heard weekdays in the morning and afternoon drive times on WTOP on 103.5 FM in the metro, 103.9 FM in Frederick, and 107.7 FM in Virginia and worldwide on wtop.com.

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WTOP’s Jim Farley Calls WaPo‘s Bluff

Matt Dornic — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:30:41 +0000

The “Special Section” of WaPo‘s print edition today, says that “nearly three times as many Washingtonians age 25-54 read the Post each week than listen to WTOP, the largest audience station.”

WTOP VP of News Jim Farley says that’s “bogus.” Farley tells FishbowlDC that there is “no source for that wildly inaccurate claim and that 659,600 people 25-54 listen to WTOP each week, more than the entire circulation of the newspaper.”

Nearly 1.5 million individual listeners of all ages listen to WTOP weekly (Source-Arbitron).

Farley says he can’t understand why WaPo would engage in “a pissing match with WTOP using an unsourced claim that can be checked.”

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