Fox News’ Wendell Goler, CBS’ Chip Reid, ABC’s Jake Tapper and NBC’s Chuck Todd get ready to go on-air just before the President’s prime-time presser last night. Photo by Christina Bellantoni.

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FBDC would like to welcome Kenny Day to the bowl! Kenny’s been an occasional guest blogger, but is ready to take the plunge. Welcome him with a scoop, tip or just a hello here.

Happy Birthday to BBC’s Andrew Jones! What we know and what we’re reading this Thursday morning…

NEWSPAPERS | TV | MAGAZINES | WEST WING REPORTAGE | REVOLVING DOOR | JOBS

NEWSPAPERS

AP: The New York Times Co. said Thursday its second-quarter profit climbed nearly 85 percent, as it cut costs aggressively to deal with a worsening decline in advertising. Its stock jumped in premarket trading.

Things got a little tense at a Metro press conference yesterday when Metro’s general manager had some criticism of WaPo‘s coverage. Get the scoop from WUSA here.

TV

Who is America’s most trusted newscasted? Brian Williams? No. Charlie Gibson? No. Katie Couric? No. According to a Time poll, it is actually Jon Stewart.

“Birthers” are back in the news. TVNewser: CNN is separating itself from the radio commentary of one of its lead hosts, Lou Dobbs, who seemed to support the validity of thinking President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. A CNN spokesperson says: “On CNN, Lou is an independent reporter who covers stories that people are talking about.”

More on how cable’s been covering this story on TVNewser.

And The Daily Show‘s take on birthers- Stewart to Dobbs, “Do you even watch CNN?”

CNN’s “Black in America 2″ went live in Times Square last evening.

MAGAZINES

Time’s cover story is a special report, “The Final Days of Bush and Cheney.”

WEST WING REPORTAGE

Politico‘s Playbook fills us in on what White House spokesman Reid Cherlin got for his birthday- “Burton serenaded him with the Stevie Wonder version of ‘Happy Birthday’… Pfeiffer shined his shoes… Nick Shapiro added two of Reid’s fave movies to his Netflix queue. We made great progress on health care reform.”

HAT TIPS: mediabistro, TVNewser, Politico

REVOLVING DOOR and JOBS after the jump…

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Herding Congress: On the eve of POTUS’s fourth prime-time news conference, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had no trouble keeping health care in the spotlight in his daily briefing. Reporters pointed out that tomorrow’s event would make the tenth in 10 days designed to push the WH message in the ongoing debate, and RG reiterated the August deadline while adding that POTUS wants to ensure he signs a bill by the end of the 2009 legislative session. “A lot doesn’t tend to happen
in this town without some poking and some prodding,” he said of the WH-imposed benchmarks.

Technical Difficulties: In perhaps the most newsworthy part of today’s briefing, a corrupted overhead speaker let out a good deal of distracting static, prompting more than a couple jokes from the podium. After Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton went backstage to check things out with no luck, he blamed colleague Reid Cherlin: “It’s Reid’s hair dryer.” (Seriously. Slow. Day.)

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