Where we watch MSNBC’s The Cycle and Fox News’ The Five so you don’t have to…

Author Kurt Eichenwald appeared on several news programs Tuesday to discuss a much-talked about column he wrote for that morning’s NYT. In the op-ed, Eichenwald reported that he had seen classified White House briefs that suggest the Bush administration was negligent in preventing the 9/11 attacks.

As a guest on MSNBC’s The Cycle, Eichenwald told viewers that stories published by NYT and not written by the pub’s own journalists are, by default, placed on the op-ed page or in the NYT magazine. But that’s not so, says NYT‘s communications department.

On The Cycle, co-host Steve Kornacki asked Eichenwald why a story with this kind of information, would be published on the op-ed page rather than in the news section. “Because I don’t work there,” Eichenwald said with a smile. “I used to work at the New York Times and if you are somebody outside of the building, you write for the op-ed page or the magazine. … That’s the way it works.”

Eileen Murphy, VP of Corporate Communications at NYT told FishbowlDC by email that Eichenwald was wrong. “I’m not sure what he said on MSNBC, but if it’s exactly as you suggest … that is not correct,” she said. “People who do not work for the Times do write frequently in the news sections, as freelancers.” Murphy added, “However, we also run reported Op-Eds all the time.  And that is what Mr. Eichenwald’s piece was.”

Eichenwald’s publicist told us that he was mistaken on the policy. “He thought that was the case, so he submitted it as an Op-Ed,” she said.

News broke a little over a week ago that MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan would be leaving the network, opening up the 3 p.m. time slot for a new host.

Politico‘s media reporter Dylan Byers reported that several personalities would be rotated through the slot starting June 25 before one is picked to fulfill it permanently. Included among the potential hosts: Salon‘s Steve Kornacki, MSNBC and GBTV contributor S.E. Cupp, WaPo‘s Ezra Klein, former Democratic congressional candidate Krystal Ball and author Toure.

Assuming all of these guys will be giving a go at hosting, who will probably work out best? Take our Fish Poll. We’ll run the results tomorrow.

Washington media weren’t about to let one of the week’s biggest non-Washington stories steal their spotlight this past week. Instead, they got busy conjuring up ways to write about Penn State Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky—some with more success than others.

POLITICO

• David Catanese and Alex Isenstadt led the site Friday morning with a story about how the Penn State “scandal”* has not only consumed Pennsylvania Politics, but is some kind of monster with a million tentacles that could eat the whole world, or something. Seriously, no one’s safe: not White House spokesman Jay Carney, not presidential-candidate (and a former Pa. Senator) Rick Santorum… not Justin Bieber, we’re sure.

• CLICK decided to stay above this whole hornets nest. They brought us, in the words of Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris, a “nugget” in which we learn that Ed Rendell, the former Pa. governor, likes his Santa Clauses rotund—not scrawny—and in clean suits—not dirty ones—, thank you. Who needs a sordid sex scandal* when you can revive a six, seven-year-old story to grab all that SEO traffic? This one, at least, was squarely sourced to WYNC’s Freakonomics Radio.

THE HILL

• Daniel Strauss tried, valiantly, to make the story relevant with an item saying that Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey (D) and Pat Toomey (R) withdrew their support for a Congressional Medal of Freedom for fired-coach Joe Paterno. What that means is a mystery because the pub never found out more about it. (Politico was more helpful, noting Rep. Glenn Thompson — the one who actually nominated Paterno — won’t say if he plans to withdraw the actual nomination). On the plus side, Strauss didn’t use the term “sex scandal”* once.

SALON.COM

• Writing at the The War Room blog, former Roll Call writer and now Salon.com News Editor Steve Kornacki told us helpfully that Paterno and Sandusky are both Republicans. We get his point. He was trying, we think, to say how linking a person’s bad behavior with their political affiliation is pretty stupid (he compares it to Rush Limbaugh pointing out that the Times Square bomber was a Dem) but the message was lost and Kornacki had to update the post—twice—and spell it out, saying “any suggestion that Republican politics had anything to do with the awful case at Penn State” is absurd. Glad we got that cleared up.

*No matter the details, sex and powerful people always adds up to sex scandal D.C.  press, no matter that we’re talking about the sexual abuse of children, and not a cheating Congressman.

– JUSTIN MCLACHLAN