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House of Cards, Jerry Seinfeld Top Webby Awards (HuffPost / AP)
Netflix’s groundbreaking House of Cards may be the first digital series nominated for a best drama Emmy. But it will start with a Webby. The Webby Awards are honoring House of Cards producers Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti with a Webby special achievement award. The Wrap / Media Alley R&B artist Frank Ocean was named the Webby Person of the Year for proving the power of the Web as a medium for cultural change by publishing his coming-out letter on his Tumblr. The Webby Breakout of the Year award went to the Obama administration for its America 2012 campaign for its tech team’s Internet-savvy effort to reelect President Obama. The Webby Awards The star-studded ceremony will be available to view on-demand in HD at watch.webbyawards.com beginning at 9 a.m. ET on May 22, 2013. This year’s ceremony will be hosted by critically acclaimed stand-up comedian, writer and actor Patton Oswalt.

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What’s it like being the “token Conservative” on that raucous Friday free-for-all known as HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher? After last week’s show, San Diego radio host and columnist Roger Hedgecock has shared his experience.

Hedgecock was joined on the panel by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and TIME magazine reporter Rana Foroohar. Anyone with right leanings who agrees to do Maher’s program is to be commended, and this latest brave soul admits he knew what he was in for. But he still takes Matthews to task:

“I didn’t expect Matthews to falsely claim that President Obama inherited unemployment over 10%. Unemployment in January 2009 was actually 7.8% and has not been that low since. Then Matthews really lost it, bellowing you people are just racists who hated Obama from the first day. I haven’t heard the “you people” phrase since Ross Perot used it in front of an African-American audience in 1992.”

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Watching yesterday from the second floor Culver City control room as The Young Turks’ tireless host Cenk Uygur conducted a split-screen interview about – what else – contentious DC politics, FishbowlLA marveled at the talent everyone there talks about. His ability to do an entire, fast-paced current affairs program without benefit of a teleprompter.

“I’ve worked over the years with Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, Chris Matthews…” raved senior producer Roland Woerner. “I’ve never seen anyone with the ability to do a program like this without a teleprompter.”

The same goes for Uygur’s control-room brain trust. When a host and program run off a teleprompter, all sorts of cues can be “tagged in,” to help coordinate when to throw to a graphic, guest, specific camera shot and so on. With Uygur, there is no such safety net; the resulting flow, presided over with a masterful, arms-wide touch by director Genji Keen, is infectious. TYT’s ultra-modern and even-tempered operation is the kind of 21st century outlet many unemployed journalists would kill to be able to work for.

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From the outset of the Rush Limbaugh controversy, more than a few members of the public have tweeted about what they perceive to be an egregious double standard. While the conservative talk show host is going down in flames, equally culpable folks perched at the other end of the TV-radio spectrum like Bill Maher get less overall flack. (Maher appears to have learned a thing or two from his Politically Incorrect ABC days by moving to a network with no advertisers.)

Over the weekend, Daily Beast columnist (and Fox News analyst) Kirsten Powers (pictured) picked up this strand with a vengeance. Starting with a rip-roaring first two paragraphs:

Did you know there is a war on women?

Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened.

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On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night Chelsea Handler interrupted, “Could you talk faster please?” .

“You know, my dear,” Chris Matthews said. “You’re beautiful, but if you concentrate you can keep up.”

We saw NBC’s David Gregory, CNN’s John King – we also heard a rumor that promoter Don King was around. Former Howard Dean campaign manager, political consultant Joe Trippi was there, as well as Michael Calderone from Politico and Chris Matthews from…well we actually don’t know where Chris is from. Are there others where he comes from? Shudder.

Anyway, above is The Nation‘s Christopher Hayes who when running into us again said, “You’re the one that put me on the Internet.” So since he clearly has a Google Alert set up for himself – we couldn’t help but do it again. Hi Chris! Ahem..stalker.

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On the Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart swiped at ‘foot soldiers’ Bill O’Reilly and Chris Matthews. “You’re going to need a freakishly oversized, ruddy-faced Irish multi-millionaire still clinging to his blue collar roots – and it helps if he’s quick to anger.” said Stewart.

Check and mate.

The final event of the first day was “Insights and Analysis: Leading National Political Reporters Discuss the Campaign” panel. And yes, all panel’s names were also long descriptions. It was, after all “ELECTION 2008: Obama vs. McCain: What Happened and What Comes Next?” conference that we will call EOVMWHAWCNCon for short.

You can watch all the panels here.

The final panel had Mark Halperin of Time, John Heilemann of New York Magazine, Mark Barabak or LAT, Mike Allen, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei all of Politico.

During the Q&A the question was floated who would be the next Tim Russert. Who will be the next television journalist to vet future candidates?

Mike Allen said the names John King of CNN, Gwen Ifill and Chuck Todd. John Harris offered up Chris Matthews. Then Mike Allen noted that NY Observer had also mentioned John Harris as a possible replacement.

Jeremy Bronson (no relation to Charles, we think) used to wake up every morning trying to make sure “Hardball” host Chris Matthews coffee cup was filled — metaphorically and perhaps literally — in Washington.

Now, Harvard alum Bronson has moved to the West Coast and he’s become that cup of coffee, working full-time as a writer for “Chocolate News,” the new Comedy Central show starring “In Living Color” alum David Alan Grier.

The show is sort of a parody of a Sixty Minutes or Dateline with a cast of black hosts and one token white.

FBLA guesses there’s justice in Hollywood after all. Even if it’s coming from Harvard.

Who’s Her Daddy? Britney Spears’ father, James Spears, and her attorney John Eardley are fighting over who has the right to control her “finances and life” while the pop star’s estate is in conservatorship. If we were either one of these guys, we’d quietly step aside and let the other schmuck get the job. Sure, there’s a lot of money at stake, but at the end of the day, do you want to be the guy labeled as “responsible” for the train-wreck that is Britney Spears?

Grand Theft Merger 2: It looks as though Take-Two will have to accept EA’s bid and declare Game Over. Alex Pham asks whether this is a sign of the end for mid-size video game companies. Hit “X,” “Y” “A” and “D” for your answer. Or just read to the end of the story.

Snide Men Of News: Reporter Matea Gold takes a hardball look at Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.