Election ’08 - FishbowlNY

Obama-Spidey Comic Heads to Third Printing

Noah Davis — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:04:01 +0000

This President-elect Barack Obama-Spiderman comic book thing is getting out of control. First, a midtown store hires a bouncer to keep the masses at bay and now its going back for a third printing.

“To meet the unprecedented demand, Marvel is going back to press with Amazing Spider-Man #583 Third Printing Obama Variant,” the comany announced in a press release, less than 24 hours after the book started selling.

Those lucky enough to get first editions could make a killing. They are going for almost $100 on eBay.)

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Obama/Spidey Comic Forces Midtown Store to Hire Bouncer

Noah Davis — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:13:49 +0000

We’ve been bringing you news of the Spiderman/Barack Obama comic for a week now and our tipster just wrote in with another update:

I just went down to Midtown for my weekly comics fix, and (I kid you not) there is a nightclub-like bouncer at the door and block-long line of (mostly) guys waiting to get inside that stretches from 40th and 7th to 40th and 8th. Evidently the store is only letting so many people in at once, even if you’re not buying the Obama issue. “I recommend coming back this afternoon,” said the bouncer at the door. Why this afternoon? My guess: because by then, the Obama issue will be totally sold out.

The President-elect is saving more than Time.

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Spidey-Obama Comic Flying Off Shelves

Noah Davis — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:30:14 +0000

Remember that Spider-Man/Obama comic we told you about yesterday? Well apparently it’s quite popular, at least in one location in Manhattan:

As of 11:30 this morning, Midtown Comics’ 40th street store was getting an average of 1 call every 4 minutes about the Obama Spider-Man issue. Most requests asked for multiple-copy reservations (reply: sorry, only one per customer), and at least one caller was willing to pay $20 a copy to reserve 40 copies of the issue.

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Obama Teams Up With Spiderman

Noah Davis — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:23:41 +0000

President-elect Barack Obama has graced the cover of tons of magazines and nearly every newspaper ever (saving the industry in the process).

Now he’s teaming up with another superhero to save the world. In Spidey Meets the President — a new insert from Marvel Comics that will be included in the Amazing Spider-Man #583 — the prez and the web slinger team up on Inauguration Day to fight an unnamed villain.

“When we heard that President-Elect Obama is a collector of Spider-Man comics, we knew that these two historic figures had to meet in our comics’ Marvel Universe,” Marvel’s editor-in-chief Joe Quesada said in a statement.

So to review, Obama wants to install a basketball court in the White House, plays fantasy football while prepping for a debate, and reads Spider-man. The world just might be safe.

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Sarah Palin: ‘I Was Not Allowed to Do Very Many Interviews’

Noah Davis — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:44:19 +0000

What was former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin‘s biggest regret from the 2008 campaign? Not having an opportunity to speak to the media more:

“I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I did were not necessarily those I would have chosen. But I was so thankful to have the opportunity to run with John McCain that I was not going to argue with the strategy decisions that some of his people were making regarding the media contacts. But if I would have been in charge, I would have wanted to speak to more reporters because thatâ€™s how you get your message out to the electorate.”

The potential 2012 presidential candidate also said “The biggest mistake made was… the opportunities that were not seized to speak to more Americans via media.”

Because that interview with Katie Couric and The New Yorker went so well…

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The More Things Change, Etc.: Obama Emulated Bush Press Tactics

Glynnis — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:16:48 +0000

Over at Politico Michael Calderone got his hands on an advance copy of this Sunday’s NYT Magazine which features a profile of Barack Obama‘s incoming press secretary Robert Gibbs by Mark Leibovich. The piece also talks about the campaign’s four letter word strategy when it came to the press: Bush. It’s not new news that more than once over the campaign season journalists commented and complained about the Obama camp’s strict press access and control over his message, so perhaps this excerpt pulled by Calderone shouldn’t come as a total surprise.

continued…

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John McCain on The Tonight Show: ‘I’ve Been Sleeping Like a Baby…’

Glynnis — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:07:30 +0000

“…Sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours, wake up and cry.”

*Part two after the jump.

continued…

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Election ’08: Even in Hindsight the Media Loved Obama More

Glynnis — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:43:47 +0000

The Monday morning election quarterbacking continues. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to hear that, according to those who write about such things, the media did not perform well. Over at the Washington Post the resident ombudsman Deborah Howell says that despite all its good coverage the paper came up short.

The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts’ views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues.

Also? Howell thinks WaPo was a little too much in the tank for Obama.

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13…Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic.

Top McCain campaign adviser Mark Salter couldn’t agree more!

continued…

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Covering President-Elect Barack Obama

Glynnis — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:29:50 +0000

And this ain’t even the half of it. Seriously.

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Jon Stewart: ‘Let Me Guess After the Iraq War is Over You Got a Great Story for Us’

Glynnis — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:59:11 +0000

So! Not surprisingly, now that the election is over, all the behind-the-scenes dirty laundry is being aired. And by dirty laundry we really mean, how Sarah Palin is solely responsible for ruining John McCain‘s bid for the presidency (watch Campbell Brown‘s excellent take/rant on this after the jump). The other day we directed your attention to Newsweek‘s much talked-about post-election story about Palin’s heretofore unreported behavior, and just yesterday Carl Cameron went on Fox News and said “I wish I could have told you back at the time, but all of it was put off-the-record.” Fair enough. But does observing the off-the-record rule excuse the entirely uncritical nature of the reports that came out about Palin for the better part of the two months she was on the ticket? Andrew Sullivan emphatically disagrees:

But actual reporters were soon finding [Palin's failings] out for themselves – and not even conveying the gist of that to their viewers and readers…They kept taking Palin seriously as a veep candidate when she didn’t come close to even minimal standards for passing a citizenship test. I’m sorry but I think this is a terrible failing, and it is a reason the mainstream media are imploding. They let the rules of the game over-rule their duty to tell the American people the truth as they began to discover it.

continued…

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The Barack Obama Election Windfall Continues Online and in Print

Glynnis — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:00:06 +0000

Turns out President-Elect Obama isn’t just selling newspapers he’s selling magazines and websites, too! The New York Post is reporting that Time and Newsweek, both of whom rushed election issues to the newsstands following Obama’s win on Tuesday, are selling out in metropolitan markets and are in the process of printing extra copies.

By late yesterday, Time, which published more than 100,000 extra copies, had already gone back to press, while Newsweek, which also added 100,000 to its print run, was very close to doing the same.

Meanwhile, on the Internets the Web experienced its highest traffic volume ever (ever is currently defined as the last three years, which is when the measuring of online traffic began). According to the Times “8.5 million visitors per minute clicked onto news Web sites worldwide from 11 p.m. to midnight…Several online news sites, including those produced by MSNBC, CNN and ABC News, said that Tuesday ranked as their most-visited day ever.” For some sites including the NYT.com and Washingtonpost.com traffic continued to surge post-election with both sites setting all time traffic records on Wednesday.

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Report: Obama Taps Robert Gibbs For Press Secretary

Glynnis — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:49:42 +0000

That was fast! Partly in an effort keep from replicating Bill Clinton‘s troubled transition and partly because the world the Obama administration is going to encounter in January is such a mess, the President-Elect’s team is wasting no time! Yesterday news broke that Rahm Emmanuel (Raaaaahm in certain circles) had been offered the chief of staff position, and today comes word that Robert Gibbs has been tapped for the position of press secretary. Per Politico:

Gibbs was usually the senior official on Air Obama, the campaign plane. As communications director of Obama’s Senate office, Gibbs was a key strategist in Obama’s rapid move to the national stage…The announcement is likely to be viewed favorably by reporters because Gibbs has unquestioned authority, access and institutional memory.

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Jon Stewart on the Election: ‘Oh Bush Impression, I’ll Miss You the Most’

Glynnis — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:52:39 +0000

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Election Night ’08: Party Lines

Glynnis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:22:17 +0000

You don’t need us to tell you that last night was a night for celebration! Parties abounded across the city. While FBNY was twittering the night away at the CNN Grill, a number of other media types stuck to Will Leitch‘s apartment in Brooklyn. By all accounts we missed a good time at HuffPo’s big 23/6 bash (pictured NYO‘s Matt Haber and Portfolio‘s Jeff Bercovici). And for a sense of the scene on the streets check this out.

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Election Night ’08: The Speeches

Glynnis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:54:51 +0000

On the very, very, very off chance that you were say, kidnapped by aliens last night and missed this here is Barack Obama‘s victory speech. John McCain‘s enormously graceful one follows after the jump.

continued…

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