Brenda Starr, 2008 Edition

October 31, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, Internet, Media, News media | Leave a Comment 

Ana Marie Cox is a journalist in Washington who first gained notice in 2004 when Nick Denton, the Englishman who oversees the Gawker.com family of blogs, hired her to write the politically-themed Wonkette.com.  After two years offering her sassy style of reporting to innumerable readers online, she moved on to co-write Time.com’s “Swampland” blog.  This work was initially full-time but earlier this year Time recontracted with Cox on a strictly freelance basis, so she joined Maer Roshan’s magazine Radar as Washington correspondent.

Radar, a magazine founded in 2003 (with funding from friends and family of Roshan, formerly of Tina Brown’s Talk) died after two issues that year, was revived in 2005 with backing from Mort Zuckerman, died again after three issues, and, in 2007, was relaunched yet again with funding from Jesse Jackson’s son Yusef and (reportedly) supermarket mogul/Clinton crony Ron Burkle.  In this incarnation Radar lasted, very remarkably in an increasingly unfavorable climate for print media of any kind, for a year and a half as a bimonthly, although the magazine’s website attracted more comment than what appeared on paper.  Cox’s articles and posts at both the magazine and site kept her in the public eye; last week she appeared on Larry King Live.

And, last Friday, Radar abruptly gave up the ghost; its backers dismissed the staff and sold the name to American Media, publishers of the Star and various other magazines, which promptly remade the Radar.com site as an imitator of TMZ.com.  Cox, who had been planning an article for the magazine about the last days of Sen. John McCain’s campaign, was left with a wish to cover the story for whoever would buy such an article, but no way to pay her expenses and no time to pitch to an editor.

Presumably inspired by the example of Sen. Barack Obama’s and Sen. Howard Dean’s online fundraising, she hit upon the idea of appealing to her readers in cyberspace, via her personal blog (and its PayPal feature), to send her whatever they felt like contributing to help her cover the last of the campaign, specifying that her expenses would come to $1000 for each of four days and $1500 for Election Day.

Her appeal was posted on Saturday morning.  Within 24 hours she reported receiving $2000 in contributions, and by Tuesday morning she said she had gotten $7000, enough to secure a seat in Gov. Sarah Palin’s press section and go back on the road.  Today she is to board McCain’s plane and finish covering the race for the Washington Independent.

What do Cox’s readers who contributed receive in return? Well, for a $1000 contribution she promises a one-on-one dinner and in-depth postmortem of the campaign; for $500, a phone call from McCain HQ on election night; for $250, an MP3 of her asking a “senior McCain staffer” the question of one’s choice and the reply; and so on down to a thank-you email for a ten-dollar contribution.  (However, today she asked permission to add $10 contributors to her Facebook page instead of emailing them.)

Time will tell if other journalists, left out in the cold by abrupt magazine closures (and they’re going under left and right now), will attempt similar strategies to keep going.  But anyway, it’s another indication that media is entering a whole different era.

Featured Articles — October 16, 2008

October 16, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under History, Internet | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Obama Hasn’t Closed the Sale By Karl Rove
Both candidates continue to tinker with their strategies.

McCain fails, Obama is not rattled By Roger Simon
Debates should not be confused with trips to Lourdes: Few miracles are dispensed.

A Gift on Hallowed Ground By George Will
In 1863, eleven major roads converged on this town. Which is why history did, too.

The freedom of historical debate is under attack by the memory police By Timothy Garton Ash Well-intentioned laws that prescribe how we remember terrible events are foolish, unworkable and counter-productive.

Beware an October surprise from bin Laden By Joseph Nye
Americans are transfixed by the aftermath of the September surprise in financial markets. Could there be a very different surprise coming in October?

Searching for the Antidote to Ahmadinejad By Dieter Bednarz
In Tehran, reformers and conservatives are preparing to fight for the Iranian presidency in 2009. The opposition is pinning its hopes, once again, on former President Mohammad Khatami. But will he run?

Mac’s Shot at a Late-Game Win By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
The short term impact of the third debate will be to help Barack Obama. But the long term implications may give John McCain a needed boost. Obama looked good, but McCain opened the tax-and-spend issue in a way that might prevail.

The Financial Crisis Is McCain’s Katrina By Daniel Henninger
If John McCain fails in the next 19 days to catch Barack Obama, his slow response to the financial hurricane of 2008 will be Exhibit A.

Courting the religious right Father Raymond J. De Souza
With the final presidential debate over, it now appears that Senator Barack Obama will simply run out the clock on Senator John McCain and win the presidential election. His appearance tonight here at the Al Smith Dinner may indicate how he intends to handle conservative religious voters in consolidating his support.

Joe the plumber is real hero of the debate By Anne Barrowclough
They clashed on the economy and scored points off each other on negative campaigning.

Endorsements

October 14, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008, Internet, Media, News media | Leave a Comment 

With typical decisiveness and style, Christopher Hitchens pinned his colors to the Obama mast on yesterday’s Huffington Post.

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that “issue” I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the “experience” is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke.

And Christopher Buckley, whose enlistment in (or defection to, depending on how you look at it) the Obama ranks was noted here recently, has now parted company with National Review in a piece on The Daily Beast that was originally headlined “Sorry, Dad, I Was Fired” before that was changed to “Buckley Bows Out of National Review“.

The circumstances of that split have stirred some controversy.  Mr. Buckley, more in sorrow than in anger (but with at least a hint anger in his tone) wrote that his decision was precipitated by the several hundred hate-filled emails his decision elicited.  

NR Editor Rich Lowry’s account is more measured.  He says that there were only about 100 unhappy emails and that Mr. Buckley’s association —he recently started writing a column to fill in for Mark Steyn who was on hiatus— was essentially a part time gig that ran its course.

 

The POTUS And The Puter

October 11, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, Internet, Lifestyle, Technology | Leave a Comment 

James Rosen —Fox News’ Washington correspondent and John Mitchell biographer— wrote an interesting op-ed for Thursday’s USA Today  —“Need A Tech Savvy President?”—in which he considered whether computer proficiency has become a criterion for being elected POTUS.

Historically, Democrats prefer exceptionalism in their leaders, Republicans populism.  JFK, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and Obama, though all products of the old-fashioned political “machines” in their states, have presented themselves as cutting-edge types, solicitous of new technologies. Even the down-home LBJ, surveying his Texas-sized mistakes in Vietnam, navigated three TV sets at once.

By contrast, Republican leaders Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bush 41 and W. —  all thoughtful men frequently underestimated by their opponents — have willfully cultivated anti-intellectual, Luddite personas. At times, of course, artifice give way to reality: Nixon’s mechanical abilities were so deficient he reportedly had difficulty opening the boxes of cuff links he presented to Oval Office visitors (and thus could be forgiven for forgetting that his voice-activated taping machines were running even at moments when he later wished they hadn’t been).

Ultimately, the numbers could be on McCain’s side, even if the zeroes and ones are not. Census figures show that 64% of American voters cast ballots but that 72% of senior citizens do — and only a quarter of them use the Internet. 

HuffPo Preaches To Katie’s Choir

October 3, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Internet, News media, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

“Huffington Post” headlines that Gov. Palin found CBS News anchor Katie Couric annoying. I’m trying to figure out the semiotics of this. The purpose of an HP headline is to advance Sen. Obama’s interests. So is the idea that undecided voters will be offended on Couric’s behalf? Not much potential there. Since only about six million people watch her newscast (compared to 70 million who tuned in to see Palin and Sen. Biden last night), that means that 299 million Americans are at best indifferent to Katie Couric. Or does HP think Palin looks bad to undecided voters by complaining about a journalist who is thought to have bested her?

Actually, I doubt that many undecided voters visit HP — just people who agree with HP already and so enjoy laughing up their sleeves at Sarah Palin. That’s the new media for you. Thank goodness for the New York Times.

Are You Gonna Believe Your Lying Eyes?

September 4, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Internet, News media, Technology | Leave a Comment 

 

 

 

 

The three photographs above all achieved widespread distribution in print and, especially, on the internet. They also have something else in common.  Is it:

(a) they are all in color,

(b) they all involve politics,

(c) they are all stone phonies?

The answer, of course, is (b).

Just kidding.  If you guessed (c) you’re a winner — and you can see seventeen other examples of creative photoshopping in a Telegraph (London) feature on ”Doctored photos: 20 memorable picture fakes”.

President Bush’s book was rightside up before the photoshoppers went to work.

John Kerry and Jane Fonda have been pictured sharing the same platform separated by several feet, but they never achieved this kind of propinquity with any cameras present.

And any doubts about the shark attack under the Golden Gate Bridge, should be dispelled by the following:

 

 

Going Too Far

August 31, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Ethics, Internet, News media | 3 Comments 

Catching out the pompous in their pretension and ridiculing the hypocrisy of the sanctimonious are among life’s pleasures.   Howard Stern has managed to turn it a $100-million-a-year career.  Sasha Baron Cohen is developing his own cottage industry based on the formula.  Here in Washington we have Wonkette.  And, as far as I’m concerned, more power to all of them.

But there’s a surreptitious recording of an embarrassing conversation now racing its way around the internet that strikes me as something else entirely.  

Don Fowler was the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1995 to 1997.  Five-term congressman John Spratt is the Dean of the South Carolina delegation and Chairman of the Budget Committee.  They sat across the aisle from each other on a flight back home from the Democratic Convention in Denver and chatted in the idle and offhand way that old friends are wont to do.

For example, they made fun of Sarah Palin for several minutes, Fowler calling her “Dan Quayle” on steroids and Spratt creatively describing her as “just terrible.” They both agreed that, “Other than the simple fact that she’s a female,” she has nothing to offer.

Mr. Fowler, while doing some paperwork, observes that Hurricane Gustav is projected to hit New Orleans just as the Republican National Convention will be opening in the Twin Cities. In Mr. Fowler’s own now-infamousl words:

“The hurricane’s going to hit New Orleans about the time they start. [Chuckle] The timing is — at least it appears now that it’ll be there Monday. That just demonstrates that God’s on our side. [Laughter] Everything’s cool.”

 

Is it just me or does anyone else find this deeply disturbing?   Am I alone in being troubled by the notion that some creep in the next row, pretending to be puzzling over his Suduko, is actually Cecil B. DeMille with a cellphone?

Fun’s fun but fair’s fair and there is such a thing as going too far.

I wouldn’t have so much trouble with a report that began “Overheard speaking on a plane were…..”.   Like it or not, these days if you’re a public figure and you say or do something in public, you should either be mindful of your surroundings or consider it to be on the record.  It may not be nice and it may not be fair but if you can’t stand that kind of heat you shouldn’t be in this kind of kitchen.

At one point while we were working on the research for the President’s memoirs, John Mitchell came to San Clemente to visit with RN.  He brought his young daughter Martha (”Marty”) with him. That night Diane Sawyer and I joined the Mitchells at dinner at El Adobe in San Juan Capistrano, the Nixon family’s favorite restaurant.  

On Friday morning, a detailed account of portions of our dinner table conversation appeared in the political news column on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.  Only then did I realize that I had noticed —if only peripherally— that two men seated at an adjacent table had engaged in no conversation throughout their meal.  I had assumed it was either because they had nothing to say to each other or because they were struck by the unexpected proximity of General Mitchell; he had been out of the public eye for a couple of years, but the “Great Stone Face” was still very recognizable and very striking.  

I considered that conduct then —as I do now— unethical and lousy.  But realistically, I suppose it was just another example of Nixonians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk; we have few illusions about the media but we’re still surprised when they turn out to act the way we always said they would.  

But this in-air stealth cellphone video seems to me to ratchet things up to an entirely new and distasteful and maybe even dangerous level.

To come even close to justifying this kind of intrusion on individual privacy, the subject matter and the stakes would have to be very serious indeed.  If this conversation had involved something illegal, or if it had exposed really gross duplicity involving serious issues, there might be some justification for uploading it.

But the idea that either Mr. Fowler or Mr. Spratt are careless of, or cavalier about, the danger or suffering that might engulf New Orleans is ludicrous.  They are taking perfectly natural and understandable partisan pleasure in the notion that the Republican Convention might be thrown a bit off its stride; and I suspect there’s a subtext of relief because, had their own convention been a week later, they would have been facing the same problem.

To those whose response to all this is: morality schmorality……and to those who say it’s just Frank wearing his wimpy hat because it fits him so well……I say: some shoes fit both feet.  Today’s goose is tomorrow’s gander.  Turnabout is fair play.  Be careful what you wish for.  Because as far a tasteless joke can raise serious questions about a man’s judgment, anybody fashioning a dunce cap for Mr. Fowler better start sewing a hairshirt for Senator McCain.

RIP Anne L. Armstrong And Clay T. Whitehead

July 31, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Entertainment, In Memoriam, Internet, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, Technology, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

The last week saw the passing of a man and a woman who were both not only important figures at the Nixon White House, but by any measure significant in twentieth-century American history.  On July 23, Clay T. Whitehead, director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy between 1970 and 1974, died in Washington at age 69.  During his time in that office, he gained fame among journalists for his vigorous defenses of Nixon Administration policy in his press briefings.  But it was what he did (with the help of his assistant Brian Lamb, later to found C-SPAN) to create and further the Open Skies policy that made history.  This policy permitted telecommunications companies to send up their own satellites and establish the networks that made both nationwide cable TV and competing, low-price long-distance phone services possible.  This in turn opened the way for the Internet and cellular technology as we know it.  (Indeed, had President Nixon been able to serve out his second term, Whitehead’s vision of a wired America could have brought something akin to the World Wide Web into being a decade before it happened.) In the 1980s, Whitehead played a central role in bringing cable TV and cellular communications to Europe.  Ironically, he does not have his own Wikipedia entry and is barely mentioned elsewhere at the site.

And yesterday Anne Legendre Armstrong died in Houston at age 80.  She was raised in an old Creole family in New Orleans and, after graduating from Vassar and briefly working in the New York magazine world, married a rancher and moved to Texas, where she switched from the Democratic to the Republican party and became active in GOP politics.  From 1970 until 1973, she was co-chair of the Republican National Committee and played an important role in generating support for Nixon’s re-election among women and Democrats.  In 1973 she became the first woman to serve as counselor to the President, and was one of the White House’s strongest defenders during the Watergate era.  During the Ford Administration she became the first female Ambassador to Great Britain, and in the Reagan era she headed the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987.  Both of these far-sighted Americans of high achievement will be much missed.

Trevino On Jerry Hughes’s Straight Talk

April 24, 2008 by Joshua Trevino | Filed Under Internet, Technology | Leave a Comment 

Cross Posted from Joshua Trevino.

In this edition of the Treviño podcast, I appear on Jerry Hughes’s Straight Talk radio show in my capacity as Senior Editor of the Heartland Institute’s Information Technology and Telecom Newsletter. We discuss the future of the internet, why government at all levels is yearning to tax it, and how net neutrality and municipal wi-fi are bad for internet freedom.

The feed for the Treviño podcast is here; and the link to the iTunes Treviño podcast page is here. You may also listen here –

http://trevino.at/docs/audio/podcasts/trevino//Trevino%20Podcast%20Eight%20–%20Jerry%20Hughes%20Show.mp3