Categories: Blogs Thanks! The first time I spoke with John Harris and Jim VandeHei was in late 2006, just after they fled from The Washington Post to launch a newspaper called The Capitol Leader. Another Hill-focused newspaper and website? I was skeptical. But they were confident, with aspirations of playing in the big leagues and scooping the Post and the Times during the 2008 campaign and beyond. Well, The Capitol Leader quickly morphed into The Politico — later POLITICO — and started breaking political stories big and small, and my skepticism subsided when I found myself pitching ideas in Rosslyn, Va., the following summer. And now, more than 4,000 posts later, I’m leaving Rosslyn and POLITICO. There are too many thanks to go around among the editors, reporters and production staffers who make this operation work day to day, including all those who sent countless tips, story suggestions and advice. I'll leave a lot out, but here it goes. Special thanks to Bill Hamilton, for editorial guidance, and to Matt Wuerker, for giving me the privilege of having a caricature done by a Pulitzer finalist! For those too rare moments I wasn't tethered to a laptop, I'd like to thank Patrick Gavin, Avi Zenilman and others who pitched in to keep the blog churning. Thanks to Danielle Jones and Vaughn Ververs for helping promote posts on this blog to the home page; same to Katherine Lehr for CLICK. And thanks to Ben Smith, too, since, if not for him, I never would have headed to D.C. in the first place. More special thanks to everyone on the Web and media teams who were available on a moment’s notice to help with images and video that appeared on this blog, as well as to the copy editors for jumping in to fix any number of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Huge thanks to management for allowing an incredible amount of freedom each day to blog as I saw fit. And countless thanks to readers. I learned so much from e-mails and IMs, whether it was a link to something I'd missed or a bit of perspective on how the media-politics nexus is looking from outside the Beltway (always important to keep in mind). Even within the loads of hate mail I got regularly from the left and the right, there were some helpful nuggets buried between the expletives and accusations that I was a communist, fascist or whatnot. Thanks to everyone at the various news organizations I covered who took the time to help me better understand what was really going on at their respective newspapers, magazines and networks. And thanks to the PR teams who dealt with innumerable requests when my self-imposed deadline to post an item was perhaps two minutes away. So why leave? Here’s what VandeHei told me in November 2006, the day he left the Post for a brand-new online venture: “I have one of the coolest jobs in journalism. Why would I give it up for this?” Good question! But I’m now very excited to join Yahoo! News as part of a new project being helmed by Andrew Golis and Chris Lehmann and with a fast-growing group of excellent bloggers. I’ll still be writing on all things media, and the project will be getting off the ground soon. For now, the best way to keep up with what's going on is to follow me on Twitter (please!). I can also be reached by e-mail at michael.l.calderone[at]gmail.com. My AIM handle remains the same as it's been for years: observermlc. So I'm still accessible for links, suggestions or tips to report out. That said, I'll probably be taking a short Internet break and might not be responding as quickly as usual to IMs, tweets and e-mails for the next week or so. Actually really looking forward to that. Tags: Politico comments closed

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Categories: Washington Post Reporters expect another convention marathon It's still a few years until the Republican and Democratic conventions, but journalists are already thinking about dealing with another political marathon like end of summer 2008. Personally, I thought it was easier having back-to-back conventions — going straight from Denver to St. Paul — but I know that some other reporters saw things differently.



Now, POLITICO's Patrick Gavin gets some political journalists to weigh in on the GOP kicking things off Aug. 27, and Democrats starting a week later, on Sept. 3. Jonathan Weisman, who writes for the Wall Street Journal, hoped for something different. "As a parent of two young kids, it's brutal."



Bloomberg/The Week's Margaret Carlson jokes that the format "is the party's way of punishing reporters."



The Washington Post's Dana Milbank says, "I would like them to hold the conventions in warm places in February."



Many reporters, however, see the benefit in constant convention coverage.



"In today's world, which is to say the 24/7 continuous news cycle era, it makes as much or more sense to do them back to back," says The Washington Post's Dan Balz. "The general election has long since started by the time of the conventions, so why not pack them close together and treat them almost as one continuous event?”

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Categories: Newspapers A thaw? For anyone reading this blog over the past couple years, you've probably noticed the steady stream of bad news about the news industry — layoffs, cutbacks, buyouts — and numerous publications simply going under.



And yes, unemployment remains high nationwide and the economic outlook is far from rosy. But in the media world, The Observer's John Koblin sees a bit more movement and expansion than in a very long time. It may be a small boomlet, but for the first time in a long while, there’s a pulse in the New York journalism job market. “I would absolutely say that is the trend,” said Time Inc. human-relations guru Bucky Keady.



“I’ve certainly seen more revolving door stuff,” said Josh Tyrangiel, the new editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, who is keeping a careful eye on the market as he trolls for new editors and writers. “People are moving, and places that have people leaving are filling the slots.”

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Categories: Wall Street Journal Murdoch: NYT has 'an agenda'; Times responds Rupert Murdoch spoke last night at the National Press Club about media battles of the past, present and future, while assuring interviewer Marvin Kalb that he’s “not at war with the world.” Still, the 79-year-old mogul has never been adverse to conflict. “We’ve been involved in media wars, television wars and all type of media wars, yes, and I’ve enjoyed them.” Murdoch weighed in on several ongoing skirmishes during a taping of “The Kalb Report,” including the Wall Street Journal’s upcoming launch of a New York edition to take on The Times and trying to stop Google, or other news aggregators, from using his newspapers’ content. Murdoch, whose Times of London just began charging for content online, said that “newspapers ought to stand up" to aggregators and expects more will put up paywalls. A lover of newsprint, Murdoch said that he begins each day by reading the Journal and his New York Post in print, along with parts of The Times. “I don’t read the Washington Post,” he said. “I probably should, but I don’t.” But outside of print, Murdoch said he keeps tabs on the Journal and Times’ websites all day on two large computer screens. And during the interview, Murdoch pulled out a “wonderful” product that he said “may be the savior of newspapers": Apple’s iPad. Murdoch, who only recently started using e-mail and doesn't carry his own BlackBerry, demonstrated for the audience how the Journal looks on the world's hottest new device. Murdoch said that while he respects the Times, the paper has "very clearly an agenda" and publishes “anything that Obama wants.” He also said he believes some of New York's Jewish community think the paper’s "too critical of Israel.” He brushed off a question about the Journal recently using Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.’s photo for a story about effeminate-looking men, saying it was just a joke. Over the years, Murdoch has spoken out in favor of free markets and strongly supports Israel. But at the same time, he's always remained somewhat cagey about his specific political views (and has supported politicians from various parties when worthwhile for his business interests). Kalb tried drawing out whether he's on the same page as his Fox commentators, but the mogul instead described himself as “a radical.” As for his thoughts on Obama, Murdoch said that “unlike the rest of the country, I think he does well.” “I think he’s missing a great opportunity for a wonderful legacy by not tackling the education system in this country,” Murdoch said, adding that while he’s made good speeches, “he has not really pressed the unions.” (Earlier, Murdoch spoke about how breaking up the unions in England led to better papers.) During the Q & A, several audience members asked Murdoch about his ownership of Fox News — such as whether the coverage is objective or if there are Democrats on the network. Ari Rabin-Havt, from the liberal watchdog Media Matters, began the Q & A by rattling off statistics of Fox’s coverage of the tea parties and asked if it was appropriate for a news network to promote the movement. "No,” he responded. “I don't think we should be supporting the tea party or any other party.” Murdoch said he’d have to investigate before commenting further. UPDATE: Times spokesperson Robert Christie responds to POLITICO: "The goal of The New York Times is to cover the news as impartially as possible. Any claim to the contrary is simply wrong." Tags: Rupert Murdoch comments closed

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Categories: MSNBC Shuster suspended MSNBC brass wasn't happy when news broke this week that David Shuster had taped a pilot for CNN, and the anchor wasn't on-air yesterday.



Now comes word of Shuster's fate through an MSNBC spokesperson: "David has been suspended indefinitely." It's not the first time he's been suspended. Shuster was off the air a couple weeks in 2008 after he talked about how Hillary Clinton had "pimped out" Chelsea on the campaign trail. And in January, he was reprimanded for a series of tweets criticizing James O'Keefe (who he was covering at the time). Since then, Shuster's Twitter account has gone silent. According to the Observer's report, the CNN pilot was for a news show featuring Shuster and NPR's Michel Martin as co-anchors. It also included, according to the report, "medical and opinion segments, and included appearances by several current CNN contributors." Word of Shuster's CNN pilot caught the network by surprise. TVNewser reported that MSNBC president Phil Griffin learned about it on vacation, and on the phone with Shuster, "ripped him a new one." Shuster, who's been on MSNBC at various times over the past couple of years, while also filling in on shows such as "Countdown," most recently had the 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. slots. Tags: MSNBC comments closed

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Categories: CNN A new kind of "Crossfire"? New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wades into the "how to fix CNN" debate today with some advice of his own. What might work, instead, is a cable news network devoted to actual debate. For all the red-faced shouting, debate isn’t really what you get on Fox and MSNBC. Hannity has ditched Colmes, and conservatives are only invited on Rachel Maddow’s show when they have something nasty to say about Republicans. There’s room, it would seem, for a network where representatives from the right and left can both feel comfortable, and compete on roughly equal terms. Sort of like they did on ... “Crossfire.”



But not the “Crossfire” of 2004. CNN overreacted to Jon Stewart’s jeremiad, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. The show was years removed from its Michael Kinsley/Pat Buchanan glory days, and its liberal hosts at the time, Begala and James Carville, really were Democratic Party hacks. (The conservatives, Carlson and Robert Novak, were much more independent-minded, but the constant need to rebut partisan talking points took its toll on them as well.)



What cable news needs, instead, is something more like what Stewart himself has been doing on “The Daily Show.” Instead of bringing in the strategists, consultants and professional outrage artists who predominate on other networks, he ushers conservative commentators into his studio for conversations that are lengthy, respectful and often riveting. Stewart’s series of debates on torture and interrogation policy, in particular — featuring John Yoo and Marc Thiessen, among others — have been more substantive than anything on Fox or MSNBC. Tags: Cnn comments closed

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Categories: Sarah Palin Brand Palin Is Sarah Palin a politician, a pundit or some new political-media hybrid? The debate rages.



Today, David Carr looks at Brand Palin following last Thursday's premiere of her Fox News show, writing that "with its tales of uplift and pluck, 'Real American Stories' trades in the kind of easy sentimentality that provokes eye rolls among those of us who work in media while quickening the pulse and patriotic ardor of almost everyone else." (That take landed Carr a feisty, albeit anonymous, response.) “It’s not the kind of thing that’s going to excite you guys on the East Coast, but everyone else is dying to hear stories like these,” said one of her representatives who was not authorized to speak on the record but was authorized to slam the East Coast.



Ms. Palin’s politics can border on the atavistic, but beyond her Tea Party theatrics, she has tunneled her own route into the public consciousness and gone into the Sarah Palin Across America business. And what a business it is.

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Categories: Magazines Remnick is 'player-coach' at the New Yorker Although David Remnick has been known to pound out 10,000 to 20,000-word pieces while still editing The New Yorker, I still expected a slimmer volume on Obama — perhaps expanding on his Joshua Generation piece — rather than a full biography stretching over 670 pages.



The Times looks at Remnick's ability to take on various roles in today's profile, "Making It Look Easy at The New Yorker." He reports, writes and edits, a player-coach combination that works in magazine about as often as a Bill Russell shows up in the National Basketball Association; his families, writers and advertising clients feel like they are his focus; and he counts pennies at one of the most luxe publishing companies in the world.



At the same time, like his apparently cool-headed subject, Mr. Remnick works hard to seem as if he is not working hard.



“He likes to pretend that there’s no sweat,” said Malcolm Gladwell, a New Yorker staff writer and an old colleague from The Washington Post. “He cruises around and chats with people and then disappears and writes thousands of words in 15 minutes. It’s all part of that ‘making it look easy’ thing.”



It’s hard to make running any magazine, even The New Yorker, look easy these days. Last year, the magazine’s ad pages fell 24 percent, a little less than the industry average. But Mr. Remnick managed to eke out a small operating profit (excluding corporate overhead charges) by cutting costs, as he had for years.

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Categories: Newspapers Birch named AP's national security editor Doug Birch, currently the AP’s Moscow bureau chief, will be heading to Washington next week to become the news organization’s national security editor, according to a staff memo.



The position has been filled on an interim basis by Anne Gearan, who returns to reporting and writing. She took over the spot after former editor Steve Braum moved to oversee the AP’s new terrorism team.



Birch spent nearly two decades at the Baltimore Sun, with several of those years in Russia. He also reported from Iraq and Afghanistan. Tags: AP comments closed

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