Jonathan Alter

Not long ago Media Mob reported that The Washington Post’s David Maraniss is in talks with Simon & Schuster about writing a book on President-elect Barack Obama. Now comes word that Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter is, too.

The two books will be quite different: Where Mr. Maraniss means to write a retrospective biography in the tradition of his Bill Clinton book First in His Class, Mr. Alter is planning to look at President Obama's first year or so in office, starting at his inauguration and ending "at some point midway through 2009."

Speaking from his phone in Chicago, Mr. Alter said he plans to write about the Obama administration the way one might write about an internet start-up company.  read more »

Who was the big media star of the weekend? The Huffington Post's citizen journalist extraordinaire Mayhill Fowler, of course! After her rope line "interview" with Bill Clinton made headlines, Ms. Fowler has found herself at the center of a journalistic ethics-new-new-new media kerfuffle.

After the jump, a snapshot of Ms. Fowler's big weekend (as compiled with the help of the redoubtable Jim Romenesko):  read more »

Junot You Can't Wait Amazon's Omnivoracious blog has an interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz (Does he still smile every time he hears that?) and an excerpt from a work-in-progress he's calling Dark America. New York's Vulture Blog (which tipped us off to the link) says "It's pretty rad..."

Mixed Wingnuts Writer Roy Edroso compiles The Official Village Voice Election- Season Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere for the New York alt.weekly. Notables include Rod Dreher ("Cheerful when discussing food or “sluts”; otherwise, grimly millenarian"); Jonah Goldberg ("Goldberg's comical persona—once pretty much all he had—is now mainly a fallback position in his attempts at serious commentary."); and the always fun Michelle Malkin ("STUPID/EVIL RATIO: 97/3").

I Love the 80s Newsweek's Jonathan Alter talks to Mediabistro's Kathryn Carlson and shares this career high: "When I started covering the media in 1984, there were very few media critics in the United States. At one point, I was named one of the top ten media critics in America and my parents were very pleased—but I had to tell them that there were only ten media critics in America."  read more »

On Imus in the Morning today, Howard Fineman went after Imus for failing to promote hs friend Jonathan Alter's book about the first 100 days of the Roosevelt presidency. Then as Imus came back at him, Fineman admitted that he hadn't read the book. This used to be called the Old Boy Network. Don't these guys have better things to talk about on national television?

What does it mean when a news-weekly becomes the news story of the week?  read more »

On Monday, Feb.  read more »