Roger Ailes

Here’s a flier for the upcoming New York's Funniest Reporter show.

The money raised by the event goes to charity, while the glamour of being named funniest reporter goes directly to the winner's head. Last year, the competition was won by Mandy Stadtmiller of the New York Post, with her colleague Robert George coming in third.

This year's contestants are:

Mandy Stadtmiller - New York Post
Julia Allison - Star Magazine
Robert George - New York Post
Nikki Egan - MSNBC
Sean McCarthy - Daily News
Tasha Harris - Stagetime Magazine

Brave.  read more »

“I cannot imagine a more tempting possibility,” said CNBC's Ted David.  read more »

In case you missed this, my colleague Michael Calderone stopped by a party last night in Manhattan hosted by News Corp, where Michael Bloomberg presidential buzz was in the air.

From Newsweek senior editor Lally Weymouth's introduction:

“Everybody in New York that I know thinks he’s a brilliant mayor, and everyone thinks he would be a brilliant president.”

But the line of the night unquestionably goes to Fox News executive Roger Ailes, who is upset that the Democrats won't participate in a presidential debate co-sponsored by Fox.

“The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” he said. “And that’s what’s coming.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy,” Rupert Murdoch told The Observer as he was leaving the New-York Historical Society’s auditorium last night. But: “We’re making progress,” the News Corp. chief added.  read more »

In the fall of 2002, during the run up to the war in Iraq, Oprah Winfrey devoted a portion of one of her shows to answering a pressing international question. Do the Iraqi people want America to liberate them from Saddam Hussein?

Ms. Winfrey posed the question to Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesperson for the Iraqi National Congress—an erstwhile group of Iraqi exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi that, at the time, was busy lobbying the American government to overthrow Saddam Hussein. “Absolutely,” responded Mr. Qanbar.

Later, Ms. Winfrey called on an audience member. “I hope this doesn’t offend you,” said the young woman. “I just don’t know what to believe with the media and…” Ms. Winfrey cut her off. “We’re not trying to show you propaganda,” Ms. Winfrey explained. “We’re just showing you what is.”

Four-and-a-half years later, with American troops embroiled in a seemingly intractable civil war in Iraq, and the reputation of Iraqi National Congress in tatters, the question of what exactly Ms. Winfrey and the rest of her colleagues in the media were showing to millions of American viewers on the eve of invasion begs a second look.

Tonight at 9:00 p.m., PBS will be airing a special episode of Bill Moyers Journal, entitled, “Buying the War,” which takes a long, hard look at the American media’s performance in the months leading up to the start of the war. The result is a detailed portrait of media groupthink gone horribly awry.

Throughout the 90 minute program, a large number of print and broadcast journalists--from Oprah, to Judith Miller, to George Will, to the Sunday morning talk show pundits, to Roger Ailes’ legions at Fox, to William Kristol, to the reporters on the evening network news, to Vanity Fair’s David Rose—are shown passing along hyperbolic stories about Iraq’s biological and nuclear weapons capacity.

As it turns out, many of those overblown stories relied almost exclusively on the false claims of hawkish administration officials and dodgy Iraqi defectors. Claims that often went unchecked by some of the best minds in the business.

There were exceptions, and throughout “Buying the War,” Mr. Moyers gives plenty of airtime to the reporters who got the story right, particularly to John Walcott, Jonathan Landay, and Warren Strobel of the erstwhile Knight Ridder news service.

The show also features captivating interviews with 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus, and an apologetic Dan Rather.

“Especially right after 9/11, especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on, there was a real sense that you don’t get that critical of a government that’s leading us in war time,” Walter Isaacson, the former chairman and CEO of CNN tells Mr. Moyers. “Big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”

Reached by phone on Monday, Kathleen Hughes, the producer of “Buying the War,” said that the documentary has been a year in the making. “Bill has called this a historical documentary except the history is only four years ago,” said Ms. Hughes.

“By and large most of us in the media accepted the administration’s point of view,” said Ms. Hughes. “I think that had to do with what some of our reporters say in the show--that there seemed to be an almost bipartisan belief that Saddam Hussein was keeping a big arsenal and that we had to be worried about him. But when you look at the Knight Ridder reporting you begin to understand that there was plenty of detailed, accurate information available in real time. That was the biggest surprise.”

Did the largely unflattering portrayal of the press leave Ms. Hughes feeling depressed about her profession?

“No,” said Ms. Hughes. “I still have a tremendous amount of respect for journalists. We all have our good work and our not so good work. I still think it’s a noble profession. Just look at the Knight Ridder guys. In this case, they’re my heroes.”

On the desk in Shelley Ross’s soon-to-be former office—room 911, not incidentally, at ABC headqu  read more »

At 6:45:25 p.m. on Nov.  read more »

I’m Sorry for the Super Jews

To the Editor:  read more »

I’m Sorry for the Super Jews   To the Editor:    read more »

I’m Sorry for the Super Jews   To the Editor:    read more »

I’m Sorry for the Super Jews   To the Editor:    read more »

“‘I’ll hug you,” said Roger Ailes.  read more »

“‘I’ll hug you,” said Roger Ailes. “I’ll hug you even though you’re a journalist.”  read more »

My most successful item on this blog, to judge from comments, was called Harvard's Plagiarism Scandal, and was successful for two reasons, because I brought up issues of racism in the Kaavya Visnawathan case, and because Roger Ailes, the political strategist, zapped me and started an intense conversation. (Thank you, Mr. Ailes.) [Got that wrong too: comment was from a blogger named Roger Ailes--Weiss, 5/20] Here's what he said:

How is this Harvard's Plagiarism Scandal? Ms. Viswanathan didn't write the book for the Harvard Press, or for a course at Harvard. Harvard had nothing to do with her plagiarism or her book deal. Ruth Shalit is a New Republic scandal because the mag published her pilfered prose; Jack Kelley is a USA Toady scandal for the same reason. Ben Domenech was a Washington Post scandal because Domenech was an untalented, racist twit who was unqualified for the job, which the the Post knew, even if it was ignorant of his plagiarism. But Harvard didn't hire this woman to work for them; it allowed her or her family to pay it a hundred thou or more for the privilege of attending the school. If Ms. Viswanathan fucked a bum while attending Harvard, would that be Harvard's Bum-Fucking Scandal?

Ailes has a point. If I was to write my headline again, I'd say "Harvard student." But I'm going to take him on. As he acknowledges in his counter-examples, sometimes stuff that an individual does on his own ends up sticking to an institution because it seems to reveal some fault in that institution. Connecting Domenech to the Post is something of a stretch; but Ailes pushes it because he thinks it reveals something bad about the Post's standards. Executive editor Howell Raines went down for the Jayson Blair scandal because Blair's fabrication revealed faultlines in the Times culture under Raines.

The reason people are blackening—sorry, besmudging—Harvard with Kaavya Visnawathan's New York-published plagiarisms is that Kaavya's literary meteor seems of a piece with her scholastic meteor—overambitious and patched-together. As Jon Liu has reported in the Independent, Kaavya got into Harvard thanks to a place called IvyWise, which packages students (and which has been scrambling to tone down its glitzy promotional material, which had included Visnawathan's testimonials, because of Liu's righteous scrutiny). And she produced her bestseller through a packager. We don't know where the real Kaavya starts and the packagers stop.

In short, the Visnawathan story is about the cheesiness of high achievement. To what lengths will people go to get statusy badges, including the Harvard badge? Just how do kids get into Ivy League schools these days? In that sense, this is a Harvard scandal. Yes, I know, I'm stretching a little. But if you're a high-profile institution, life isn't fair. Just ask Duke.

From the A.P., May 8, 2006:  “Iran’s leader has written to President Bush, in the f  read more »

F rom the A.P., May 8, 2006: “Iran’s leader has written to President Bush, in the first letter  read more »

You’ve probably seen this guy, Bill O’Reilly.  read more »

You’ve probably seen this guy, Bill O’Reilly.  read more »

First Roger Ailes took over part of Lachlan Murdoch’s old job. Now, according to a News Corp.  read more »

First Roger Ailes took over part of Lachlan Murdoch’s old job. Now, according to a News Corp.  read more »

Wednesday 30thMy goodness, my Guinness!  read more »

"I'm not really surprised," Bill O'Reilly said. It was early evening on April 21, and Mr.  read more »

[PRECIS]Roger Ailes has settled into Lachlan Murdoch’s old office in the Sixth Avenue canyon,  read more »

"I'm not really surprised," Bill O'Reilly said. It was early evening on April 21, and Mr.  read more »

This is a story about that guy Shepard Smith-so let's cut the polite chitchat and go straight to the  read more »

You've probably seen this guy, Bill O'Reilly.  read more »

You've probably seen this guy, Bill O'Reilly.  read more »

There was something distinctly weird about Fox News titan Roger Ailes showing up at the last minute  read more »