Obama Paparazzi

It has begun.

This photo is from an A1 story in The New York Times last Friday (the photo itself appeared on A23):

Obama caught presumably with a telephoto lens in a paparazzi-style shot

Does this mean we’re going to get more shots like this one…furtive snaps of Obama and his family in checkout-line tabloids? Maybe that McCain ad was right after all–Obama is a celebrity.

Dan Rather lawsuit takes an unexpected turn

I was in court again this week for another hearing in front of Judge Gammerman in the Dan Rather lawsuit against CBS. Things took an unexpected turn. Rather’s team tried to reintroduce the fraud charge previously thrown out by the judge, and a lawyer for Dick Thornburgh and K & L Gates showed up to defend her clients’ interests in keeping certain documents from the court. See the story in the Observer:

Dan Rather was back in court Tuesday afternoon for another round in his $70 million lawsuit against CBS.

In the latest development, Mr. Rather’s legal team introduced a motion asking the judge for permission to amend their complaint for the second time. Marty Gold, Mr. Rather’s lead attorney, said the judge had previously dismissed his client’s fraud charges against CBS on the grounds that no specific damages had been listed in the earlier complaint. Mr. Gold said that this time around his team has prepared a more precise estimate of damages, based on the difference between Mr. Rather’s former salary at CBS and his current salary at HDNet. The judge said he would rule on the motion soon.

In September of 2007, during an appearance on CNN’s Larry King Live, Mr. Rather said that he was filing the lawsuit in part because new facts had come to light—particularly about the shortcomings of the independent panel, set up by CBS in the aftermath of Memogate, and headed by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and former head of the Associated Press Louis Boccardi.

How will Bill O’Reilly get out of this one?

Apparently Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant again, assuming we can trust the National Enquirer, which has tried recently to rehabilitate its image as a 1-part gossip, 3-part fiction checkout aisle rag. This raises the question: what will Bill O’Reilly have to say?

You’ll remember that last time Spears was pregnant, O’Reilly excoriated her parents for having little control over their daughter, and referred to them as “pinheads.”

But recently, when was revealed that the 17-year-old Bristol Palin was pregnant, he called it “a personal matter.”

With Bristol’s pregnancy so fresh in the public’s mind, what’s O’Reilly going to say this time?

The B-Team Betty Nguyen and Don Lemon?

I was watching CNN this morning when I had a double take. I thought I was watching anchors Betty Nguyen and Don Lemon, two of CNN’s most familiar faces…but then I realized that it was actually Alina Cho and T.J. Holmes.

Now I know they aren’t lookalikes by any means. Here are their official CNN portraits:

T.J. Holmes

Don Lemon

Alina Cho

Betty Nguyen

 

 

Not as uncanny as Maureen Dowd and Arianna Huffington, but still enough to make me wonder if Holmes and Cho are being groomed as eventual replacements…or if anybody will notice the transition.

 

“777,” the number of the Bailout

The Dow Jones reportedly fell 777 points in trading on Monday Sept. 29. Already the number crunchers are trying to make (non)sense of it.

Not economists, the finance industry, pundits and politicians. The number crunchers I’m talking about are the self-styled lunatic fringe types who parse numbers for their apocalyptic significance–code readers who treat the Bible, as well as contemporary world events, like a Magic Eye book.

I found this post on a message board today:

777 Point Drop, 7% drop, on 9/29/2008 = 9/2+9/2008 = 9/11/2008. 7 Years after September 11th

Any thoughts. Is it a coincidence?

To learn more about the art of  “theomatics” and other wastes of time, click here. ‘Nuf said.

The New York Sun, R.I.P.

The New York Sun delivered its last edition today. I never read the paper–in fact, the closest I ever came to it was glancing over a subscription offer in my junk mail before tossing it into the trash. I don’t remember what the offer was, but if this Gawker post is any indication, I forfeited a free yearlong subscription.

It seems I wasn’t the only person not reading the Sun. According to a piece by Scott Sherman in The Nation last year, the Sun was only able to lure 13,000 paying customers over its six short years in print:

On its front page the paper proclaims: “150,000 of New York City’s Most Influential Readers Every Day.” But according to its latest audit, the Sun is selling 13,211 hard copies a day and giving away more than 85,000. (By contrast, the Daily News sells about 700,000 copies a day.)

I guess there just weren’t enough conservatives in New York to keep the paper afloat. Victor Navasky wrote on CJR’s blog today that back in 2006, the paper was losing $1 million a month. That’s comparable to what Metro New York lost last year–$10 million–but Metro has a network of papers around the world and deeper pockets.

The final edition of the New York Sun

Speaking of deep pockets, the paper was started back in 2002 by a $20 million investment by former magnate/current cellmate Conrad Black. (I lied–I did read the Sun once…it was an op-ed by Conrad Black. The Sun gave him an outlet so he could berate his critics from behind bars.)

There were some redeeming qualities to the Sun, according to Navasky:

~Otto Penzler’s Wednesday columns telling me which mysteries to buy and why (although he had an odd weakness for the late James Crumley’s “The Last Good Kiss”, which he kept insisting was the best detective story ever written, his general batting average was well over 50%);

~Mark Steyn’s over-the-top, but nevertheless sometimes hilarious Monday columns, like the one on June 9, 2008 regarding Chris Mathews’s famous remark that, when he listened to Obama, he “felt a thrill going up my leg, and I don’t have that too often.” Steyn wrote, “Au contraire, Chris and the rest of the gang seem to be getting that old tingle on a nightly basis. If Obama is political viagra, the media are at that stage in the ad where the announcer warns that if the leg tingles persist for six months, see your doctor.”

~Steven Miller’s obituaries—in the Sun’s final issue, Miller, who was celebrated in CJR in 2005, writes an elegant obituary on the paper itself, including its history. The original New York Sun, founded in 1833 by Benjamin Day, was “built to greatness from the 1860s by Charles Dana, an editor who was fired by Horace Greeley’s Tribune for being not only willing but eager to fight a war against slavery….” The paper was merged into what became the World-Telegram and Sun and eventually died in the 1960s. In the first issue of Lipsky’s Sun, Miller reminds us, was the solution to the previous Sun’s crossword puzzle, from January 4, 1950.

The Sun leaves behind at least two well-known alumni, Ben Smith of Politico and Seth Mnookin of Vanity Fair, and a diaspora of reporters.

Judge throws out part of Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS

Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit against CBS Corp. can proceed on a limited basis, a New York appellate judge ruled Monday. The judge threw out part of the suit, but refused to grant a motion to have the rest dismissed.

In the decision, Judicial Hearing Officer Ira Gammerman ruled that the former “CBS Evening News” anchor could sue CBS for breaches of contract and fiduciary responsibility, but not for fraud or tortious interference. Gammerman also dismissed a claim against CBS’s parent company, Viacom Inc., because a 2006 de-merger separated its interests from those of CBS.

Both sides hailed the decision as a victory. Jim Quinn, the lead attorney for CBS, said his client would not appeal. “I consider it a win,” he told reporters. Martin Gold, who represents Rather, said that the case would now be “essentially a slam dunk.”

It was the second time in four months that Gammerman has dismissed parts of the suit while allowing the rest to proceed. In May, he threw out Rather’s claims against three top executives, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone, CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves, and former President of CBS News Andrew Heyward.

The case is set to go to trial next month, but there could be delays. Rather’s lawyer told the judge that 20 depositions still needed to be conducted, including Redstone’s, and that his team needed more time. He also said that CBS was withholding 3,200 documents from the plaintiff.

The lawsuit, which pits Rather against his old employer, revolves around a September 2004 episode of “60 Minutes II.” In the broadcast, Rather presented documents that purported to show that President Bush had been derelict in his duty as a Texas national guardsman during the Vietnam war, and that his commander had felt pressured to cover it up. When bloggers questioned the documents’ authenticity, CBS commissioned an independent inquiry. It found the broadcast had been inaccurate and unfair. Three producers were fired. CBS executives forced Rather to apologize on air, and removed him as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” When his contract expired 15 months later, in late 2006, they let him go. He now anchors “Dan Rather Reports” on HDNet.

Rather filed his initial complaint against CBS, Viacom and the three top executives in September 2007. At the time, there was speculation that Rather was trying to embarrass CBS and Viacom, and force secret documents into the public eye. Last year, The New York Observer reported that, back in 2005, a private investigator named Erik T. Rigler had been hired by CBS to aid the inquiry, but his findings were never given to Rather or made part of the official report. Before filing the lawsuit, Rather’s lawyers tried to contact Rigler, but were rebuffed by the CBS legal department.

In his complaint, which was amended to reflect May’s decision, Rather alleges that Redstone tried to curry favor with the Bush administration by having him removed from “60 Minutes II” and “CBS Evening News.” Rather also alleges that CBS executives strung him along until his contract expired by assuring him they would renew it if he kept quiet about the whole affair. As Gold noted after Monday’s hearing, the 15-month stretch during which Rather was mostly off the air was “poison for his reputation.”

Rather also alleges that his contract guaranteed him a certain level of “exposure” and that it stipulated even that CBS increase his air time. Gold said that the contract should have allowed Rather to pursue other work if he was going to be benched for an extended period, but that executives misled him into foregoing other ventures. “He could have double dipped,” Gold said.

Lawyers for CBS counter that Rather’s contract never specified an amount of air time, and that in any case his contract was paid in full. They also point to the fact that Rather claims a “significant financial loss” without being able to specify any out-of-pocket losses. The lawsuit calls for $20 in compensation and $50 million in punitive damages. The two parties are due back in court on Oct. 7.

******************

Click here for a story about the ruling in the Observer, based on some of my reporting.

There’s been some excellent reporting in the Observer by Felix Gillette, including “Dan Rather’s Last Big Scoop,” “Rather vs. CBS: Contract Dispute Will Continue, But Redstone, Moonves, Heyward Are Off the Hook” and “Would ‘Rathergate’ Make a Good Movie? Hollywood Insiders Working on Screen Adaptation.”

Ryan Seacrest gets bitten by shark just in time for “Shark Week”

Us Magazine reported today that Ryan Seacrest says he was bitten by a shark over the weekend.

From US:

On his KIIS-FM radio show Monday, Ryan Seacrest said he decided to take a dip in the ocean over the weekend when, he said, “I was bit by a shark!

He said he was “about eight feet out” when he felt something swim by him.

“I thought it was a stick,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what had happened.”

Then, he said, “I saw it swim! He took a bite, and he left.”

Seacrest, 33, said the shark’s tooth “wasn’t a great thing to find. It was like finding a splinter!”

Okay–I smell something fishy. This week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Was Seacrest making a plug for it? Was he being paid?

It sounds like Seacrest may be borrowing a technique from Rush Limbaugh:

Seacrest does a daily five-hour radio show in Los Angeles. In April, he’s taking three hours of that show national, via syndication, and as part of the deal — a rather unprecedented part — Seacrest’s advertising company retains 10 minutes of the ad time on the show to sell on its own, so that the profit goes right back to Seacrest and not through any network or syndicator. –Tom Shales (WaPo)

Some [advertisers] … use Limbaugh as their pitchman, which costs them a premium and a long-term commitment. And lately he has created a new option. At a much higher rate he will weave a product into his monologue (To a caller who said he took two showers after voting for Clinton in Operation Chaos, Limbaugh responded: “If you had followed my advice and gotten a Rinnai tankless water heater, you wouldn’t have needed to take two showers. And I’ll tell you why. . . .”) –Zev Chafets (NYT Magazine)

Keep in mind that Seacrest is being groomed as the next Larry King.

Betty Nguyen finds skeletons in Burma…prematurely?

Betty Nguyen has been reporting from Myanmar this past week.

On Sunday, she did a package on the struggle to recover from cyclone Nargis.

Near the end of the clip, Nguyen does a standup where the camera pans over some bleached skeletons while she says, “This is what the Myanmar government doesn’t want you to see. Bodies still rotting along the delta, so two months after the cyclone hit, and you can still smell the stench of death.”

From what I understand of forensic anthropology–which is not much–bodies don’t decompose that quickly. Even in water. Skeletons take years to bleach.

So are those skeletons really victims from Nargis? Or did Nguyen did make a mistake?

I’ve tried calling up a couple of experts, but this being the summertime, most of them seem to be on vacation.

“Mad Men” Season 1 review

Well I recently rewatched season 1 of “Mad Men” in anticipation of the premiere of season two on July 27, and here’s the review I wrote for The Huffington Post:

When “The Sopranos” came to its much-anticipated conclusion last summer, HBO tried in vain to plug the breach. Its opening gambit — “John From Cincinnati,” a surf noir drama with a metaphysical subtext — flopped. “Tell Me You Love Me,” an emotional rollcoaster that blended soft-core porn with relationship anguish, didn’t quite capture “The Sopranos” audience (although it did have my three female roommates glued to the TV like nothing since “Sex And The City”). “Flight of the Conchords,” with its deadpan humor and parody sing-a-longs, was an instant hit, but we’re still waiting impatiently for its second season. And did anybody actually get through all the daily installments of “In Treatment”?

Read more.