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Friday, Jan 30, 2004
was that wrong?
CBS News: "Individually we may feel okay about our network, but the cumulative effect for viewers with 24-hour cable coverage is -- it may have been overplayed and, in fact, a disservice to Dean and the viewers."
-- Andrew Heyward, President - CBS News
ABC News: "It's always a danger that we'll use good video too much."
-- David Westin, President - ABC News
CNN: "We've all been wrestling with this. If we had it to do over again, we'd probably pull ourselves back."
-- Princell Hair, General Manager - CNN
Fox News: "It got overplayed a bit, and the public clearly thought that, too, and kept him alive for another round."
-- Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO - Fox News
Thursday, Jan 29, 2004
trained bares
“About all we interview any more are professional talkers,” says Bob Schieffer, who tries to squeeze informational tidbits from those talkers every Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. The professional part, of course, stems from who his guests are, mainly public officials. But it also flows from the teachings of media trainers, a branch of public relations that originated at J. Walter Thompson in the mid-1970s. Media training was largely a dual response to the tough questioning of Mike Wallace and others on 60 Minutes and the needs of the new business-media outlets that called for a constant stream of corporate executives to chat on the air. Soon other p.r. firms established media training practices, sensing a lucrative sideline in coaching people to handle tough questions."
Wednesday, Jan 28, 2004
burning sensation
heres the (acknowledged) problem with wonkette. i dont ever want to think about james carville and histrollwife having sex.nor
do i ever again want to examine the creases in john kerrys forehead for sign of life on mars.
notes from the undergrind
i should check in with abcs The Note more often. today they have a couple of memos written a few months back by outgoing kerry campaign staff to their replacements.
8. Keep up the fight for full engagement. Jordan wasn't wrong about taking on Dean. The more you throw at him the more something might stick. The research folks camped out in Burlington for weeks, and they have hits that are even better than that NRA questionnaire. Howard Dean has never had an unexpressed thought. This should work against him but it seems to be overshadowed by the fact that our campaign has never had an original thought.
swing, batter
despite what one would assume to be their mutual appreciation for a good piece of wood, i did not expect to be linking the words "baseball" and "g@y p0rn" in the same sentence when i woke up this morning.
Monday, Jan 26, 2004
poll to poll
"Survey USA joins Zogby with a poll showing Howard Dean gaining on Sen. John Kerry in New Hampshire. Kerry leads with 33 percent to Dean's 28 percent. Sen. John Edwards and Wesley Clark are battling for third place, 14 percent to 12 percent, respectively."
imperial yo-yo
"[T]he justices have voted to take up five cases that test the president's power to act alone and without interference from Congress or the courts," Savage explains. The description of these cases, as Savage has ably summarized them, is startling: "They involve imprisoning foreign fighters at overseas bases, holding American citizens without charges in military brigs, preserving the secrecy of White House meetings, enforcing free-trade treaties despite environmental concerns, and abducting foreigners charged with U.S. crimes."
"What the Supreme Court has placed on its agenda, in short, is the Imperial Presidency -- that is, the Presidency in which the Executive largely acts alone, pushing the Constitution to the limits and beyond. And how the Justices deal with this overwhelmingly important topic could affect the reelection prospects of the Bush presidency, for, as David Savage notes, at least four of the five rulings are anticipated to be handed down during the summer of 2004 -- right in the middle of the presidential campaign."
via pacific views
dove itch
interesting thread about a proposed saudi plan for peace between israel and the palestinians.
empire statement
josh marshall...the new yorker...perils of empire...
tri-lateral blogging
"I can't say I was surprised to find that this year's World Economic Forum included a session on blogs. If, as Ben Franklin says, (via Dick Cheney's Christmas cards) a sparrow can't fall to the ground without God noticing, then certainly a hot media trend like blogging can't go on too long without showing up on the agenda in Davos."