Entries Tagged 'media wars' ↓

Is it Olbermann vs. Matthews or Olbermann vs. Rupert Murdoch?

Gawker wants to know [but you'll need to click on the Gawker link to get the links embedded in this quote ---ed.]:

So the Post has posted the Page Six item Keith Olbermann was so worked up about yesterday, and it does indeed say Hardball host Chris Matthews “seemed” to be talking about a strategy for landing Tim Russert’s job at a memorial event for the NBC personality, and that Olbermann is threatening to quit if he doesn’t get Russert’s Meet The Press job. …

But the gossip item also quotes a source, ostensibly from the traditional broadcast side of NBC News, who claims that Russert himself wanted NBC News political director Chuck Todd as his own replacement, and that the network will never install someone from MSNBC on the show:

The insider said,

“They’re cable. They’re far too partisan. They have no gravitas. If gravitas is eight letters, they’re about seven letters short.”

I last wrote about Olbermann and the absurd notion that one of the MSNBC cablers would get to sit in Russert’s chair here and here.

But I reserve the right to hedge by saying that in the brave new media world, anything is possible.

They want you to find out.

Writers Refuse to Budge on Globes

This is the strangest strike I’ve ever heard of—the union picks and chooses which organization will benefit from its largesse [emphasis in original]:

The writers are allowing otherwise-striking scribblers to contribute to the Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Awards.

But what do you expect from “the giant high school cafeteria that is Hollywood”?

Hot tempers dominate the picket lines, and tension among friends is rising as more people in ancillary businesses lose their jobs and weeks without work stretch into months. The 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America walked off the job on Nov. 5 over payments for the use of programs and movies on the Internet.

But once the strike captains call it a day at the end of the picketing shifts and both sides dispatch their last press releases, the conflict settles into a quiet discomfort.

“When I see writer friends at the supermarket or at the movies, we know that those places are not forums to get into a debate on the strike,” said Nina Tassler, president of entertainment at CBS. “I’ve been friends with some of these people for 20 years.”

Welcome, Angelenos, to the wonderful turbulent media world of the early 21st century. Glad you could join the rest of us!

The HuffPo reports that über-neocon Bill Kristol is going to be a columnist for the New York Times starting in 2008.

Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative who recently departed Time magazine in what was reported as a “mutual” decision, has close ties to the White House and is a well-known proponent of the war in Iraq. Kristol also is a regular contributor to Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume.

Whoa.

Andrew Sullivan suggests the Times made this move to balance the hyper-partisanship of Paul Krugman (who, I confess, I don’t even bother to read anymore, because he has become so monumentally and unbearably self-important):

I guess some naked partisanship on the right is necessary to balance out Krugman. But ideologically, having both David Brooks and Bill Kristol as the sole representatives of the right-of-center is to focus on a very small neocon niche in a conservative world that is currently exploding with intellectual diversity and new currents of thought.

Sullivan fails to mention who these other geniuses of the conservative world are. He also manages to suggest that lone “conservative” David Brooks has had to go up against at the NYT is Krugman, whereas Frank Rich, Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, Michiko Kakutani, and the editorial-page editor also come immediately to mind when I think of the NYT’s regular Bush-bashers.

This is a huge move for the Times, and it goes way beyond trying to create buzz for the brand. Kristol isn’t just Mr. Neocon. He is a proud George W. Bush loyalist.

I wonder what’s going on.

UPDATE: via Memeorandum, the leftosphere goes ballistic—here and here and here and here and here