From Sunday’s New York Times:
NEW YORK
An article last Sunday about the appointment of Kathryn Garcia as sanitation commissioner misstated, in some editions, the distance Ms. Garcia lives from her mother in Park Slope. She is two blocks away, not two doors.
Damn! Glad they sorted that. Who knows what mayhem might have ensued otherwise.
For most of its 20-year history, The Weekly Standard has been sort of cruise-crazy.
The neocon magazine, long considered the in-house organ for the House of Bush, has sponsored cruises from St. Maarten to Alaska, where Weekly Standard founder/editor William Kristol 1) discovered Sarah Palin, 2) became her rabbi in GOP circles, and 3) eventually helped inflict her on the Lower 48 as VP nominee on the 2008 Republican presidential ticket.
So it was no surprise to see this ad for the magazine’s Mid-term Summit at the Colorado Springs Broadmoor Resort in its March 24 edition.
But here’s what was a surprise.
Charles Krauthammer has a brother, Chris? Who knew?
Probably not Charles Krauthammer.
As the hardworking staff noted last week, the New York Times scheduled a hoedown yesterday on the press coverage of the NSA’s crowbarring itself into the everyday life of America.
Full-page ad from last Sunday’s Times.
And yesterday, the Times hoed down.
But here’s what sourcesandsecrets.com yielded 36 hours after the fact-foiled gabathon.
Offline is right.
So the hard clicking staff headed to YouTube, only to find . . . nothing.
C’mon, Timesniks – more sources, fewer secrets, yeah?
This week’s Great Boston MediaWatch Dogfight features a very special topic: The legal beatdown of the Boston Herald for libeling a local woman in its 2009 report that she engaged in “sexual acts” with a convicted murderer at Bridgewater’s Old Colony Correctional Center.
The Herald’s Press Party featured . . . well, nothing about the verdict.
Crosstown at WGBH’s Beat the Press, it was an entirely different story.
Splendid reader Bob Gardner told our kissin’ cousins at Two-Daily Town, “My guess is that someone at BTP will point out how much they respect Joe Sciacca.”
Didn’t happen. Sorry, Bob.
But especially – sorry, Joe.
Better luck next libel.
This Sunday is WWSD-Day in the New York Times Magazine (tip o’ the pixel to Politico’s Playbook).
What Would Scott Brown Do?
In case you weren’t keeping track — don’t worry, that was a joke! — Scott Brown, the short-time Massachusetts senator and shorter-time political celebrity, has relocated to New Hampshire, where he might run for the Senate again . . .
On March 14, Brown announced his intention to form an
exploratory committee in regard to that Senate seat from New Hampshire, animating his latest period of speculation. Ten days earlier, a Politico story led with a classic time capsule for our present news environment: “Scott Brown on Tuesday night denied a Fox News anchor’s tweet that he has decided to run for Senate in New Hampshire.”
In that tweet, Greta Van Susteren said she was “certain” that Brown was running. This prompted Brown, who worked for Fox News until last week, to email Politico with a semiclarification. “I am not sure who she talked to, but it was not me.” He signed off with the standing caveat of our time: “It is all just speculation.”
In his piece Mark Leibovich reveals the painful truth about Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere): He’s a Superhypothetical, a common political disease with no known cure. (See: Sarah Palin, Donald Trump.) Leibovich defines Superhypotheticals as “those professional noncandidates whose franchises depend largely on people speculating about what they might run for and their own willingness to engage in public indecision about it (all while assuring us, of course, that they are flattered and humbled by our interest).”
(They also provide year-round employment for The Great Mentioner.)
Unfortunately, today’s crop of Superhypes fall far short of the “figures of mystique, stature and accomplishment” of the past. (See: Mario Cuomo, Colin Powell.) And that goes double for Brown, who turned out to be even more of an empty barn jacket than we thought.
All the more reason to check out Leibovich’s piece. Downturn Scotty is always good for a laugh.
The walls keep tumbling down.
In the beginning, there was product placement. Then came product integration.
Now? Now comes – what should we call this? – product domination.
From the New York Times:
Like That Vase on the TV? Click Your Phone to Buy It
ABOUT 87 percent of Americans watch television while using devices like smartphones and tablets, but most of that second-screen usage is unrelated to the show or movie, according to the
NPD Group, a market research company.
Now, in what could signal a new era for product placement, Target will feature dozens of products on a new episode of “Cougar Town,” the TBS comedy series, and, at the moment the products appear on television screens, encourage viewers to purchase them on their second screens . . .
Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.
Here is David Brenner.
And here is David Brenner’s obituary (via the Boston Globe’s AP pickup).
David Brenner, 78; comedian seen on ‘Tonight Show’
Mr. Brenner held a tie given to Frank Zappa in 1986, on “Nightlife.” Zappa was with his children Dweezil and Moon Unit.
David Brenner, the gangly, toothy-grinned ‘‘Tonight Show’’ favorite whose brand of observational comedy became a staple for other stand-ups, including Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Reiser, died Saturday. He was 78 . . .
The lanky, always sharply dressed Mr. Brenner became one of the most frequent visitors to Johnny Carson’s ‘‘Tonight’’ in the 1970s and ‘80s . . .
His 150-plus appearances as guest and substitute host turned the former documentary filmmaker into a hot comedian, one who was ubiquitous on other talk shows and game shows.
One hundred fifty appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson? Seriously?
Anyone wanna guess who’ll make 150 appearances on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon?
Yeah, we thought so.
From our Save the Date desk
The Gray Lady is hosting a hoedown this Friday on the press coverage of the NSA’s crowbarring itself into the everyday life of America.
Full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times.
Call the roll:
Great lineup. Let’s see if it results in a great discussion.
Or just a Me-athon.
Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere) has gotten plenty of press over his Friday announcement that he’s “formed an exploratory committee to prepare a campaign for the United Staes Senate” in New Hampshire.
But it’s the New York Times coverage that’s caught the hardclicking staff’s eye.
From Katharine Q. Seelye’s piece in Saturday’s Gray Lady:
[T]here is something about Mr. Brown that lends itself to humor. He jumped shirtless into ice-cold water this winter in
Hampton Beach, N.H., to benefit the Special Olympics, resulting in a picture of the half-naked former senator on the front page of The New Hampshire Union Leader. Years ago, as a model working his way through law school, he posed nude in Cosmopolitan.
He was a topic of conversation at Nashua’s Wild Irish Breakfast political roast on Friday morning, even though he was nowhere in sight. Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, said that Mr. Brown passed on attending the breakfast when he found out he would have to wear a shirt.
Ha-ha!
Let’s see if Brown gets shirty about the Times coverage anytime soon.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Dear Dr. Ads,
So there I was, watching television and minding my own business, when this Cadillac commercial popped up.
Narrator: “Why do we work so hard? . . . Other countries, they work, they stroll home, they stop by the café, they take August off. Off. Why aren’t you like that? Why aren’t we like that? Because we’re crazy driven hard-working believers, that’s why.”
Really? More French-bashing, Doc?
Pass the Freedom Fries, oui?
– Hollande Daze
Dear Hollande Daze,
The Doc feels your pain. (We love those baguette thingies, which are the greatest empty calories ever created.) But you should know that not every American is ugly.
From Ad Age . . .
Read the rest at Ask Dr. Ads.
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