Gawker
awkward
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feuds
Shrinking A.P. Calls CNN's Wire Service 'Abysmally Written'
The Associated Press is said to be planning staff cuts. Customers and readers are up in arms over its drift away from hard news. CNN, meanwhile, is fat and happy, and getting moreso by the day, investing in free food, holograms and international staff. So there was probably more than a little jealousy behind AP chief Tom Curley's disdainful swipe at the cable network's plan for a "CNN Wire" to compete with AP. More » -
It's A Slam Dunk
CNN chief Jonathan Klein says of his broadcast network competitors, "“What they’re playing is golf...That is, they’re trying to get there in as few strokes as possible." But at CNN, he says, they want to "Run up the score." And he promises, "We're not going to trim our sails." If you can afford three different sports metaphors in three paragraphs, you're doing just fine. [NYO]
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moguls
Ted Turner Only Wrote Book for More Chances to Bash Time Warner
Ted Turner: simultaneously a crazy old coot and a totally awesome and admirable ex-media mogul! The CNN founder is out promoting his new autobiography, which gives him a chance to go on and on and on about his pet grudge, the scalawags at Time Warner who blew up his fortune by merging with AOL. Dude, it was only seven billion. Let it go! Here he is on David Letterman talking about how CNN sucks these days, without him, Ted Turner, around. Ted, we sincerely want you to come back, you crazy, crazy wild man. It would be great for us. He was also interviewed at the Time/Life building today, where he talked about nothing but how much Time Warner sucks (and prairie dogs): More » -
celebrity science
Palin Says Fake Wardrobe Not Her Idea
Listen up, voters: It was not Sarah Palin's idea to try and fool you by wearing fancy clothes she would not normally have anything to do with! The Republican National Committee bought an opulent $150,000 wardrobe for her and seven family members before she even showed up at the convention, the former vice presidential nominee told Fox News Channel's Greta Von Susteren Tuesday night. The legendary MAVERICK was just "goin' with the flow... if that's the way they do this." She's never even been to a Saks or Neiman Marcus. Why on earth is she telling everyone this now? More » -
feuds
CNN Knows The Hologram Sucked, Says Fox
He's not the most trustworthy source, granted, but Fox News host Chris Wallace claims to have heard that CNN is all embarrassed about its election-night holograms, which teleported the likes of singer Will.I.Am and correspondent Jessica Yellin into CNN studios in New York. Wallace, who serves as Fox's ambassador to the Godless liberals at the Daily Show, also maintains ties to CNN, via an old college roommate who is a technical producer there. He called this buddy at 5 pm on election night, resulting in the following exchange, according to Broadcasting & Cable: More » -
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feuds
Why Rupert Murdoch Had Ted Turner Tailed
Had Ted Turner's old rival Rupert Murdoch just issued an "autobiography" written by a former lieutenant, as Ted Turner has, one suspects it would not have been embraced so eagerly by sympathetic journalists at 60 Minutes, the Times, the Wall Street Journal and even AP, which meditated whimsically on the CNN founder's chapter titles. Maybe that's because the News Corporation chairman still enjoys the blood sport of media feuds in his old age, coordinating multi-outlet attacks on relative small fry like Keith Olbermann, while Turner is in the business of moving on — and making plenty of media friends in the process. He has forgiven Murdoch for what he suspects was the hiring of private investigators to prove him insane in the 1980s, as he explains in the attached 60 Minutes clip, and put behind him the loss of $7 billion, a devastating divorceand a bad prescription for Lithium. More » -
videuhoh
Anderson Cooper Blooper Ruins CNN's Magic Invisibility Technology
Boy, CNN's election-night magic hologram technology was a hit! And all for the low, low price of $300,000 to $400,000. Money is no object in these times of plenty! Today, CNN boy wonder Anderson Cooper learns how the magic was made—and then is treated to the amazing sight of his colleague Erica Hill disappearing with a snap of her fingers! Too bad CNN moved AC's laptop in the jump cut, or it would have really looked convincing. Click to watch the poor trickery of cable news in action. More » -
cable wars
Olbermann Launches Preemptive Campbell Brown Strike
Oh no, Keith Olbermann, The Left's Old Favorite Cable Person, is attacking Campbell Brown, The Lady Who Yelled At Tucker Bounds! They share a timeslot on competing networks so it was certain to happen. Clip below. More » -
media
Election's Biggest Losers: TV News
Every four years, for 200 years or so, American sat down to watch Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, or Tom Brokaw announce who the next president will be. Those anchors did it with authority, and the networks took their solemn duties seriously. Even when things went wrong, as in 2000, we could rely on those anchors to relate clearly and simply what was actually Going On. This year, though, was a goddamn mess. Jennings is dead, Brokaw's an ignored old man at a circus sideshow, and Rather was probably exiled to some channel only Dish Network subscribers get, or overseas. The options were CNN, the choice in 2004 of the world's most disappointed liberals, Fox News, a hideous death rattle already in progress, or MSNBC, where Pat Buchanan and Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews shout nonsense, nonstop. No one won. More »
