Rep. Hoekstra Getting "No Cooperation" for Fort Hood Probe
The top ranking Republican in the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) said Tuesday the FBI and CIA have given him "no cooperation at all" in his request for information on what the intelligence agencies knew about Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan.
"Finally they held a briefing last night for some of the senators and some of my staff, but again, the House is not in session, I've not been able to get the information at this point," he said on Tuesday's "Washington Unplugged." "I don't think they've been as cooperative as what the law requires them to be with Congress."
CBSNews.com Special Report: Fort Hood Massacre
Continue »
Netanyahu's Settlement Two-Step
(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
The optimist in me says, let's turn the page and hope for the best. The pessimist in me, weary of the same script year after year, wonders whether the U.S. will ever get the upper hand in an increasingly dysfunctional relationship.
Israel says this is all the prelude to a construction freeze - not including the current batch of apartments, naturally. Now, the Israelis say, it will be up to the Arabs to reciprocate with a demonstration of their own good will. Fat chance. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz notes, "the number of new housing units will not actually decline compared to previous years. The only difference is that now, that instead of construction permits being given gradually throughout the year, the government intends to issue hundreds of permits within a few days, before the official announcement of the "freeze" is made."
Continue »
The Skinny: The Governator Flexes His Muscles
(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, FILE)
The Public Eye Chat With...Wyatt Andrews
(CBS)
A good deal of the "Evening News" audience is older Americans, for whom Medicare, prescription drug prices – stories you focus on -- are particularly important. It's also not a terribly sexy subject. Do you think that the "Evening News" spends enough time on this subject, considering the audience makeup?
It's hard to know what the exact mix is. And you have to be careful … all the broadcasts right now are in this very strange place where we have to survive in the business by attracting and holding an audience and to some extent you have to cater to that audience. But you also have to cover the news. So everything all the time can't be about just pleasing or pandering to the audience. On the other hand, this is the reality. The reality is that we do have an older demographic and we have some obligation to serve them.You are also the network's Supreme Court correspondent. How do you approach the task of explaining a decision or the circumstances surrounding a case – often extraordinarily complicated subjects – in less than 3 minutes?
So, that's a long-winded answer to say that I really don't know if we have the mix right. All I know is that our bosses in New York are very receptive and encouraging to make sure that we perform this service for an older audience and I have been basically ordered by New York to be on the lookout for consumer-oriented stories that are of interest to an older audience.
One interesting demographic trend in the country is that America is on the cusp of getting very old very fast … baby boomers are retiring – that's the short way to describe it. We are getting into an era when the entire country is going to be on more -- not less -- consumer drugs.
We just had a big meeting with the two producers who help me cover the Court. What we do is look at the whole range of the 30 odd cases that the Court considers in any one term and make two determinations: what is important constitutionally and then secondarily, what is interesting from a human point of view.Are there advantages or disadvantages to covering several beats? For example, do you feel like because you don't exclusively cover the Supreme Court do you have fewer sources, does it limit your ability to develop sources?
There are lots of cases that come before the Supreme Court that really have to do with extremely dense constitutional issues that are very important in the law, but really don't impact a lot of people. Frankly, we don't do a lot of those cases on television because we are broadcasters and because we have a very large general interest audience, we tend not to touch the dense constitutional stuff.
Conversely, there are also stories that are brought by quirky individuals. And what is coming up, for example, in the next term is a Wyoming rancher is fighting the federal government, [which] insists that it, the government, has a right to easement across [the rancher's] land.
I'm going to propose we do that story for the "Evening News," even though the constitutional issues aren't that portentous. The story of this one guy taking on the government and making it to the Supreme Court, I just think it's so American and very appealing and very interesting on a human level. There's another case where a guy is claiming that a high speed chase after which he was arrested, is unconstitutional. I just find things like that fascinating.
The most fascinating thing about the Supreme Court is that all of these cases come from someplace real. Even though there is a lot of dense constitutionality involved -- and the Wyoming rancher is a great example – cases that reach the Supreme Court began as a backyard argument and I just find that fascinating.
Yes. Absolutely. I absolutely am at a disadvantage against the people who cover the Court full time. Because the truth is it's sort of a part-time endeavor for us. In fairness to our bosses, it's a part-time endeavor because very few of the 30 cases will actually make it on T.V.You taught a journalism course at University of Virginia last Spring. What was the course?
The advantage to me is a personal thing. I function better with variety. It's as simple as that. I covered the White House during the first Bush administration and to be honest, when they asked me to leave the White House beat and take this job as a national correspondent, I couldn't wait to get out of the White House. Could not wait. It's important to cover the White House well, but it was the same place, the same people every single day and just personally speaking, that was just stifling. I enjoy the variety. I enjoy dealing with health care one minute, an investigative piece the next and a light feature the next. That works for me.
It was a survey course on journalism, it's title was "Journalism and the Media."What kinds of impressions did you find among students of television news? Were they viewers of the "Evening News"? What did they like or dislike about it?
This is a big conversation you're engendering here. Students in general these days are not big consumers of the media. They are not readers of newspapers. And they are not generally consumers of broadcast news.Why do you think that confusion exists?
Students these days are far more likely to watch cable on occasion, get their news on the Internet on occasion, to watch Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. I can just tell you in my own household, I have college students right now and generally speaking they don't know the difference between cable news, Jon Stewart, "Entertainment Tonight," or the "CBS Evening News." They don't get what the essential difference is. And that's what my course was about. How do you assess the differences between Bill O'Reilly, Wolf Blitzer, Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer?
And there are real differences in broadcast news between what is put on local television and why; what is put on broadcast news and why; why cable is often shout fests. Students don't know that. It was an eye opener to me because I had their undivided attention. They did not know these things. And these are some of the brightest 19 and 20 year olds in America.
Because the truth is that these days young people are not big consumers of news. They don't watch, they don't read the newspaper -- their citizen gene hasn't kicked in yet.When you were that age, did you consume a lot of news?
Yes. I read the paper every day. But I decided early on in college that I wanted to be a reporter.Were you guys normal or dorky?
I went to UVA and the guys in my apartment – sophomores in college – had a subscription to the daily paper and to the Washington Post. One guy was a pre-med student and he didn't read much news. But at least two or three of us read the Washington Post every day and watched the evening newscast.
I have no idea. We might have been dorky. They might have been watching it because they knew I was interested in journalism. But you asking about my college culture – in my day we thought it was the normal thing to do, to read the newspaper. That's not true anymore.
Excerpts From Bush's Farewell Speech
President George W. Bush will say goodbye to a post he has held for eight years tonight on national televion at 8 p.m. E.T. The White House released the following excerpts from his highly anticipated farewell address.
After Drudge Story, McCain Gives Reporters Green Light
(AP)
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
McCain Drudge
How do you cover the back-and-forth over a story that hasn't come out?
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
McCain Drudge
How do you cover the back-and-forth over a story that hasn't come out?
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
"So, Ayman: What Are You Like Behind Closed Doors?"
(AP)
Sky News reports that a new video, perportedly from the terrorist organization, includes an invitation for journalists to interview al Qaeda number two Ayman al Zawahri.
"If genuine, it represents the first such offer by the terror network to interview one of its leaders since the attacks of September 11, 2001," Sky notes.
Continue »
Is FOIA Becoming (A Little) Less Frustrating?
(AP)
It all sounds so simple at first: If you want a document or piece of unreleased but legally available information from the U.S. government, you submit a FOIA request. But government agencies are, unsurprisingly, reticent to cooperate with journalists or other individuals seeking information that could make them look bad, so the response is almost never what you're hoping for.
Instead of a few pages of documents or a neat summary of what you're looking for, you might face long response times, be offered incomplete documentation, or be told that to pay high fees. You might get buried in so much paper that it becomes extremely difficult to find what you first requested. You might never hear back at all.
Which is why it's good news that Congress has passed legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act. If the president does not veto the bill, it would mandate that agencies respond to FOIA requests within 20 days – and be punished if they don't – and create a system for tracking requests, among other innovations.
"Currently, delays, staggering legal fees and mountains of red tape undercut FOIA's usefulness for citizens and journalists," David Cuillier of the Society of Professional Journalists in a statement emailed to Public Eye. "This bill is crucial for helping FOIA work better, which in turn, helps democracy work better."
In recent years, agencies' response time to FOIA requests has decreased, and the Bush administration has not exactly shown a propensity towards making information publicly available. In 2001, for example, President Bush signed an executive order allowing presidents to delay the release of many of their records indefinitely.
It is thus something of an open question whether the president will sign the legislation, which reflects a compromise crafted after the White House and Justice Department objected to some of the details, including restoration of a provision that agencies release information unless they determine it will do harm. (After Sept. 11, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had instructed agencies to err on the side of not releasing information.) The Associated Press speculates that Mr. Bush might simply ignore the bill, which would have the effect of causing the new rules to go into effect after 10 days.
"This pocket-veto-in-reverse would give Bush some political cover, allowing the FOIA bill to become law without taking the affirmative step of endorsing it," notes the AP.
The Blog Turns Ten
(AP Photo)
It's of Jorn Barger, the first person to use the word "weblog." Barger coined the term, which has been shortened to the now-ubiquitous "blog," ten years ago yesterday. He used it "to describe the list of links on his Robot Wisdom website that 'logged' his internet wanderings," as Wired puts it.
In the picture, Barger, clad in a blue t-shirt, doesn't exactly look like your office IT geek. He's got a long, scraggly beard, and long tufts of hair shoot out from beneath his ratty "Google" cap. Barger looks like he was working the land in remote mountains somewhere until he gave it all up to get his startup off the ground.
And in terms of a representative of the blogging phenomenon – not to mention the whole internet, really – you couldn't ask for much more.
Think about it: Ten years ago, the truly industrious folks who wanted to share opinions or interesting articles might have had a newsletter. Today, thanks to the drastically reduced barriers to entry that the internet has provided, blogs have taken their place – there are 100 million of them at the moment, according to Technorati, and that number is growing.
Thanks to blogs, no matter how remote you might be, you're now easily interconnected. They've given us windows into warzones, shown us the minds of foreign leaders, and offered insights into everything from tort reform to gay square dancing, to mention just a tiny fraction of the total picture.
The Wired article features plenty of quotes about What It All Means, and you can head over there for the full treatment. One could write a book about how much blogs mean – in fact, folks have – but on the 10-year anniversary of the medium, this particular blog, a tiny voice in the cacophany, simply wanted to simply pay its respects. Blogs can be monumental or inconsequential, insular or wide open, enlightening or enraging. They have made the whole spectrum of human thought available, in all its messy glory, in the click of a button. And what's more revolutionary than that?
What We Talk About When We Talk About Politics
(AP)
Consider Barack Obama. On Friday, in an interview with the New York Times, Obama neatly summed up the prevailing press narrative about his campaign.
"A month ago, I was an idiot," he said, according to a story published Sunday. "This month, I'm a genius."
Continue »
Monthly No More
(CBS)
The esteemed and established 150 year-old Atlantic Monthly magazine is no longer.
Nonono, it's not going anywhere. It's just changing its name. You know, like Cat Stevens. Or Jack Napier. Or Cher.
Continue »
The Final Countdown
(Blair Bunting/Getty Images)
Tick … Last week's report of baseball suspending Baltimore Oriole Jay Gibbons and Kansas City Royal Jose Guillen.
Tick … Barry Bonds pleads not guilty to perjury and obstruction charges in a federal investigation of performance-enhancing drugs.
Continue »
Oops!
(CBS)
"The Sentinel-Review apologizes for any embarrassment this may have caused."
-- From the Woodstock Sentinel-Review earlier this year, one of the great contenders in Regret the Error's list of 2007's best errors and corrections. (Emphasis in the quote? Mine.)
- no previous page
- Next
1 / 256
