All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Bells! Whistles! Doohickeys! The refurbished White House press briefing room got a lot of attention at its reopening a few weeks ago. CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller muses that the two newly-installed video monitors could be used in an additional way that Tony Snow hasn't thought of yet.

The new and improved White House press briefing room gives spokesman Tony Snow some brand new audio-visual capabilities.

He is flanked on the podium by two 45-inch high-definition video monitors – on which he can project slides, graphs, quotes or pretty much whatever he wants.

Last Friday, he used the screens to illustrate his assertion that progress was being made in Iraq as a result of the surge in U.S. troops ordered by Pres. Bush.

And today, he was able to push a botton on his lectern and project a couple of old quotes from the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT., to defend the White House claim of Executive Privilege in the congressional probe of the firings of those U.S. Attorneys.

It got me thinking that Snow could use the screens to respond to many of the questions he gets on a daily basis from reporters.

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KYTX-TV Anchorwoman Lauren Jones:

You know, we really don't write enough about Paris Hilton here. So! Here's your daily dose of Paris commentary, courtesy of a (maybe just a tiny bit sarcastic) Bob Schieffer:

Face The Nation did not get the big interview with Paris Hilton.

I feel terrible about it.

I haven't felt so low since one of our competitors broke into programming to report that the embalming of Anna Nicole Smith's body had begun. Getting scooped on a big story is never fun, not then, not ever. And we never got to first base on that story either, which is why we tried to be competitive on this one.

We held strategy sessions on how to stay ahead on the Paris story. In the finest network tradition, we blamed each other for not getting the interview. We even leaked the infighting to competitors. But nothing worked.

All those big-time bookers dangled all those deals in front of Paris' family, and we were just out of our league. Heck, we couldn't even figure out what league we were in.

Read it all here.

It's a metaphor, people!

So sayeth Mike Gravel about his absolutely mind-blowingly insane campaign spots posted to YouTube. If you haven't seen them yet, start with "rock," in which Gravel stares at the camera for an uncomfortably long time, and then throws a rock in a lake and walks away. And then check "fire," which pyromaniacs will love for its seven-minute campfire close-up. (But watch out! According to one YouTube commenter, "if you watch this you will die in seven days.")

So, um, what's the deal then, Mike?

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At President Bush's press conference today, CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante, upon hearing his first name called, began to ask a question. Reporter Bill Sammon of the Examiner was standing next to him, and he started talking as well. So Plante paused and asked, “which Bill?”


“You," the president replied. "The cute-looking one.”

I asked Plante what it was like to have the president call him cute.

Plante theorized that the impetus for the comment may have been the colorful pocket square Plante was wearing, which might have lead to a little locker room teasing back in the president's baseball days.

"As long as we have a chance to talk to them, presidents can call us whatever they want," Plante added over email. "And, I’m reliably informed, they do, at least in private."

"If she were escorted by a hundred armed American soldiers, with Blackhawks and Apaches overhead, my gosh even Paris Hilton could probably ride a bicycle in a bikini through Anbar province and get through the other side.”

--NBC Iraq correspondent Tom Aspell, speaking about John McCain's high-security visit to a Baghdad market on "The Imus Show." McCain has been criticized for his comments about the level of safety in Baghdad, among them the claim that "[t]here are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today."

Sure, illegal downloading has the RIAA worked up. And the distribution of copyrighted content is getting companies like Viacom steamed. But what about illegal copying onto floppy disks? Doesn't anyone care anymore?

They once did: Click here to check out a 1992 public service announcement on that very topic. In it, a rapper tells two teenagers not to "copy that floppy." If they do, it could mean "the end of the computer age!"

This is presently at the top of the CBSNews.com top stories. It's officially a slow news day.

"As for the media, most of our brethren were celebrating the conviction yesterday because it damaged the Bush Administration they loathe."

--Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2007



To: Members Of Mainstream Media Cabal
From: Brian Montopoli, CBS Public Eye
CC: The Democratic Party, Rosie O'Donnell, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Comrades,

That was quite a rager last night, huh? I haven't been this hungover since after we doctored up that "macaca" video. As soon as the Libby verdict was announced, CBS News Prez Sean McManus sent a whole bunch of cake, all this top shelf liquor, and a selection of those delicious French pastries down to the newsroom. Five gin fizzes later, George Soros and a whole bunch of gay atheists show up, and Katie's got us cracking up with her "you might be an evangelical" jokes. I heard the parties were killer all over town – over at CNN, Blitzer and Dobbsie threw on Cheney and Nixon masks and totally made out. It was awesome!

Too bad about all those buzzkills, though. Here we are trying to celebrate the conviction and people like Howard Kurtz – who went to the University of Buffalo, by the way – are writing about how the proceedings gave journalism "a black eye." And in San Francisco they're whining about subpoenas. Waaah! Jeez, we don't care, jerks – an aide to Cheney got in trouble or something! At least the good folks at the Wall Street Journal has the good sense to point out that's all we care about. Not like that lame Bob Steele at The Poynter Institute, who said "[t]here is significant concern about what this could mean to journalists." Whatever, dork! Party! Woo-hoo!

Later,
Brian

We started yesterday with the kind of story that makes one lament the state of journalism, and we thought we'd do it again today. A Pittsburg reporter did a story last week on pole dancing as a new exercise craze. And that's not even the part that has Rob Owen worked up:

"The report is easily defensible as a feature on a new fad, right up until the point that Frey takes to the pole herself," he writes. "Then it crosses the line into pandering – 'Check out our saucy morning news anchor as she gyrates for your viewing pleasure!'"

I would call that something other than "pandering," but I'll leave it to you.