Menendez, in Second Place, Is The Winner
(CBS/AP)
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November 7, 2006 8:38 PM By 8:30, CBS News had called the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey for Democrat Bob Menendez. If you went to the Election Results page for the race at that time, however, it showed Republican Thomas Kean with more actual votes – 13,442 to Menendez' 12,629. (Of course, those numbers changed as the votes continued to come in.) Seem odd that the race would be called for the candidate in second? Yeah, it does to us too. But "the call" is nothing if not mysterious, as we explained in an earlier post. You might want to read it if you're confused about how the networks are making these calls. It's not going to clear things right up by any means, but it might make the process seem a bit less arbitrary.
May 15, 2006 2:09 PM 
Yowza.
That's the reaction I had when I saw Brian Ross and Richard Esposito's report alleging that "the government is tracking the phone numbers [journalists] call in an effort to root out confidential sources."
Something to keep in mind: Since this is an early, incomplete report, it should not be treated as ironclad. It's tied to an anonymous "senior federal law enforcement official." Beyond that single source, it doesn't have much to it one couldn't infer from last week's revelations about NSA call monitoring. And, somewhat oddly, the story was reported on "The Blotter," an ABC News blog. Was that a signal that ABC News didn't think it had enough to put the report in a stand-alone story? This is a big story to treat so off-handedly. What, exactly, is going on here?
Still: Even if this isn't happening yet, the potential is there. The government is tracking the calls of tens of millions of Americans, and if someone wants to go into the database and find out who a reporter has been talking to, wouldn't the information be just a few mouse clicks away? I imagine that at least some reporters will start using disposable cell phones and, in the case of Ross and Esposito, "in person conversations" with sources for fear that the government will otherwise know to whom they have been talking. Is anyone else more than a little troubled that reporters might now have to embrace tactics favored by terrorists in pursuit of a story?
Where I'm Calling From
(AP / CBS)
That's the reaction I had when I saw Brian Ross and Richard Esposito's report alleging that "the government is tracking the phone numbers [journalists] call in an effort to root out confidential sources."
Something to keep in mind: Since this is an early, incomplete report, it should not be treated as ironclad. It's tied to an anonymous "senior federal law enforcement official." Beyond that single source, it doesn't have much to it one couldn't infer from last week's revelations about NSA call monitoring. And, somewhat oddly, the story was reported on "The Blotter," an ABC News blog. Was that a signal that ABC News didn't think it had enough to put the report in a stand-alone story? This is a big story to treat so off-handedly. What, exactly, is going on here?
Still: Even if this isn't happening yet, the potential is there. The government is tracking the calls of tens of millions of Americans, and if someone wants to go into the database and find out who a reporter has been talking to, wouldn't the information be just a few mouse clicks away? I imagine that at least some reporters will start using disposable cell phones and, in the case of Ross and Esposito, "in person conversations" with sources for fear that the government will otherwise know to whom they have been talking. Is anyone else more than a little troubled that reporters might now have to embrace tactics favored by terrorists in pursuit of a story?
January 27, 2006 5:10 PM
Who Are You Calling A Lobbyist?
White House Correspondent Mark Knoller had an interesting, and surely rare, exchange with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card yesterday. We'll let him explain the details:
About 45 minutes before Pres. Bush’s press conference on Thursday morning, I answered the phone in the CBS News booth at the White House.
It was a most unexpected caller - Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
He said he was phoning to “eat crow” about a statement he made to me in a CBS News radio interview a week earlier.
I was asking him about the White House policy on dealing with lobbyists - and he wanted to challenge the “bad connotation” associated with lobbyists these days.
“Where I’m coming from you’re no different from a lobbyist,” he told me.
Me? A lobbyist? No Way!
October 13, 2005 3:30 PM
RNC Hearts The Blogosphere
With all the flack President Bush has gotten from conservative pundits on Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court, the Republican National Committee is calling on the blogosphere, where many have made their views known, to generate support for Miers. RNC Chair Ken Mehlman is getting quite a bit of attention from conservative bloggers after holding a conference call on the nomination with them yesterday. ProfessorBainbridge.com blogged the call live, and Hotline On Call’s Marc Ambinder featured his own “instantaneous transcription,” of the call.
While some felt the content of the call was less than satisfying, they were glad to see that the RNC was “clearly tipping his hat to the surging strength of right-of-center blogs,” as Ankle Biting Pundits put it.
While some felt the content of the call was less than satisfying, they were glad to see that the RNC was “clearly tipping his hat to the surging strength of right-of-center blogs,” as Ankle Biting Pundits put it.
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
