Since our economy is going to hell in a handbasket, why not distract yourself from the economic doom that is now upon us with this clip of Rep. Barney Frank letting out what sounded like a giant fart tonight while chatting with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC? As you'll see, his hips most definitely don't lie.
Say what you will about Larry King, but when he had Kathy Griffin on his show, there was chemistry. The same can't be said for Griffin and Piers Morgan, as we learned tonight during his painfully dull interview with the comedian on CNN. Video of the worst two minutes, featuring awkward sexual banter and an even more awkward kiss, is above.
Piers Morgan has repeatedly claimed—falsely!—that he never countenanced or encountered voicemail hacking during his tenure as editor of the Daily Mirror. Now Heather Mills has come forward to claim that a reporter for the Mirror's parent company confessed to her in 2001 that the paper had surreptitiously gained access to a voicemail message Paul McCartney left for her after the couple had a fight. The trouble for Morgan is that he openly admitted to having listened to that very voicemail message—recounting it in detail—in 2007. Whoops.
CNN anchor John King's show John King U.S.A. is usually very boring. But not tonight! No, tonight a homeless guy jumped the White House fence right behind where King was shooting. Take that, MSNBC!
For some strange reason, Fox News can't let go of this month-old post demonstrating—without naming him—that a figure in a White House photo was probably the CIA analyst who tracked down Osama bin Laden. Here's Mike Huckabee over the weekend: "Doesn't their name say it all? Gawker? What do you think of when you think of Gawker? Do you think, 'Oh that's the person I want to invite to my son's birthday party?'" Probably not. But for what it's worth, Gov. Huckabee, we don't really want to go to your son's birthday party, either. Mostly to avoid the dog-slaughtering.
Blotchy Gong Show revivalist and CNN host Piers Morgan came off looking good in his confrontation with a British MP who accused him—falsely, as it turns out—on Tuesday of having confessed in his memoir to phone hacking while he was editor of the Daily Mirror. So we decided to catalog all the other—far more credible—indications that hacking went on under his nose during his tabloid days and...not so good! Let's have a look.
Puffy British game-show presenter Piers Morgan, who also hosts a show on CNN about Twitter, is in the spotlight these days because he formerly edited Rupert Murdoch's News of the World and a competitor called the Daily Mirror, and as such is prima facie guilty of hacking into everyone's voicemails all the time.
Add Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to the list of GOP pols that Fox News CEO Roger Ailes schmoozes with. According to records obtained by Gawker under the Mississippi Public Records Act, Barbour met with Ailes at News Corporation's New York headquarters for an hour on October 14, 2010—just three weeks before the midterm elections in which Barbour played a major role.
Remember when Fox News whined that the White House tried to ice them out of an interview with a Treasury Department official that everyone else got to talk to? And the White House denied it? Well, Judicial Watch used the Freedom of Information Act to get emails of White House staffers planning the event, and it turns out they were totally lying! They hate Fox News and think Brett Baier is a "lunatic," which he absolutely is, because he works for Fox News.
After a Florida jury acquitted Casey Anthony of murdering her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, on Tuesday, some were hoping HLN host Nancy Grace would finally eat crow for the years-long media war she waged against Anthony. She didn't, of course. And it's clear she won't be letting the case go anytime soon either.
The Hollywood Reporter has an interview with Nancy Grace, the fiery legal commenter who has seen some ratings success hosting shows like Casey Anthony Right Now, Target: Casey Anthony, The Casey Anthony Report and Casey Anthony: The Devil in 3D on CAC: the Casey Anthony Channel. (Check your cable listings.) But for those of you who feel she may have, say, crossed an invisible ethical line by exploiting this one case ad nauseam for her own personal and financial gains, make no mistake: She absolutely did. But she says she didn't.
Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the "prejudices of network news" and deliver "pro-administration" stories to heartland television viewers.
In your beautiful Wednesday media column: MSNBC's doing fine without Olbermann, network news is on the rise, a crazy NY Daily News rumor, the AP plays footsie with North Korea, David Cho to Grantland, and a Village Voice strike update.
The office of Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is claiming that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes is a confidential adviser whose interactions with the governor should remain secret under New Jersey's executive privilege.
Pathologically self-destructive ego-vessel Keith Olbermann is launching a new show on Al Gore's Current cable network in two weeks, so it's time to start the passive aggressive media tour!
Roger Ailes, the totally paranoid chairman of Fox News, called up Newsweek/The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz over the weekend to fight back against some of the bad press he's seen over the last couple weeks. Kurtz dutifully wrote down the things Ailes said irrespective of their truth value, and then published them online.
Ed Schultz, the fake, lefty Rush Limbaugh whom MSNBC trots out for an hour each night to botch debased versions of Democratic talking points, had some nasty words for right-wing babbler Laura Ingraham on his radio show yesterday. While Ingraham is certainly an unsavory character, did Schultz really need to resort to the descriptor "slut," twice, over some ephemeral Obama-drinks-beer-in-Ireland nontroversy?
