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As Journalists Become the Story, Will the Rules Change?

Will news organizations’ boycott of the Attorney General’s ‘off-the-record’ background sessions last week change the rules of the game between government sources and media?

On the record: Doubtful, at best.

“It won’t change anything,” says Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. “In Washington, media will continue to deal with administration sources, brokering access and information for pledges of confidentiality.

“It’s a pernicious practice, and very widespread, but it’s how business is done.”

Embattled AG Eric Holder held meetings with top Washington journalists Thursday and Friday to discuss concerns about Department of Justice guidelines for dealing with journalists in investigations of possible security leaks.

The New York Times, CNN, CBS News, NBC News and the Associated Press, among others, passed on Thursday’s meeting because of its off-the-record requirement. At that gathering, however, the DOJ blinked, and news outlets were told they could report on ‘general’ topics of discussion.

Thursday attendees included The Washington Post, Politico, New Yorker, Daily News and The Wall Street Journal. ABC News, the lone network representative last week, met with Holder Friday, along with USA Today and Reuters, which had initially said no to Thursday.

David Westin, ABC News president from 1997 through 2010, agrees with his alma mater’s decision to attend and says it was “smart” of the DOJ to modify its rule.

“News organizations are in the business of reporting news, not keeping it secret,” says Westin. “This happens from time to time. It’s part of a larger issue with the White House itself. It’s part of the normal give-and-take, back-and-forth of the press covering the administration.”

In Westin’s view, Holder’s sessions presented a particular challenge in that the news outlets were also principals in the story. “They were asked not as reporters, but as people being affected by the Justice Department.”

Going further, Harvard’s Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the New York Times, says the meetings served as de facto press conferences, regardless of Holder’s intentions, and that Holder was “naïve” to think otherwise.

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How Howard Kurtz Came to be Interrogated on His Own CNN Show

Howard Kurtz’ mea culpa on his own “Reliable Sources” yesterday made for an extraordinary 15 minutes of live television. (Full disclosure: I am an occasional guest on the show.)

Kurtz’ apology for his most recent journalistic transgression – his “inexcusable” erroneous report last week about openly-gay NBA player Jason Collins — extended from his personal statement of contrition to a bracing interrogation by two excellent media reporters.

NPR’s David Folkenflik and Politico’s Dylan Byers grilled Kurtz about Collins as well as other mistakes from the past that Kurtz admitted he had sometimes waited too long to correct. It was riveting, powerful, and frequently uncomfortable to watch.

The backstory: In a Sports Illustrated piece that broke April 29, Collins became the first active male pro athlete from a major U.S. sport to come out. Kurtz wrote in his Daily Beast blog that Collins had not disclosed he had been engaged to a woman, and chastised him for it. He repeated the assertions in a video on The Daily Download, where he is a paid contributor.

In fact, Collins had written of the engagement. Kurtz had missed it, he said yesterday, because he had read the piece “too fast” and “carelessly.” On May 2, Kurtz left the Daily Beast. He said it was by mutual agreement; HuffingtonPost, among others, said he was fired.

The live interrogation on CNN was not Kurtz’ idea. He made that clear in his opening statement when he said the network had invited the questioners.

Folkenflik confirmed this in an interview with TVNewser. (Byers declined an interview because he said he was writing his own blog about the show). Folkenflik was pitched by a CNN executive “who doesn’t directly oversee the show,” he said, not naming names. “He’s a respected figure within CNN.”

 

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Howard Kurtz ‘Status Unchanged’ At CNN

CNN “Reliable Sources” host Howard Kurtz may not have a job at The Daily Beast anymore, but he still has his CNN hosting gig… for now. A CNN spokesperson tells THR:

“There has been no status change with Howard Kurtz, he remains the host of Reliable Sources,” said a network spokesperson on Friday. “He will address this issue on the program this weekend.”

We heard from a CNN source yesterday that Kurtz’s future at the network is up in the air. Since then, we have heard from others, who say that Kurtz is on a week-to-week contract with the channel.

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Fox News Reporter Wins Reprieve In Theater Shooting Source Case

Fox News reporter Jana Winter was facing six months in jail for refusing to testify about her sources. Instead, the judge ruled late today that he won’t decide Winter’s fate until it’s determined whether evidence she reported on will be introduced in the case.

Last July, Winter wrote a FoxNews.com story about Aurora, CO theater shooting suspect James Holmes mailing his psychiatrist a notebook filled with violent drawings. Winter cited law enforcement sources in her report. Holmes’ lawyers objected saying the sources violated a gag order. According to the Denver Post, Judge Carlos Samour Jr. agreed with Winter’s lawyers that the issue isn’t “ripe” for ruling.

“The Court is not comfortable proceeding on an incomplete record,” Samour writes in his order. “As soon as the record is adequate, the Court will move forward.”

Samour was to decide Wednesday whether to order Winter to testify.

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Current TV Already Removed from Time Warner Cable

At least one large cable system has removed Current TV from the lineup following Al Jazeera’s $500 million acquisition of the network. Late today NYT’s Brian Stelter spoke with reps from Time Warner Cable in New York City who said a clause in their contract allows them to remove the channel, adding, “We are removing the service as quickly as possible.” The plug was pulled following Eliot Spitzer‘s 8pm show. It was Spitzer who told our Diane Clehane a few weeks ago, “Nobody’s watching, but I’m having a great time.”

Stelter reports former VP Al Gore, a 20% owner of Current, stands to make $100 million on the deal. He and majority owner Joel Hyatt will sit on an advisory board as Al Jazeera launches a new channel for an American audience which is expected to include about 60% of coverage from Al Jazeera English, which is also in limited distribution in the U.S. Time Warner Cable is not planning to carry the new channel.

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Roger Ailes on Election Night: ‘Rove was wrong. He backed down. Our guys were right.’

On election night, Fox News co-founder and chairman Roger Ailes watched election coverage in the News Corp. Sports Suite, down the hall from his second floor office. When he saw how things were going, a likely re-election for Pres. Obama, he decided to call it a night.

“It only took 15 minutes to get home,” Ailes told TVNewser in a lengthy interview in his office Thursday. “I turn on the TV and the first thing I see is Rove saying something like ‘you called Ohio too early.’ And I thought, ‘What the? What is this?’”

Ailes watched as his highly-paid pundit was challenging his decision desk’s call which would give the election to Pres. Obama.

“So I quickly called [EVP of News] Michael Clemente and I said, ‘Michael whatever you do, don’t go to commercial. Don’t leave the screen.’”

Ailes instructed Clemente to have Megyn Kelly, “go confront the decision team. If you have to, make the decision team confront Rove.” Confrontation is Roger Ailes’ middle name. (Actually it’s Eugene)

Ailes says transparency was the key, telling Clemente, “‘We can’t do anything off camera.’ I didn’t want the public or our competitors to say we somehow panicked and didn’t confront the truth on camera.”

“As it turned out Rove was wrong. He backed down. Our guys were right. We stayed with it. Megyn did her famous walk down the hall. And it all worked out.”

Fox News and the Obama administration already have a chilly relationship. Last year in a news conference, the president remarked to FNC White House correspondent Ed Henry, “I didn’t know you where the spokesperson for Mitt Romney.”

So, how will the next four years play out?

“It’s day to day for us,” Ailes tell us. “We don’t — I know no one believes it — we have no agenda. If he runs into a burning building tomorrow and saves four kids, he’s gonna be the biggest goddamn hero Fox News ever saw. But if he leaves four guys behind on the battlefield but can’t explain it, then he’s gonna have a problem with Fox News.”

“I don’t mind praising the guy and I don’t mind questioning the guy,” says Ailes. “It’s day to day.”

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Tom Hanks Drops F-Bomb on ‘Good Morning America’

Actor Tom Hanks was on ABC’s “Good Morning America” this morning, and promptly undid his reputation as one of the cleanest guys in Hollywood by dropping an F-bomb.

There were mic issues, so Hanks had to hold a handheld microphone for the interview, making it somewhat awkward from the start. After showing a clip from his new movie “Cloud Atlas” at 8:25 AM, Elizabeth Vargas asked Hanks to speak in the accent he used in the clip. “Most of it is swear words,” Hanks warned, “well if you say it in an accent like that they won’t notice,” Vargas replied.

Hanks, with the deep accent, said “I want people to fucking…” before catching what he said and generating an instant apology from Vargas.

“I am so sorry, I have slipped into a brand of acting, I have never done that before,” Hanks said. “I want to apologize to the kids in America that are watching right now, and let me say that the next time I am on ‘Good Morning America’ there will be a seven second delay.”

After finishing the interview, Hanks looked to the camera, and channeled his inner Richard Nixon, quipping:

“Once again, my apologies to the people of the United States of America.”

Video after the jump, via NowThis News

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NBC’s ‘Today’ Skips 9/11 Moment Of Silence For Kardashian Interview

At 8:46 AM, in New York City and at the White House in Washington DC, there was a moment of silence to remember when the first plane hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In New York, the NYPD, FDNY, Port Authority Police and the families of the victims were present, while in Washington the President and the First Lady led the moment.

The cable networks all carried it, with ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “CBS This Morning” carrying it as well. The only national general news program to not carry the moment of silence was NBC’s ‘Today,” which, in an odd bit of counter-programming, opted to air an interview with “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star Kris Jenner, who talked about the new season of the reality show, and her breast implants.

After the moment of silence ended, ABC went right to an interview with actor Richad Gere, while CBS went straight into a commercial break.

Here in New York, NBC did show the moment of silence, as WNBC broke into “Today” to carry locally-produced special coverage.

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CNN Apologizes For Playing Song Titled ‘Stupid Girls’ Ahead of Sarah Palin Segment

CNN has apologized for what it says “was a poor choice” of music to accompany a news story.

The story was about Fox News contributor and former GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin, who was visiting a local Chik-Fil-A fast food restaurant. The song was “Stupid Girls,” by Pink. Some viewers noticed the correlation, and complained vocally.

The Hollywood Reporter received a statement from CNN apologizing for the incident, which it says was not intentional.

“The music selection was a poor choice and was not intended to be linked to any news story,” a CNN spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. “We regret any perception that they were planned together.”

Introducing the segment after the intro, CNN Sunday Morning anchor Randy Kaye said, “Sarah Palin is apparently hungry for chicken and controversy.”

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Deadline: HBO Acquires Rights to Fox News Flick

Deadline Hollywood’s Nikke Finke reports that HBO has acquired the TV movie rights to Gabriel Sherman‘s upcoming book about Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, and the birth of Fox News Channel. Even crazier: among the producers of the (potential) project are MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

So, if you are keeping track: HBO–sister network to CNN–has acquired the rights to a movie about Fox News, with two MSNBC hosts producing.

To be clear: Sherman’s book isn’t even finished yet, so this movie might never get made, but HBO does love to pick up book rights. Earlier this year it debuted “Game Change,” based on the book of the same name, and it acquired the rights to Bill Carter‘s The Late Shift back in the early 90′s, changing the TV movie game.

Writes Finke:
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