Those in attendance: Anna Badkhen of the San Francisco Chronicle, Jackie Spinner of the Washington Post, John Burns of the New York Times and Mark Danner, a Berkeley journalism professor and contributor to The New York Review of Books.

UC Berkeley News reported on the event.

Jackie Spinner, Washington Post staff writer and author of "Tell Them I Didn't Cry," an account of a year spent in Baghdad starting in May 2004, disagreed that reporters in Iraq are prevented from telling both sides. "I think we're getting 90 percent of the story," she said. When disbelieving guffaws rang out from the audience, she retorted, "Excuse me, have you been there?" She went on to explain how when Washington Post reporters can't go out, "we rely on this whole cadre of Iraqi stringers and translators, who in the case of the Washington Post are Post-trained journalists."

Those skeptical of this reliance should take the time to read Spinner's book, which describes in detail the tight bond between the Post's Baghdad correspondents and the Iraqis who risk their lives to work for the bureau, often keeping their jobs a secret even from family members lest the insurgents kill them in retaliation. Before the situation in Iraq turned even more dangerous, Spinner — a UC Berkeley journalism alumna — would dress in a headscarf and full-length abaya and ride to the scene of an incident. There she would wait while her translator brought her an Iraqi who she could interview inside the tinted windows of the car. Later, she could not always go herself, but would be in constant contact with the Iraqi staff, guiding what questions they asked and pressing for details of the source's mannerisms, hesitations, and context.

Credit to DRUDGE for this.

http://stylescenes.latimes.com/fashion/2006/03/_oscarwinner_ge.html

It is satisfying when deception causes them to turn on each other...

Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert’s nightly conservative/O’Reilly-mocking show "The Colbert Report" invited on MSNBC host Keith Olbermann Tuesday night to double up on the O’Reilly bashing. It started predictably, before the word "Nazi" came out:

Colbert: "Why do you have a problem with my hero, papa bear Bill O'Reilly? You guys have been going at it, hammer and tongs."

Olbermann: "Well, Stephen, he's an idiot."

Colbert: "You say that like it's a bad thing. I think he sees the world simply, okay? Without all your complicated facts."

Olbermann: "We're both saying the same thing. He's an idiot."

The media has manufactured another furor over "controversial" Pat Robertson comments. The televangelist has said he was referring to terrorists when he described radical Muslims as "satanic." His statements recently came under the scrutiny of the women on ABC's The View. On the March 14 edition of the program, View co-hosts used Robertson’s comments as an excuse to generally bash religion. Joy Behar stated, "And a lot of the nasty people represent religion in this world.." She also added, "There’s too much anger between extreme religions." Just getting warmed up, the host then took a gratuitous and bewildering swipe at Rush Limbaugh: "Rush Limbaugh, people like that, get your attention because they’re radical."

Wendy Brogin wrote that Leno's joke was offensive and that he should "do the right thing relative to this matter."

Leno called her up, something that impressed her.

According to the LA Daily News, Brogin says Leno told her:

"He said 'Hello, Wendy, this is Jay Leno,"' the Sherman Oaks resident remembered. "`I'm calling about the letter you wrote and I want to apologize. I just want to let you know we make mistakes sometimes and we don't mean to hurt people."'

http://www.reason.com/sullum/031506.shtml

"The good news is Republican members of Congress finally stood up to President Bush. The bad news is they picked an issue where he was right and they were wrong."

He’s baaaack. Although it certainly shouldn’t be lost on the reader that such statements are good marketing for his soon to be released film about Hurricane Katrina, controversial actor and director Spike Lee, in an interview with the New York Observer, once again addressed the possibility that New Orleans’ levees were intentionally exploded. In addition, he suggested that folks who consider this possibility are similar to Jews that talk about the chance of another holocaust happening. His reasoning? Well, it happened before:

“‘Here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘Even today, a large part of the African-American community of New Orleans thinks that those levees were bombed. Now, whether that is true or not, that should not be discounted.’ He rattled off past government trespasses: 1927’s Great Flood of Mississippi, when the levees were, in fact, blown up; the flooding of the Ninth Ward during Hurricane Betsy in 1965; the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

“‘So, in the collective mind of African-Americans, it is not some science-fiction, hocus-pocus thing to say that the government is doing stuff,’ he continued. ‘Even if it didn’t happen, you cannot discount it and dismiss it as Oh you people are crazy. It’s what people think—talk to Jewish people. Because of the Holocaust, you know, anything that happens, it’s like, ‘Oh! It’s starting again.’ And I’m not going to fault someone of Jewish ancestry that feels like that because that happened! This is history.’”

What's beautiful about this reasoning is that Lee has created a marvelous self-fulfilling prophecy that seems to have eluded him: high profile folks like him continue to float this idea, and then say that since people believe it is possible, it is significant. Amazingly, he continued to try and justify this premise:

I thought the MSM is ardently opposed to the death penalty. Aren't these the same folks who wrung their collective hands at the prospect of poor Tookie Williams getting the needle? Sure, he murdered four people in cold blood and joked about it, but hey! - he wrote a children's book.

So you might have thought that the Today show would be celebrating the federal lawyer whose goof might very well lead to Zacarias Moussaoui dodging death and instead becoming a lifelong resident of a federal facility.

But, no! The Today show was distraught at the prospect that "the 20th hijacker" might have slipped the noose [or the needle]. They went so far as to play a clip from a family member of one of the 9/11 victims saying that "I felt like my husband had been killed again." Shades of that NAACP anti-Bush ad from 2000. See item #2 here of this MRC report.

The D.C. Superior Court recently ruled that thousands of non-District residents had been illegally compelled to pay a business tax. But rather than portray the tens of millions lost by local businessmen to the city government, the Post portrayed the ruling as harmful to the city's bottom line.

Staff Writer Albert Crenshaw focused on the concerns of city officials and a sympathetic liberal think tank:

Ed Lazere, executive director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, which analyzes D.C. tax and budget issues, said the tax generates about $100 million a year for the city. If the ratio of suburbanites to D.C. residents is the same among real estate investors and other owners of unincorporated businesses as among workers generally -- roughly two-thirds suburban to one-third District -- then the loss could round to $70 million, "which is huge," he said.

But ABC sure can.

The “news” network last night highlighted a doctor who is predicting an apocalypse as part of a weeklong series “Bird Flu: Fears, Facts and Fiction; What Americans Need to Know.” Reporter Jim Avila interviewed Dr. Robert Webster “the father of bird flu.” Webster came right out and predicted that the virus, which so far has killed barely 100 people in roughly eight years, will mutate into a virus and that “that 50% of the population could die.”

Webster, who is storing three months of food and water in his home like some Y2K survivalist, estimated the chance of such an event as “about even odds,” though he says it will happen.

In his first appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman since “joking” on the October 21 show (NewsBusters item with video) about how Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove “are going to be executed” because “outing a CIA agent is treason,” and President Bush is at risk too, Al Franken on Tuesday's program scolded Vice President Dick Cheney for not visiting the hospital room of his accidental shooting victim, Harry Whittington. In his usual mocking tone meant to come across as humorous, but which reflects a serious commentary, Franken, who briefly impersonated Cheney as a drunk, contended that Cheney was “drunk and couldn't show up at the hospital” or “he's an amazing jerk.” Third option: “Or, of course, both." Franken soon reiterated that “the idea that it's very common to shoot someone in the face, it's not unless you're, you know, you're drunk....Or he's just a big jerk." (Trancript follows.)

Video excerpt (1:35): Real (2.8 MB) or Windows Media (3.3 MB) Plus MP3 audio (570 KB)

Was this a news report, or a coming attraction for a new series about inter-generational love? Perhaps there's a third explanation: a not-too-subtle kiss blown in the direction of a soon-to-be new employer.

Amidst rampant speculation that Katie Couric might be leaving the Today show to anchor the CBS Evening News, Couric narrated a segment on this morning's Today on the occasion of Mike Wallace's announcement this week that he will be retiring from '60 Minutes'. If you think it's impossible to sustain a gush for five minutes, you obviously weren't watching Katie this morning.

Excerpts from Katie's paen to Wallace:

• He "seems to succeed at everything except slowing down."
• "Fearless and willing to ask anything."
• "How do you stay so vibrant, so active, so alert and continue to work so hard?"
• His departure "leaves big shoes for 60 Minutes to fill."
• "His legend will never fade."

Back in the studio, when Matt Lauer observed that "at 88, he is astounding," Katie offered up the ultimate accolade:

Sen. Russ Feingold's motion to censure President Bush for warrantless eavesdropping on suspected terrorists is drawing major attention -- even if its political chances are roughly zero. The front page of the Washington Post blows the hot air of publicity on Feingold's leftist crusade, but the headline is "A Senate Maverick Acts to Force an Issue." Why are the "mavericks" always to the left of the party mainstream?

R