In 'Exile' No More: My New Post

The Nation magazine has just announced my hire to write their first super-active media blog. You can read their announcement, my own piece on it being "40 years in the making," and go to the Media Fix twitter feed. More TK. -- Greg Mitchell

Ban Aid

NPR blogger uses all 119 words recently banned by Tribune CEO.

'The Onion' May Make You Cry...from Laughter

Funny or die, indeed:

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere - watch more funny videos

Massa Hysteria

Sour Gropes

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Strupp and Away, Mitchell Next

Hope you saw the Strupp posting below about his new job. Congrats to Joe, of course, and check out his links below. He's already off to a fast start.

As for me, I was hired for a very exciting new gig last month (includes a lot of Web stuff and new twitter feed) and it will be announced in a few days, so watch this space, you'll read it here first! As always, you can contact me at: epic1934@aol.com. -- Greg Mitchell

Strupp in New Job

Joe Strupp started a new job with Media Matters for America.

He will be doing investigative reporting on the media, so send any and all tips, source ideas and story ideas to him at jstrupp@mediamatters.org or joestrupp@aol.com.

He also has a blog now on the media, with items similar to those he had done at E&P.

See a press release about it at

http://tinyurl.com/y8tca9u

And his first story, on Newsday and the Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, at

http://tinyurl.com/y9gxk9c

'Exile' in Exile?

Note to readers: Little or no posting for a few days, with one of us out of the country and so forth. But we might still get some stuff up. In either case, see you soon.

CIR vs. FBI

The Center for Investigative Reporting, which recently launched an effort to focus on unsolved civil rights cases, today criticized the FBI's decision to close dozens of such unsolved cases.

"So the FBI's decision to close, without prosecution or further disclosure, all but a few of the 108 unsolved murder cases it began re-examining three years ago, only highlights the vital need for investigative reporting that can find the truth, tell the stories and fill in the gaps in our nation's history," the CIR release stated.

The entire statement is HERE. -- Joe Strupp

After the Fox

Anchor Management

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Rove Spins War (Again)

Both AP and NYT came out yesterday with extracts from Karl Rove's upcoming memoir, in which he writes that, yes, he made a major mistake on Iraq--not defending Bush more vigorously against charges that he misled the nation into war over mythical WMD. David Corn of Mother Jones is out with a quick compilation of evidence that bolsters that Bush lied case -- Corn co-authored the book Hubris largely on this subject -- and concludes:

As Rove makes the rounds on his book tour, he ought to be pressed on all this. There is no doubt that the Bush posse mischaracterized what was known and not known about WMDs in Iraq. It was easy—and useful—for them to do so, for they didn't care to get this right. (After all, as Rove writes, the Iraq war would have likely not occurred without the WMD argument: "Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the WMD threat.") Bush and his aides, Rove included, were not looking to lead an informed debate based on the best information available; they were aiming to start a war. Almost by any means necessary. They spun the nation into Iraq—and now Rove is spinning to cover that up.

Thursday Linkage

Kelly Kennedy's book on Iraq unit just out and getting press. She's the fine Military Times reporter.

Long Island Press alleges Cablevision, new owner, is "destroying" Newsday.

Alan Mutter: web copyright fight coming.

If you have somehow missed the David Broder smackdown of colleague Dana Milbank. Like NYT, Post policy has generally been you can't attack your own. Dan Froomkin weighs in here on Rahm E.

Golf writers want bad boy John Daly disciplined for tweeting Florida Times-Union reporter's cell number.

Noting the Beatles

Bizarre editor's note in tomorrow's NYT, obviously after legal action, going back to 2008 article on guy who worked with Beatles, at center of their controversy with Maharishi--Times agreed to post on Web long, long statement by guy.

Rove Over the Cliff?

The upcoming Karl Rove memoir is now getting revealed a few days before pub date--AP might have had the first scoop earlier today. Now NYT's Peter Baker has a copy and weighs in. Excerpt:

Mr. Rove adamantly rejects accusations that the administration deliberately lied about the presence of such weapons in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But he acknowledges that the failure to find them badly damaged Mr. Bush’s presidency, and he blames himself for not countering the narrative that “Bush lied,” calling it “one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush years.”

Mr. Rove’s book offers the most expansive account yet of the Bush presidency by one of the people most responsible for it. Addressing the most controversial and consequential moments of Mr. Bush’s eight years in power, Mr. Rove takes responsibility for the widely criticized Air Force One flyover after Hurricane Katrina and writes that he secretly cried in his White House office when he learned he would not be indicted in a C.I.A. leak case.

For the most part, his book, “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight,” to be published by Threshold Editions on Tuesday, is an unapologetic defense of Mr. Bush and his presidency, and takes aim at Democrats, the news media and disloyal Republicans for what he describes as hypocrisy, deceit and vanity. He also recounts his hardscrabble upbringing in a family broken by divorce and his mother’s suicide.

Steiger on Murdoch's NY Push

I asked former Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Paul Steiger what he thought of the Journal launching a New York metro report next month.

"Rupert Murdoch is a billionaire and I am not," was his first reaction to the News Corp. chairman who confirmed the plan Tuesday. "When I was there, we did regional sections and we had a lot of fun with them. I suspect the folks at the Journal will do it on a much bigger scale and I will be eager to see how it turns out."

Steiger, who headed the Journal newsroom from 1991 to 2007, is now editor-in-chief of ProPublica.com. -- Joe Strupp

Facebook Drives More Traffic to Broadcast....

...than to newspaper sites. Editor's Weblog reports the findings from a new Hitwise report on its site.

But it also says Google, the highest traffic site on the Web, still sends more of its links to newspapers than to any other outlets. See it HERE. --Joe Strupp

David Brooks, "The Bi-Sexual" at 'NYT'

David Brooks

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Oh, Caption!

Howard Kurtz tweeted today that this is worst caption foulup in NYT history. Well, that's saying a lot, but it's got to be close. Don't miss this screen capture from yesterday afternoon.

Wednesday Linkage

ProPublica has updated its county-by-county "recovery tracker."

San Jose Merc brings back stand-alone biz section -- but Wash Post defends putting biz in section A.

For month or February, E&P Exile topped the remaining E&P blog by better than 2-1 in traffic.

Wash Post to launch $1.99 iPhone app.

All A-Twitter: It will hit 10 billion tweets today.

Southern Poverty Law Center: violence from hate groups ready to explode in USA. Number of groups at record level.

'NYT' Names Accuser

After shielding name of woman who accuses aide of New York Gov. Patterson in domestic attack, the Times published it tonight, saying others had brought it out.  It also provided new testimony against the governor from woman he allegedly asked to help hush it up. 

Yes, We Mexican-can-can

Love this Media Matters tweet: Murdoch reportedly doesn't believe rumor of NYT sale, "least of all to a Mexican," but doesn't "mean that racially." http://bit.ly/cre8OP

What's Up, Murdoch? A New York Edition

Rupert Murdoch confirmed Tuesday in remarks before the New York Board of Realtors that The Wall Street Journal will launch a New York metro edition in April.

This confirms news reported earlier this week in a New York magazine article about Murdoch that said the new edition was more a way to counter The New York Times than establish a new proft center.

Remarks from Murdoch released by Dow Jones are below. --Joe Strupp

.. so in the next few weeks, one of our other papers will be giving the (NY) Post some competition on their home turf. I'm talking about The Wall Street Journal.

You've probably already read a little about the new section on New York we'll be launching next month. Let me tell you how different that alone makes us. I challenge you to find a story about newspapers today that isn't about reducing coverage, laying off reporters, or cutting back on delivery services. When you open up a paper today, the most depressing news is often about newspapers themselves.

Here in New York, we're doing just the opposite. We're adding a whole new section and taking on reporters and editors. We believe that in its pursuit of journalism prizes and a national reputation, a certain other New York daily has essentially stopped covering the city the way it once did. In so doing, they have mistakenly overlooked the most fascinating city in the world - and left the interests and concerns of people like you far behind them. I promise you this: The Wall Street Journal will not make that mistake.

I can't tell you all the details. I can tell you that the new section will be full color - and it will be feisty. It will cover everything that makes New York great: state politics, local politics, business, culture, and sports. Oh yes - and real estate.

Favre Out -- Or Not?

A Minnesota Viking fan, from Wisconsin no less, wants Vikings quarterback Brett Favre to return for another season so badly he took out a full-page ad in Favre's hometown paper to make his case. The ad ran in the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, which is located in Favre's off-season hometown. It drew the attention of a Wisconsin television station that offered a video report. -- Joe Strupp

Rick Sanchez: Too Much Bull, or Red Bull?

The Uninformant

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Tuesday Linkage

Financial Times' paid online subs rose 15% last year.

Two corrections on NYT's Charles Blow's Saturday column appear, including getting wrong that mother in Precious is a crack addict.

Roger Ebert is on Oprah's show today. He can't talk due to his many operations but he tweets that on the show he does some magnificent "typing." But hasn't that always been true?

Gannett ends wage freeze.

Traffic at E&P's main site in month of February one-third what it was last fall.

Reno paper wants emails related to governor's alleged affairs.

BBC considers deep cuts in its Web site.

Arianna Huffington on pay wall advocates allegedly "missing the point," dahling.

Afghanistan bans coverage of current Taliban attacks, saying it only encourages them.

Amazing Prophecy in Ogden?

New outlets are now reporting that Hazmat teams have been called to an IRS office near Ogden, Utah, with one or two workers taken out on stretchers and others undergoing de-contamination showers after a suspicious white substance was found. Some in media making links to the recent terror attack on IRS building in office by deranged pilot. Amazingly, the local paper in Ogden reported on the fears of workers in a local IRS office after the Austin attack. An excerpt:

Some Internal Revenue Service employees in Ogden are expressing concern for their safety after a man apparently intentionally flew his single-engine plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, causing heavy damage and injuring at least two people. "You are not safe," said a woman who works in an IRS building at 23rd Street and Wall Avenue but declined to give her name.

"Anybody can get you."

Another IRS employee who works in the same Ogden building described the actions of the pilot in the Texas incident, identified as Joe Stack, 53, of Austin, as "pretty sick" but unpreventable.

"It could happen anywhere," the man said. "A lot of people don't like the federal government."

The Rupe Scoop

Gabriel Sherman writes in New York magazine this week that Rupert Murdoch is not slowing down as his company keeps pumping up The Wall Street Journal to battle The New York Times, still loses money with the New York Post, and rolls on with his other worldwide properties. -- Joe Strupp

Posting Here Resumes

Not much action here at Exile since Thursday due to mammoth NY storm, just getting back in the swing of things now. Sorry from Mom Nature.

Magazines Sites Pay Off?

A Columbia Journalism Review report on magazine Web sites says there is no uniform editing approach for the online versions, but some are making money with no-pay access.

A New York Times story on the report stated: "There was wide variance in most of the answers to survey questions - how and whether the sites made money, for one. Only a third of the Web sites reported making a profit."

It also stated that editing was less important to the Web versions than print, sparking concerns about quality. -- Joe Strupp

Note to Readers

Sorry, no posting last night and today due to New York storm and loss of web access.  See you soon.  

Slicing 'The Onion'

Two of the writers for The Onion, the satirical web and print paper, sat down with a Masschusetts newspaper reporter to discuss their mix of satire, parody and outright funny stuff.

The Republican of Springfield, Mass., chatted with Sam West and Jack Kukoda when the pair appeared at nearby Westfield State College.

"Its voice is consistent," West said in the story. "It's expanded, but the core sensibility is still there." -- Joe Strupp