Geraldo Kicked Off the National Express; Forced to Take the 'Local'

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Cumulus Media, Inc., which has nationally syndicated Geraldo Rivera's radio show since 2012, announced that beginning in January 2014, Rivera will be heard only on 77 WABC Radio in New York City, hosting a new program devoted to social and political issues affecting Gotham, Politico reported this week.

Rivera, who still toils at Fox News, will air 10 a.m. to noon on WABC beginning January 1. The 70-year-old Rivera no longer is a marquis name to a new generation of talk radio shut-ins, lacking the national clout and bombast of a Rush Limbaugh.

Perhaps returning to his New York roots will revive the "good" Geraldo, a Peabody Award-winning journalist/lawyer for ABC News in the early '70s, rather than the "bad" Geraldo fighting with Neo-Nazi skinheads on his tabloid talk show and unveiling debris in Al Capone's vault.

'Money Honey to Become Fox 'Fox'?

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After a 20-year run at CNBC, two-time Emmy winning business reporter Maria Bartiromo is leaving to join Fox Business Network ("FBN").

Credit the Drudge Report with the scoop on the departure of Bartiromo, one of CNBC's breakout stars, who acquired the sobriquet "Money Honey" in a career that also has included a stint at CNN, writing columns for USA Today and authoring three books. The 46-year-old Bartiromo will gain exposure reporting on Fox News, as well as FBN.

Among advertisers' favorite demographic group, those between the ages of 25 and 54, CNBC draws three times as many viewers as FBN.

Cable News Rivals Compete to Kill-Off Ill Congressman

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Eighty-two-year-old Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), whose 43 years in the House makes him Florida's longest-serving Congressman, is gravely ill at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, according to an Associated Press report today.

A sad turn of events for Young, who just last week announced his intent to retire from Congress, but not as sad as the fate bestowed on him yesterday, initially by Fox News' Gretchen Carlson on-air, and then via Twitter separately by MSNBC's Frank Thorp and Luke Russert, according to the Politico Web site.

During her afternoon gabfest, Carlson reported a Fox News Alert that Young had died, only to apologize and issue a correction later in the broadcast. Meanwhile, Russert and Thorp each tweeted that Young wouldn't get any older, only to tweet again that their reports of his death, like Mark Twain once said, were greatly exaggerated.

As a long-time member of the House Appropriations Committee, Young oversaw military appropriations. Unfortunately, for him and his loved ones, there is no defense to sloppy journalism. "Get it first, get it fast, and (maybe) get it right," just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Fox News Snafu Blames Obama in Fake Muslim Museum Story

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Over at Fox News, where anchors and talk show hosts go from zero to full lather in 30 seconds as part of their daily outrage exercise routine, newsie Anna Kooiman was forced to tweet an apology for reporting a false story Sunday about Fox fave President Barack Obama.

With the nation in the throes of a government shutdown, Kooiman reported about President Obama's alleged offer to pay out of his own pocket to keep a Jackson, Miss. museum of Muslim culture open. That "fact" was included in a news item about the Republican National Committee offering to step up to pay to keep the World War II Memorial open so that veterans and others may visit the site that had been closed because of the government shutdown caused by, well...that's not the point.  Kooiman's story, according to accounts by the Media Matters, Gawker and mediabistro.com TV Newser Web sites, follows:

"The Republican National Committee is offering to pay for it to keep it open so that the veterans from Honor Flight are going to be able to go to see this because who did it honor? It really doesn't seem fair, especially--and we're going to talk a little bit later in the show too about some things that are continuing to be funded. And President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture out of his own pocket, yet it's the Republican National Committee who's paying for this."

Setting aside for a moment that this spoken passage should be taken out and shot and was purportedly uttered by a professionally trained journalist and not someone whose medications have yet to be adjusted, or that it seems to suggest that President Obama ought to consider personally funding the continued operation of the WWII Memorial, the more immediate problems with the story are:

1. President Obama made no such offer;
2. There is no International Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson, Miss.;
3. If such a museum existed, it wouldn't be government-run; 
4. The source of the news item was a satirical Web site, The National Report.

Kooiman issued the following contrite tweet: "Just met w producers--I made a mistake yday after receiving flawed research abt a museum possibly closing. My apologies. Won't happen again."

Not a terribly detailed mea culpa, and makes the error-free staff of "TUOL" wonder if Kooiman was using shortcuts to stay within Twitter's140-character limit or believes yday and abt are actual words. What "TUOL" doesn't doubt is that such a gaffe will happen again because many of the Fox staffers, and certainly disciples of Fox News, want such a news story to be true to the point of willing it true, if it isn't. No red flags were raised by the item, because many Fox viewers believe the President is a practicing Muslim anyway.

"We report, you decide," is the motto of Fox News.  Thanks, don't mind if we do.

Will Bequeathed to Fox News

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Bowtie-wearing, Chicago Cubs-loving, Pulitzer Prize-winning  conservative commentator George Will is jumping ship from ABC News after three decades to join Fox News.

Originally reported by the Daily Caller conservative Web site, as well as by The New York Times and mediabistro.com TV Newser Web site, Will has been a panelist on ABC's Sunday morning gabfest This Week since the program debuted with host David Brinkley in 1981. Reportedly, the 72-year-old Will, who resides in Washington, D.C., tired of travelling to New York City, from where This Week largely is broadcast nowadays.

Will is going to appear on a variety of Fox News shows, including Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and Special Report with Bret Baier. Will, who was editor of The National Review and has taught at Harvard, every so often takes Republicans to task, harshly criticizing Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, for example. Still, unforgiving liberals recall his ethically questionable help preparing Ronald Reagan for his presidential debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980 and then, as an ABC commentator, declaring Reagan the debate's winner.

Only at Fox News would adding a 72-year-old cranky White guy to the stable of commentators constitute diversity. Hard to top the observation of Politico columnist Roger Simon who said the effect of Will's move from ABC to Fox was to raise the IQ of both organizations.

WaPo: DOJ Tracked Fox News Reporter in North Korea Leak Probe

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The furor over the U.S. Department of Justice subpoena of the phone records of Associated Press reporters and bureaus (see "TUOL" post 5/14/13) has yet to abate, but in a story yesterday that is sure raise the concern of journalists and free press advocates, the Washington Post reported that the DOJ zeroed in on a Fox News correspondent in its probe and subsequent charges against government adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim in 2010 for allegedly disclosing national defense information concerning North Korea.

Kim's trial arising from the alleged leak of classified information in 2009, regarding possible nuclear tests by North Korea in response to U.N. sanctions may go forward in 2014, but in its review of  affidavits and other court documents and an interview with Kim's attorney, the Sunday Washington Post story disclosed DOJ's purported actions against James Rosen, a Fox Washington correspondent, who did a story in June 2009, about U.S. intelligence officers warning about reprisals from North Korea.

The Post story claims DOJ employed security badge access records to monitor Rosen's visits to and from the State Department and obtained a search warrant to review Rosen's emails as part of its investigation of Kim.

Although at present, there is no federal shield law and the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment does not create a reporter's privilege regarding confidential sources, government has generally subpoenaed reporters as a last resort when unable to obtain vital information through other means, and traditionally has negotiated with the news media over the release of confidential information.

This blog has railed about the threat to the First Amendment and the "chilling effect" on the marketplace of ideas that would result from sources not speaking to reporters out of fear of being exposed by the government. The staff of "TUOL" is resisting its glib instinct to respond to the WaPo story by noting that because Fox News is involved, no journalist is being threatened.

Rather, "TUOL" will join the chorus lamenting a DOJ that is running amok in its pursuit of "leakers" at the expense of freedom of speech and of the press, the cornerstone of American society, and advises President (and former Constitutional Law Professor) Barack Obama to bone-up on his First Amendment lecture notes.

Fraying Cable News Audience

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The Huffington Post reported today that all three major cable news outlets, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, continue to suffer lower ratings than in Election Year 2012, with a notable loss among the age 25 to 54 demographic group that advertisers crave.

Fox sustained a 33 percent drop-off in its viewership, followed by CNN's 28 percent plunge and MSNBC's more modest 4 percent loss, according to the Huffington Post article. Fox News, still in first place among cable news viewers for its 11th straight year, may take note that bloviator Bill O'Reilly's demographic ratings sank 26 percent. Look for his next best-selling historical tome to be entitled: "Who Killed My Show?"

Lest one think the cable audience is smartening up, CNN's sister network, HLN, enjoyed a skyrocketing 17 percent increase in its audience (and a 23 percent boost among age 25-54 viewers) owing to its around the clock coverage of the Jodi Arias murder trial.

UPDATE: NY Judge Approves Subpoena of Fox Reporter

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Bronx County (N.Y.) Criminal Court Justice Larry Stephen this week signed off on a subpoena of Fox News reporter Jana Winter, requiring her to testify before Arapahoe County (Colo.) Judge William Sylvester concerning the confidential source(s) who allegedly provided her with information about a notebook Aurora shooting suspect James Holmes purportedly sent to a University of Colorado psychiatrist that allegedly detailed his plans to commit a mass killing.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Web site (www.rcfp.org) reported that Winter's New York counsel plans to appeal Judge Stephen's approval of the subpoena, along with the judge's decision to seal the court records of yesterday's hearing, which far exceed counsel's request merely to redact Winter's home address from the court file.

Judge Stephen's grant of the subpoena is grounded in New York criminal law that permits an out-of-state party, in this case, the State of Colorado, to request a New York judge to compel a Gotham State citizen to appear in a foreign court to deliver "material and necessary" testimony without subjecting the New York citizen to undue hardship. 

Among the issues before Judge Sylvester at a scheduled April 1 hearing is which shield law, as between
New York [N.Y. Civ. Rights Law Art. 7, Sec. 79-h] and Colorado [Colo. Stat. Sec. 13-90-113], if either, is relevant to Winter's assertion that she should not be required to divulge confidential sources to the court. (See "TUOL" post 2/5/13).

Prognosticator Morris Has More Lives than a Cat, but not at Fox

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Political ouija board enthusiast Dick Morris, no longer red-faced over his unequivocal forecast of a Mitt Romney landslide victory in last November's presidential election, is out as a commentator for Fox News, the Washington Post reported.

True to form, the 63-year-old Morris didn't predict being jettisoned by Fox News, which apparently believes it is sufficiently covered in divorced-from-reality political prognostication by keeping Karl Rove on the payroll.  Fret not about the future of the former mainstay on The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity conservative gabfests, as the Washington Times reports that Morris will appear on Piers Morgan's talk show on CNN tonight and is bringing a steamer trunk and several suitcases with him. "TUOL" sees a Dick Morris hologram in CNN's future.

Fox News Journo Seeks to Quash Subpoena in Aurora Shooting Coverage

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Arapahoe County (Colo.) District Court Judge William Sylvester has scheduled a hearing for April 1, according to a Reuters wire service story, on whether New York-based Fox News journalist Jana Winter will have to testify pursuant to requests by attorneys for defendant James Holmes, the accused in the mass shooting last July at an Aurora theater screening of The Dark Knight Rises that left 12 dead and 58 wounded.

Prosecutors fear the start of the trial of Holmes will be delayed, but defense counsel contend Winter's coverage could taint the jury pool and interfere with their client's right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. Defense counsel want Winter to testify concerning the identities of anonymous law enforcement sources regarding her story about a notebook Holmes allegedly sent to Univ. of Colorado psychiatrist Lynne Fenton, the contents of which allegedly address plans for a mass killing, Reuters reported. Winter's story was reported after a gag order issued by Judge Sylvester took effect.

Winter is expected to challenge a subpoena to testify on First Amendment grounds, asserting reporter's privilege and looking to shield law protection from having to divulge confidential sources to authorities. Both New York [N.Y. Civ. Rights Law Art. 7, Sec. 79-h], where Winter is based, and Colorado [Colo. Stat. Sec. 13-90-113], where the trial will occur, boast shield laws that require authorities to show a compelling need for information that they are unable to obtain elsewhere before compelling journalists to testify.

TPC Launches Saturday as 'Conservative' Facebook Alternative

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Already boasting 50,000 members, the social media platform Tea Party Community ("TPC") will debut Saturday as a conservative alternative to Facebook, according to a Fox News report.

TPC is co-founded by Ken Crow and father and son duo Tim Selaty Sr. and Jr. The social network, whose Web site promises: "If you like FB, you're going to love the Tea Party Community," enables participants to "friend" one another and costs nothing to join. 

In the unsolicited opinion of  "TUOL," TPC may draw interest from Facebook's copyright and trademark attorneys because the nascent network has a very similar layout and appears to employ the same color scheme as Facebook, though it uses a different font. "TUOL"'s own crack design team suggests that the Tea Party Community site only be accessible by right-clicking one's mouse and that it not offer a "Like" function, because from what "TUOL" has seen, Tea partiers don't seem to like much of anything anyway.

Holiday Cheer: Ingraham-Free Airwaves

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The Laura Ingraham Show is ending its nine-year association with Talk Radio Network, meaning the 48-year-old Conservative gabber will be confining her flat-toned vitriol to Fox News commentary and guest-hosting stints on The O'Reilly Factor.

Mediaite.com reports that Ingraham, whose program reportedly reaches 5.75 million listeners across 325 radio stations nationwide, is likely to return to radio once she finds a new syndicator. Talkers Magazine this year rated Ingraham's program the nation's fifth-highest rated radio show.

Ingraham, a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is the author of The Hillary Trap: Looking for Power in All the Wrong Places, and Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics and the UN Are Subverting America.

Liberals are likely to be more tolerant of the endless streaming of Little Drummer Boy,  Deck the Halls and other Christmas carols on the radio this holiday season, knowing that they'll at least be spared encountering the dull-cet tones of Ingraham on the airwaves, however temporary the respite may be.  Lovers of mean-spirited, self-promoting blonde Conservative lawyer/political commentators for the time being will have to make-do with Ann Coulter's invective.

CBS Taps Garrett to Be Chief White House Correspondent

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If last week's news cycle proved bad for generals, it was a boon for at least one Major.

CBS News has named Major Garrett its Chief White House Correspondent, filling a slot vacated by Norah O'Donnell when she assumed hosting duties at CBS This Morning. Garrett has spent more time at the White House than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, serving eight years as Chief White House Correspondent for Fox News, and covering the White House during two administrations for CNN.

Garrett did reporting on the Obama/Romney presidential race for CBS. He will continue to write a column for The National Journal, which he joined after leaving Fox News in 2010. Garrett has a solid newspaper background, having worked for The Houston Post, Washington Times, Las Vegas Review Journal and Amarillo Globe News. He also is a former Congressional beat writer for U.S. News & World Report.

Does Political Punditry Have a Shelf Life?

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A failure to recognize an approaching hurricane or a prediction of an apocalyptic snowstorm that proves to be a light dusting are solid indicators that a television meteorologist may soon undergo a career change.

How many swings and misses are boob tube political pundits allowed before a network strips them of their titles and reclaims their ouija boards?

It's an understatement to say that it was a bad night for The Fox News Channel's triumvirate of fair & balanced prognosticators regarding President Barack Obama's relection.

Fox commentator Newt Gingrich, who called Mitt Romney a "vulture capitalist" when he competed against him during the GOP primaries for the party's presidential nomination, nonetheless had predicted a Romney victory in which Romney would capture more than 300 Electoral College votes. On the Wednesday morning talk show circuit, Newt conceded his prediction was wrong, but based on high unemployment figures, expensive gasoline and his reliance on a "historical (voters') pattern." If a history professor like Gingrich can misread historical patterns, can any of us be safe?

Meanwhile, former pollster turned Fox commentator Dick Morris, who had predicted a "landslide" victory for Romney in the popular vote and a garnering or more than 325 Electoral College votes, this morning on talk shows was also astute enough to admit he was incorrect, but attributed his faulty prediction to his reliance on a 2008 voting model that no longer exists.  "TUOL" can imagine an exchange between Morris and Gingrich in the Green Room before their respective appearances on gabfests this morning (Morris: "I can't believe you're a history professor and you didn't tell me that Latinos and people of color were eligible to vote!")

Finally, independent Fox commentator Karl Rove, whose Super PACS raised millions of dollars toward Romney's election, had a Norma Desmond moment on Fox News last night during which he berated colleagues Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier on-air for declaring Obama the winner and assigning blue state status to Ohio too soon.

Apparently, Fox News doesn't require that its pundits be right provided that they're "far right."

Fox News: Facebook Means 'Business' Peeking at Smartphone Users' Text Messages

Image via WikipediaAs it readies its own personal messaging service, social media monolith Facebook's research apparently includes poring over smartphone users' text messages, according to a London Times' article cited by Fox News.

Smartphone users of the Facebook app have been providing helpful intelligence to the social networking platform. Facebook offered assurance that users will be prompted to grant permission for the company to access personal text messages once Facebook's message service goes beyond the trial phase and is up and running. The Fox News story, however, notes a London Times-commissioned survey by YouGov in which 70 percent of smartphone users polled admitted they never review terms and conditions of use when downloading an app.

From a privacy standpoint, Facebook's "it's just business" rationale is akin to a locksmith walking in on people showering in their homes as part of his research into developing a better bathroom door lock.

UPDATE: Fox Settles Madoff Yacht Footage Copyright Infringement Suit

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The parties in Kenneth Stadt v. Fox News Network LLC (Case No. 1:09-cv-07910) have filed a stipulation of dismissal with the U.S. District Court for the  Southern District of New York. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

The lawsuit against Fox News, which included counts alleging copyright infringement, conversion and breach of contract, was brought by Stadt, who provided footage of convicted financial scam artist Bernie Madoff and the Mrs. frolicking on a friend's yacht. [See "TUOL" posts 6/28/10, 9/17/09.]

'We Donate, You Decide'

Image via CrunchBaseThe Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp., parent of Fox News, The Wall St. Journal, The New York Post and other media entities, and its political action committee, News America Holdings, have contributed $1 million to the Republican Governors Assn.("RPA"), The New York Times reported in a story first-broken by Bloomberg News.

Campaign finance trackers deemed the $1 million contribution one of the largest political donations ever given by a media organization.  A News Corp. spokesperson said the RPA's stance on low taxes and economic growth, rather than its political affiliation, was the basis for the contribution.  News Corp. has donated to Republican and Democratic causes and candidates in the past, but never in such a large sum.

The News Corp. spokesperson said the media conglomerate's wall separating editorial and business decisions would ensure that the political contribution does not influence political news coverage. Viewers of Fox News might wonder whether sentries at the "wall"  have a standing order to  "detain all Democrats."

WHPC to Fox: Your Seat's in the Front Row

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The presidential press conference game of Musical Chairs set in motion by 89-year-old Helen Thomas' resignation and vacating of her front-row, center seat [see "TUOL" post 6/17/10] has ended with the White House Correspondents Association ("WHCA") Board's unanimous selection of Fox News to occupy a hallowed position in the front row.

The WHCA cited Fox's commitment to the White House press tv pool and its length of service as the basis for rewarding the news organization with the prime real estate, but "TUOL" suspects  White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wanted Fox News to sit in the first row to discourage its correspondents from  making faces or throwing spitballs at Obama Administration officials.

Fox News may have made it to the front row, but Thomas' center seat will go to The Associated Press, which traditionally poses the initial question at presidential press conferences. Good luck to AP trying to remove the "old person" smell from Thomas' long-time perch.

So that you can tell the players without a scorecard:  Bloomberg News gets to stay in the second row, NPR moves from the third row into Fox News' old second row slot, and The Financial Times gets its very own chair.  On the downside, financially-fading U.S. News & World Report lost its seat and The Washington Times got kicked from the third row to the fourth row.

Unless and until President Obama holds another press conference, the Fourth Estate's White House branch will just stand around and report on Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson, like the rest of their news media colleagues.

UPDATE: Judge Allows Contract Claim Against Fox News to Proceed

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Judge Shira Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that Fox News must answer to a breach of contract claim for its alleged continued airing of footage of convicted Ponzi artist Bernie Madoff and his spouse enjoying a spin on a yacht.

The case, Kenneth Stadt v. Fox News Network LLC (Case No. 1:09-cv-07910), was brought in September 2009, by the owner of  the video footage and included counts alleging copyright infringement, conversion, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. [See "TUOL" post 9/17/09.] Fox sought to dismiss the latter three "state claims," arguing that they were preempted by the Copyright Act.

Judge Scheindlin obliged as to the conversion and fiduciary duty allegations, but sided with the plaintiff in her 23-page decision that Fox's alleged ongoing promotion of the Stadt footage as a "Fox Business Exclusive," could constitute a material breach of contract.  According to Stadt's original complaint, Fox paid him $10,000 in January of last year for the exclusive right to air the Madoff footage for 45 days, and then coughed up another $50,000 to show the Madoffs at sea for another 45 days. The plaintiff contends that Fox continued to show the allegedly copyrighted video of the seaworthy scammer once the exclusive rights period expired.

Journos Grapple Over Best Seat in the (White) House

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White House correspondents seem to take in stride the dearth of presidential press conferences, the administration's recalcitrance in producing White House visitor logs, and their own increasing irrelevance, but now the American public knows what gets the dander up of the creme de la creme of the Fourth Estate--Who gets to sit in former UPI icon Helen Thomas' front row seat?

Since the 89-year-old Thomas' ill-conceived remarks about Israel's Gaza presence prompted her resignation, a battle royale is taking shape between Fox News and Bloomberg News over which organization will occupy the front row, center seat from which Thomas signaled the end of press conferences by bleating: "Thank you, Mr. President," seemingly dating back to the Polk Administration.

Traditionally, the seat has been occupied by a reporter from the wire services, but Bloomberg Executive Editor Al Hunt and Fox News Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammons each has fired off a letter to the White House Press Correspondents Association ("WHPCA") outlining why his organization deserves the coveted chair. A verdict is expected sometime after July 16 when new WHPCA board members assume office.

Some unsolicited observations from   "TUOL"'s editorial team. Initially, we wonder what the commotion is all about, unless, because of Thomas' advanced years, she sat in an ergonomically perfect orthopedic chair that is more comfortable than the rest of the briefing room furniture. Seniority and tradition have fallen by the wayside, as has the influence of ink-stained wretches, because no one is dusting off the seat for any major metropolitan daily newspaper reporter, perhaps out of concern that a print journalist  might rent out the seat to offset sagging ad revenues.

"TUOL" believes Thomas' seat should be filled by a blogger, who would be required to attend all briefings dressed in pajamas. Alternatively, the seat could be occupied by a White House plant (of the two-legged variety) along the lines of the faux journalist/gay escort employed by the Bush Administration to lob softball questions to W. that he still somehow managed to swing at and miss.

Another possible solution--give each of the watchdogs of democracy a "barka-lounger" of his or her very own.