Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) speaks at a campaign rally in front of the USS Wisconsin. (Justin Sullivan - GETTY IMAGES) On Saturday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan joined presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in front of the USS Wisconsin to cement the ticket that’ll challenge President Obama in November. The next day, a blitz of media accounts detailed just how Ryan had arrived at the spot. They all had pretty much the same details, the same quotes.

A touch of Twitter-based mockery ensued. Jonathan Martin of Politico: :

There's a great media piece to be done about how veep tick-tocks as 1 of those rare times when journos celebrate being lied to and deceived

— jmartpolitico (@jmartpolitico) August 12, 2012

Michael Calderone, media reporter for the Huffington Post, jumped in:

@jmartpolitico And agree to publish same details, straight from the campaign, in narrative fashion, at same time.

— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) August 12, 2012

Calderone elaborates via e-mail: “I just think that as political campaigns increasingly try to stage-manage events, have a strict quote approval process — or as we learned today, want to edit pool reports! — that reporters and their news organizations might want to pause before simultaneously hyping on Twitter how they each have the ‘inside’ or ’behind-the-scenes’ story of the Romney campaign outwitting the media. It just appeared like they had been outwitted again.”

Criticism mounted on the Daily Banter, as Oliver Willis documented all the overlap among 17 outlets whose treatments of the Ryan selection echoed one another. AP, Politico, Washington Post, Reuters, Boston Globe, New York Times and others: They all produced their own versions of Romney-Ryan commodity news. The best way to describe the sameness is just to note that the cliché “cloak and dagger” saw some quality minutes among the stories. The wooded area behind Ryan’s home, too, got more media hits than its flack could ever have dreamed.

Summing up the picture, Willis wrote, “Clown media, bro.”

Biden: Generator of bona fide news. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (J. Scott Applewhite - AP) When you have a lame set of facts, blame the media.

President Obama gave that tack a try in his interview with “Entertainment Tonight’s” Nancy O’Dell. The question concerned the attention paid to Vice President Biden’s comment at a campaign stop in southern Virginia that Mitt Romney’s financial policies will “put y’all back in chains.” The audience was racially diverse.

Though Obama told ET that the “phrasing is a distraction from what is at stake,” he also said this:

“You know the truth of the matter is, again, this is an example of what the American people hear and what the press corps want to focus on are two very different things...”

Sorry, Mr. President, but don’t hang this one on the media.

Remarks like Biden’s — whether you consider them a harmless gaffe or a racially loaded attack on the Romney campaign — are no-brainer news. They’re no less newsy, too, just because of Biden’s history of flippancy. Doug Wilder, an African American and former Democratic governor of Virginia, made that point nicely: “You can forgive people for gaffes, but there comes a time when you realize you’re forgiving the same guy for making the same mistakes.”

How dare Wilder assist the press corps in focusing on this issue.

(Entertainment Tonight) “Entertainment Tonight’s” Nancy O’Dell recently interviewed President Obama and Michelle Obama at a campaign stop in Dubuque, Iowa. She asked about bitterness between the president and challenger Mitt Romney, and Obama handled the question with ease. She asked about Vice President Biden’s “chains” moment, which Obama also handled with ease. And she asked about other hard-hitting topics as well, to judge from this teaser on the “ET” website:

Tune in to “ET” tonight for more, and tune in tomorrow night to hear the Obamas talk about their romance and their oldest daughter Malia starting high school this fall.

All of which contextualizes the photo above, of O’Dell in full camera-posing embrace with the Obamas. Note the smiles and warmth here, a camaraderie that you only find at softball games. Comments a CBS News veteran: “Very cheesy. Very very cheesy. Shouldn’t happen. If you want to have a photog take pics during the interview, have at it. Promotional, etc. But posed photos with your interview subject, all smiles? Bad idea. I guess it is “ET,” so it’s not news.”

The president is already getting some much-deserved hammering in the media over his choice of media. Kevin Madden, a senior adviser to the Mitt Romney campaign, this morning told the Erik Wemple Blog, “Look at the contrast, with Gov. Romney sitting down with ‘CBS This Morning’ while President Obama was sitting down with a non-news outlet like Entertainment Tonight.”

With words like that, the Romney people may well dash their chances of a sweet interview-cum-happy-photo-op with O’Dell

In case you missed it — Wired magazine may or may not be publishing future work by liar and fabricator Jonah Lehrer.

Also: TBD.com is dead, again and forever.

Elsewhere:

*Ecuador grants asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

*Rupert Murdoch sends a memo to colleagues boasting of various efforts to boost compliance and ward off corruption. A sampling:

We recognise that strengthening our compliance programmes will take time and resources, but the costs of non-compliance — in terms of reputational harm, investigations, lawsuits, and distraction from our mission to deliver on our promise to consumers — are far more serious.

As one of the world’s most innovative media companies, News Corporation serves a vital role in the global marketplace of ideas. Every day, hundreds of millions of people rely on us to provide high-quality news, sports programming, and entertainment. To continue to be worthy of the trust of our audiences around the world, we all have an affirmative obligation to adhere to the highest standards of ethical behaviour, consistent with our standards of business conduct. The enhancements to the compliance function that are already underway and that we are planning will help us to maintain those standards.

This comes decades too late.

In or out? (Rex Features via AP Images) (Rex Features via AP Images - Rex Features via AP Images) When a publication issues a statement intended to clear up “confusion,” it had best strive for clarity. Wired fell a bit short of that imperative this afternoon, as it issued the following words about the status of disgraced journalist Jonah Lehrer:

We want to ensure that there is no confusion regarding reports today about writer Jonah Lehrer and WIRED. Jonah has not been “hired” by WIRED; he’s been a contributing editor at the magazine and the website for years. When allegations surfaced about his work elsewhere, we immediately began a thorough review of his feature stories and columns in the magazine. So far we have found nothing unusual. Jonah also wrote tens of thousands of words for Wired.com, and the process of vetting that work continues. He has no current assignments. After gathering the facts — from our inquiry and elsewhere — we’ll make a decision about whether Jonah’s byline will appear again at WIRED.

Jacob Young

Managing Editor

WIRED

Notice any static with what Wired spokesman Jonathan Hammond recently told Ben Smith of BuzzFeed? Here are a couple of quotes:

“Jonah was and remains on a features contract with Wired,” spokesman Jon Hammond told BuzzFeed. “We chose to maintain our contract.”

And:

“We still value the work that he has done for us,” Hammond said.

Forgive Smith, me and the rest of the world for concluding that Lehrer would be continuing to publish stuff for Wired.

When asked if the statement of this afternoon constitutes a reversal, Hammond got all journo-technical on me: “Clarification, not a reversal. He remains on a contract. His online work continues to be vetted.” Fair enough.