L.A. Times Yanks Columnist's Blog

"There are many stories like this, from many others. It leaves friends on the outside having to self-censor or accept designation as The Enemy. It leaves a distinguished former government official and prominent Republican saying, in conversation, 'Those people aren't drinking the Kool-Aid, they're sucking it from a spigot!'"

At the Huffington Post, Ankush Khardori delivers a harsh appraisal of McClellan:

"His whole raison d'etre was to obfuscate, squelch, conceal and mask the truths reporters sought. To make things even more embarrassing, he was never actually an integral part of crafting these talking points or the administration's broader media strategy -- tasks which were primarily carried out by Dan Bartlett and Rove. McClellan's lack of any real verbal dexterity, moreover, was striking; he was never all that comfortable in front of cameras, and the man simply did not have an easy way with words. . . .

"Was he really all that bad? For supporters of the administration, McClellan must have been a godsend: His affectless, near-catatonic stare was the perfect representation of the contempt with which the White House regards the press, and the less information he gave to them, the better. For those of us who hold the controversial position that the President (or his press secretary) has an obligation to be honest about what the country's leader is up to, McClellan was not much of an improvement over the supremely arrogant Fleischer. But to fully understand McClellan, you had to understand that this was a man who was fundamentally and consistently out of the loop. Yes, he was routinely sent to the briefing room with half-truths and lies, but McClellan's tragic earnestness revealed that, on most occasions, he actually bought the spin that the White House was putting out. Flawed and inept as McClellan was, his obliviousness was ultimately his most consistent feature."

Michelle Cottle says she feels sorry for the guy:

"Clearly his tenure was more contentious than that of predecessor Ari Fleischer, in part because McClellan occupied the podium during more troubled times than Ari. But I also think McClellan had a harder time in the job because, deep down, he was more uncomfortable being dishonest. McClellan always looked strained and slightly gassy when dishing out whatever bologna the administration had fed him."

Gun Toting Liberal doesn't want one of the contenders to take McClellan's job:

"Tony Snow, despite being a dedicated Republican, seems to be a pretty classy guy, and I base that analysis strictly upon the class, respect, and dignity with which he has treated callers with opposing viewpoints on his talk radio show (yes, I am a talk radio fanatic - I listen to just about all of those guys and gals) the times I have listened in. I'd just hate to see this guy become the next 'villain' for the Administration, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do I suppose."

Newshog sees a slogan in the making:

"Fox is crowing the possibility that their talk radio host Tony Snow is among the front runners for the post. Bush should just appoint Fox in its entirety into a new position: White House Press Network. It would only make official what everyone has known for years."

Another shoe drops in the Page Six scandal:

"The New York Post's Page Six is terminating all freelance employees in a housecleaning triggered by the payola scandal surrounding the embattled gossip column," says the New York Daily News. One of them: caught-on-tape scribe Jared Paul Stern.

Jack Shafer says the NYT has been unfair to the Duke rape accuser.

A pro-vulgarity ruling?

"Sometimes vulgarity is not just acceptable but necessary in the workplace, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday as it threw out a sexual harassment case by a former assistant on the 'Friends' TV show.

"In a 7-0 ruling, the justices agreed with Warner Bros. Television Productions that trash talk is part of the creative process and that the studio and its writers could not be sued for raunchy writers' meetings."

I wonder if that applies to newspaper editorial meetings.

I think it's too much to read into any one year's Pulitzers, but Philly Daily News columnist Will Bunch (via Buzz Machine) makes some telling points:

"Not a single Pulitzer was awarded this year for what we would call old-school local enterprise reporting. Not one. By local enterprise reporting, we mean exposing a corrupt state or local official, or problems with a local institution like a hospital or a nursing home or a hazardous waste dump. (You can quibble about the outstanding coverage of San Diego congressman 'Duke' Cunningham, but he is a federal official caught up in D.C. scandals, while the Rocky Mountain News feature prize was for a Marine delivering bad news from Iraq, also a local twist on a national story.)

"That would be a disgrace in any year, but it's really bad now -- because newspapers are pretty much the last people left who can tell you when your mayor is on the take, or when development is choking your local reservoir. Local TV and radio don't have the staffing or the inclination, big media is too big, and bloggers and citizen journalists can help, but most don't have the time or the experience of a trained (and paid) investigative journalist. . . .

"It's sad, because while urban news organizations had slashed true enterprise reporting in the face of the job cuts, we are pathologically unable to stop covering the exact same stories that everyone else is . That was really driven home to me last winter, in the week after the Daily News lost some 25 staffers, or 19 percent of our employees. I was urgently dispatched to the Philadelphia courthouse because no one was present for the verdict in a case that had gotten a middling amount of local coverage.

"When I got there, there was also a reporter from the Inquirer, the leading radio news station, and another news outlet. We sat there twiddling out thumbs, listened to the same pronouncements from the bench, stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the hallways getting the same quotes from the defense lawyer, and the same quotes from an assistant DA.

"What a colossal waste of Philadelphia's journalism talent! Three of us should have been out in the neighborhoods or sifting through documents at City Hall, trying to scoop the other two while keeping Philly informed."

Note : In writing about newspapers that touted their own Pulitzers and mostly ignored other winners, I missed the fact that the Portland Oregonian ran a sidebar listing the other awards in addition to the paper's story about itself. One of the perils of reading papers online is you can miss things like that.