A Red Flag Over A White Tie on "The West Wing"

Show That Prides Itself On Getting The Details Right, Makes A Flub That's Sure To Send Political Junkies Fuming
OK, first things first, this is TV. But we're also talking about "The West Wing," which has gone to great lengths in keeping it real, or at least giving us a brilliant facsimile of the look and feel of real.
Often, the characters sound like they know what they're talking about, and maybe they actually do. That involves a lot of homework by the writers and producers, which has been evident in the show's resurgence this season.
But snappy writing with sly references that few in the audience will latch onto (e.g. the throwaway by Josh about "Monster Chiller Horror Theatre" that was an SCTV staple) isn't enough. It's the details that don't take a lot to get right.
So, the centerpiece of Sunday's episode had both presidential candidates attending the Al Smith Dinner in New York, a real event that's a must for any major-office hopeful that's a major fundraiser for Catholic charities.
As it was described on West Wing, it's the biggest "non-political political event" around. And it's also one where men where a white tie with their tux. Old-fashioned, quaint, even, but that's the way it is, and woe to the attendee who tries otherwise.
Yet, everyone descending upon the event on the show was wearing black tie. An off-day for the prop master? Was the wardrobe guy on a break? Did the production designer assume the average American would get confused by a white tie?
Whatever the answer, it's unavailing. Paying heed to this minor but necessary detail would have taken so little effort, and it's disappointing "The West Wing" chose to take the expedient way out.
It's sort of like the "Law and Order" franchise, where the cops visit suspects at addresses that any New Yorker would know would have to be in a river because the number is too high. It's not hard for a little reality and dramatic license to co-exist. You just have to work at it. "The West Wing" usually does.
But such are the hazards of the trade when you write about New York and you're based in California, which is where the "Law and Order" writers ply their craft. And it shows.

N.Y. Times Lets Sports Section Slip Into Abyss

Already-Limited Hockey Coverage Totally Falls Off The Radar; Are The Nets Next?
No doubt, the budget chieftains at The New York Times are serious in their mission. Just ask the sports department, where the bylines are fewer and farther between.
We've already written about the pathetic attempts at hockey coverage this year, with coverage of the Devils and Islanders relegated to the A.P., even for home games. Now, even the Rangers were hit with that treatment.
All three teams were on the road last night, and Rangers beat writer Jason Diamos didn't make the trip for the game at Montreal. Ordinarily, the Times would have a stringer or freelancer in place. But these are not ordinary times at the Times, which is buying out lots of bodies in the newsroom.
Still, this is the Times. They'll send a critic to review the Wagner cycle in Bayerurth, have 20 foreign bureaus and parachute in squadrons of reporters when the Big Story hits. And they can't even staff a lousy hockey game?
Yeah, yeah. Hockey's become the distant number-four sport and last year's season-long lockout didn't help. The miniscule cable ratings for the local teams are almost comical. But there they are. Since 1978, the local teams have won eight Stanley Cups. That should count for something.
Hockey hater Mike Lupica once cracked there were 25,000 hockey fans in New York, and most of them were the ones at the games. Still, his employer, the Daily News, has beat writers for all three teams.
Hell, even The Journal-News -- never known for its free spending ways -- in the northern suburbs of Westchester and Rockland, cover the Rangers and Devils.
This doesn't bode well for coverage of other teams. If you're a fan of the New Jersey Nets, be afraid, be very afraid. Not of the team, which looks like it'll be fun to watch again. Just of the team's coverage, which if the bean counters have their way, may not show up regularly in the pages in these troubled Times.

Andrew Heyward Gets The Boot At CBS News

Moonves names Sports prexy McManus as his guy to take News to the next level, whatever that is
The other shoe dropped.
CBS head honcho Les Moonves continued his inserting his pawprint on CBS News by removing Andrew Heyward as News Division President and replacing him with Sean McManus, who will continue in his current role as head of CBS Sports.
A statement from Moonves said Heyward would remain on until the end of the year as an advisor to assist in the transition, though one suspects McManus really doesn't need the help. It so happens Heyward's contract runs until the end of the year.
At least publicly, Moonves was effusive in his praise for Heyward:


Andrew has held the post of President of CBS News for almost 10 years, and served in a wide variety of roles before that during his 24-year career at CBS. Under his leadership, our News Division has been recognized with many of the industry’s highest honors: 57 Emmy, 13 Peabody, 13 Alfred I. duPont/Columbia University, six Overseas Press Club and 46 RTNDA/Edward R. Murrow awards, including most recently the Murrow for Overall Excellence for three years running. He is, quite simply, a man of great character, whose integrity and experience has guided our News division through a time of tremendous change, and I want to thank him for his unwavering commitment to the core values of journalism, and for his years of creativity, dedication and loyalty to this company.

Good, but not good enough.

A lot of people were left wondering how Heyward was still standing after the National Guard story scandal, which brought down Dan Rather, two senior executives and a top producer. The buck didn't stop at his office and that rankled many inside the news division.

Still, it was apparent that Heyward was on borrowed time. Moonves had given Heyward a qualified thumbs-up at the time of the Guard blood-letting, but in a New York Times Magazine piece last month, talked about "blowing up" CBS News, though exactly in what form that explosion would take he didn't say at the time.

Consider Heyward's ouster the first stick of dynamite.

Silent Potty Mouth On "The Apprentice"

Seems you can't curse on network TV, but if you can mouth a profanity without being heard it's OK.
On last night's "The Apprentice", as the task to create a parade float to promote the new movie "Zathura," was unveiled, Marcus, one of the members of the male team was plucked to hopefully bring order and civility to the women's team, which has distinguished itself only for its new variations on cat-fighting while losing to the men every week.
When the women chose Randall, at the invitation of The Donald, his now ex-colleague Josh was seen saying "Shit," but not heard.
Did it get past the censors, or did they just not care as long it wasn't verbalized. Maybe they assumed nobody out there knew how to read lips. Whatever. The Trumpster didn't seem hot and bothered about it. Instead, what's got his coif more orange than usual is "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," which Trump says is dragging down ratings at the mother ship.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051020/en_nm/leisure_trump_dc;_ylt=ArvIYRMPSOY3Yp.bM..wdSRb.nQA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
No word yet, on how the doyenne of domesticity feels about the diss. But with only 6.6 million viewers a week, it's not just Trump who's saying she just doesn't fit in.

Can't Tell The N.Y. Times Sports Staff Without A Scorecard

Updated 10/12, 11 a.m. ET

Constantly Shifting Beats Result in Confusion and Possibility of Missed Stories
The New York Times is the paper with arguably the most schizophrenic sports section in the country.
It employs a phalanx of compelling columnists like Selena Roberts, George Vecsey and Bill Rhoden. It also has young turks like Lee Jenkins and Tyler Kepner who know how to report and write with equal flair, while graybeards like Murray Chass provide valued historical perspectives while writing about today's players.
And Times sports writers are hardly pigeon-holed. One year, Damon Hack's covering pro football. The next year it's golf. Lynn Zinser's on the Giants beat? Nope. Now she's covering the Olympics. But wasn't that Jere Longman's bailiwick. Oh, he's covering the Katrina aftermath.

Not that what he's writing about has much to do with sports, but that's never mattered much at the Times. Remember one Richard Lezin Jones, who covered the Jets last season? Now he's on the front page of Wednesday's paper with a piece on New Jersey's failed child protective services program. The Times is rife with sports multi-taskers who transitioned to hard news, and good for them (Jane Gross, Robin Finn, Joe Sexton and Michael Janofsky, for starters).

There's nothing wrong with rotating beats every now and then so reporters don't get too cozy with their players, or despise them beyond the point of no return.

But too much shuffling means there's also the danger of losing out on the good story, even the outright scoop when you play musical reporters. One day Lee Jenkins is covering the Mets. The next day, he's at the Little League tournament.

Fortunately, for the Times, the Mets folded after a few fleeting moments of playoff grandeur, and didn't lose out on crucial storylines. Also, new guy Ben Shipgel from the Dallas Morning News did a more than workmanlike job covering the late-season swoon. But the danger remains.
At least the Times covered the team. Often, it has an annoying tendency to all but ignore some teams on non-game days. Can you imagine not a single story about the Jets when they had a game on Sunday? It happened last week.

And woe to the fan of the Nets, Devils, or Islanders looking for regular coverage of their team on off days.
If the Post and News can cover those teams, so can the Times. Don't cry crocodile tears about budget problems. Every newspaper has them, and these comments are being made with full knowledge that the Time is trimming newsroom staff through buyouts.
Still, covering local teams is part of a newspaper's mission. Just do it.

Hockey's Back At The N.Y. Times, Sort Of

The Puck Doesn't Stop At West 43rd St.

Updated 10/12, 11 a.m.
No doubt, the bean counters in The New York Times' sports department were elated when the NHL season was canceled last year. Fewer road trips, expense reports and freelancers to be paid add up rather nicely during the course of an over-long season.
Now that the Zambonis are once again in action, the Times is slow to wake from its hockey slumber.
To be sure, it had long ago relegated the sport to a distant fourth in coverage, even though it's had perennial Stanley Cup contenders The New Jersey Devils in their backyard. The Rangers get regular if perfunctory coverage. Jason Diamos is the only staff writer covering one of the three local teams. But he's often well ensconsed on the back pages, if at all.
In Wednesday's paper, there was not a single story on any of the three local teams, only a few hockey items in a wire-service roundup. It's a long way from the Rangers' 1994 championship season, but has it come to this? The Devils have won three Cups, one as recently as 2003. But it might as well have been a field hockey championship, the way they're treated in the Times.
Then there are the New York Islanders. Remember them? It's been a long time since their streak of four straight Stanley Cups ended in 1983. Since then, the team has mostly been toiling in mediocre obscurity in the Nassau Coliseum.
But it's still a local team in a still-major sport. The Times begs to differ. The paper had long ago stopped sending reporters on the road or used stringers for most Islanders and Devils road games. However, there have been warm bodies in the press box at home games. Alas, that was not the case for Monday's loss to the Florida Panthers, which the Times recounted with AP copy.
The Daily News, the Post and Newsday, all of whom have Islanders beat writers, were all there. When it comes to sports, the Times is the paper of record only when it feels like it.

Identity Crisis At The Los Angeles Times

Or How Everything Old Is New Again Even If It Didn't Work The First Time
The Los Angeles Times is accustomed to getting a lot of Pulitzers, but not love from its corporate overlords at Tribune. Of course, that may be understandable when your circulation has slipped 18 percent in the last five years, while ads have plunged by 26 percent in that period, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Still, it remains a great paper, especially if you're looking for penetrating enterprise pieces, thorough foreign coverage, and entertainment coverage worthy of its location. But it's not enough.
So, now look for more coverage of Tinseltown, celebrities and, gasp, shorter stories.
We'll work from the assumption that editor Dean Baquet is smart enough not to dumb down the paper with reams of gossip and Lindsay Lohan sightings.
But maybe he's also throwing in the towel to concede that not everyone is reading all the way through a 3,000-word Column One piece, which no matter how well-written or reported, could wind up being the journalistic equivalent of cod-liver oil.
The key is striking a balance, no easy feat when you have frantic executives in Chicago pleading for more black ink, while you try to avoid sacrificing the editorial product at a time when the staff continues to shrink.
And those newsroom reductions come when the Times also wants to concentrate more on its sprawling backyard.
"We won't out-local the local papers. [But] I think you will see us placing bigger bets on regional coverage," publisher Jeffrey Johnson told the Journal.
Good luck.
Not only are the 16 dailies the Times goes up against not giving up without a vicious fight the Times can ill afford to wage, the paper has already been chastened in years past from editions that failed, such as the one for San Diego County.
Just because you are the better paper -- and for all its pullbacks the Times is the superior product in Southern California -- doesn't mean people will automatically plunk down their quarters at will. That's why The Register in Orange County, the Daily News, serving the Valley and The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, among others, are still in business.
They are perceived as the local papers, whereas the Times is the 400-pound gorilla from parts unknown, or at least parts where many prospective readers don't want to travel to.
Moreover, you can't siphon readers on the cheap. Sticking a few reporters in bureaus here and there just won't cut it. And don't think people will buy The Times and another paper. Most folks barely have the time or inclination for one, if that.
Given that the Times provides 20 percent of Tribune's revenue, there's a lot at stake here, not just for circulation and profits, but for a fiercely proud journalistic institution that has managed to maintain standards in the face of difficult odds.
There's nothing wrong with reinventing yourself so long as you remember what made you great and tenaciously hold on to that foundation. Dean Baquet is too good a journalist to forsake that mission.
Now, he just needs to convince his bosses to be a little patient while he figures out the right mix. The past has shown patience has been anything but a virtue with Times execs, however.
If Baquet doesn't get the time he needs, we should all fear what may happen next.

"SNL" On The Comeback Trail At the Expense of CNN

Surprise, surprise. The show was actually funny.
Taking potshots at "Saturday Night Live" isn't fun anymore. It's just too easy. The cast is too thin on talent, the writers fall back too often on characters who were never that funny to begin with, and "Weekend Update" is often a slog waiting for the few good jokes.
So, it was more than a pleasant surprise to see "SNL" open up season 31 with some laugh-out-loud funny sketches, including one focusing on celebrities lending a hand in New Orleans with Seth Myers showing more than a few flecks of talent with a dead-on impression of Anderson Cooper at his too-fast, staccato worst, while new featured player Bill Hader nailed Al Pacino big-time.
Later, a sketch on a passenger on that troubled Jet Blue flight where the passengers could watch their planes emergency maneuvers on their in-flight TVs was highlighted by Darrell Hammond adding Aaron Brown in all his laconic glory to his arsenal of impressions. Didn't appear that everyone in the audience realized who he was doing, but if you did, you knew it was brilliant.
And Kanye West killed with his numbers, but not before a hysterical reunion with Mike Myers, who just happened to be hanging out backstage. It's moments like that when "SNL" is at its best, taking broad swipes at our highest and lowest moments in pop culture.
The rest of the show, save for a fun "TV Funhouse," was on the humdrum side. And Horatio Sanz, as expected, laid a big-time goose egg subbing for Tina Fey on "Weekend Update."
"SNL" manages to resurrect itself every few years, and it's long overdue. This show offered some glimmers of hope. Still, with Fey -- and soon Maya Rudolph -- out on maternity leave, the show will have to do more with a lot less. And that's nothing to laugh about.

No Check, Please! N.Y. Post Bids Farewell To Restaurant Reviews

It might be a good idea, although it might just be a good way to trim the editorial budget
N.Y. Post restaurant critic Steve Cuozzo is out of a job, sort of. He says what he does makes no sense nowadays, given the blink-and-you'll-miss-it changes that occur in the kitchen. Chefs often have one foot out the door as soon as they arrive, while menus become the kind of ersatz experiments that you'd steer clear of in chemistry class.
So, Cuozzo says rather than try to keep track of it all, he'll keep track of none of it.
"Back when restaurants were smaller and more stable, a review might hold water for years, he writes in today's paper. "Today, once critics have moved on, the house mutates without any press attention."
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/54243.htm
Cuozzo is a tad vague about what he'll write instead, but maybe because that's still a work in progress, much like many of the restaurants he reviewed. But he promises that "we'll tell you what's happening at more than one place, in the kitchen or on the floor. We'll aim to give you more useful - and interesting - information than you'll glean from reviews that read like cooking courses and turn stale overnight."
Was that a shot across the bow at Frank Bruni? Not that the Post needs any encouragement to hurl brickbats at the Times, which you can rest assured will keep churning out reviews of places, many of which you won't be able to get a reservation or afford, or both.
Which is not to say that what Bruni and others like him do isn't useful. Often he's entertaining, well-informed and not afraid to slam star chefs for their excesses and shortcomings.
Still, Cuozzo may be onto something. Restaurants are often victim of their own hype, raising expectations that are part and parcel of the high prices many eateries vainly attempt to justify. As Cuozzo notes, in restaurants with large kitchen staffs, you don't know who's manning the flame the night you're there. It could be a transcendant experience, or it could leave you with the same kind of feeling after you watched your Enron stock tank.
However, I suspect restaurant reviews still serve a purpose, and not just as grand theatre when a critic is gleefully vicious. They capture a moment in time, one that may not be recaptured, but one we as diners aspire to latch onto nonetheless if it is particularly memorable.
Reviews can put restaurants on notice about where they're clicking on all cylinders and where they've stalled. You'd think that'd be painfully apparent to many restaurant owners, but many a disappointing dinner proves otherwise. They need to be called to account and if Steve Cuozzo won't do it, then we need others who will.

Being The New York Times Means Never Really Having To Say You're Sorry

Being A Noodge About Nudges
It's easy, often too easy, to take a slam at Geraldo Rivera. He practically begs you to roll your eyes when he straddles his high horse, be it drawing all-too-revealing maps in the desert sands of Iraq, or the toxic muck of New Orleans.
So there should be no reason to exaggerate when relating the latest episode of As Geraldo Turns, as Alessandra Stanley did in the Sept. 5 N.Y. Times when she wrote Rivera "nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety."
Rivera threatened to sue if he didn't get a correction, which finally arrived today in the form of an editors' note, which conceded "no nudge was visible in the broadcast."
But that admission, presumably from Executive Editor Bill Keller, came only after the note first proclaimed: "The editors understood the "nudge" comment as the television critic's figurative reference to Mr. Rivera's flamboyant intervention."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/pageoneplus/corrections.html
Huh?
Exactly how is a nudge figurative? Either Rivera laid his hands on the rescue worker or he didn't. The once-Gray Lady seeks to create a gray area where none needed to exist. It was too tempting to pummel Rivera, so the nudge was a nudge, whether it was figurative or literal.
Keller's sort-of apology comes two days after Public Editor Barney Calame ripped him a new one for refusing to admit the paper was wrong in face of overwhelming evidence, namely the videotape in question.
Based on the videotape and outtakes I saw, Ms. Stanley certainly would have been entitled to opine that Mr. Rivera's actions were showboating or pushy. But a "nudge" is a fact, not an opinion. And even critics need to keep facts distinct from opinions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/opinion/25public.html
Calame could barely contain his outrage over Keller's e-mail to him, which said as a critic, Stanley had "license" to label Rivera's showboating a "nudge."
I find it disturbing that any Times editor would come so close to implying - almost in a tit-for-tat sense - that Mr. Rivera's bad behavior essentially entitles the paper to rely on assumptions and refuse to correct an unsupported fact.

Exactly. Which demonstrates the level of conviction Keller wrote the editors' note. By dragging this out over three weeks, Keller, Stanley, et al., made this more than just a star reporter having a hissy fit. They even managed the impossible, having people who are not fans of Geraldo feeling sorry for him. And they didn't have to be nudged to feel that way.

Appropriately Named Ryan Church Shows Evidence Of Being Hit With Too Many Pitches

Nationals' Player Says He's Sorry For Unwittingly Being a Bigot

Today's baseball players are coddled beings, flown in luxurious charters to games, staying in fancy hotels and being paid an average salary north of $2.5 million a year while having anything and everything done for them during the season. That apparently includes thinking.

How else are we to view the ignorance and bigotry that came flowing out of the mouth of Washington Nationals outfielder Ryan Church, who's apparently infected by a bad case of evangelical zeal? In Sunday's Washington Post, he mentioned going to a volunteer team chaplain when asking for advice about his Jewish ex-girlfriend.

"I said, like, Jewish people, they don't believe in Jesus. Does that mean they're doomed? Jon nodded, like, that's what it meant. My ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don't know any better. It's up to us to spread the word," Church said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/20/AR2005092002093.html.

Cue the backpedaling.

"Those who know me on a personal level understand that I am not the type of person who would call into question the religious beliefs of others."

Even though that's what he did.

Church also apologized. The chaplain, whose day job is as an FBI agent, was suspended. Which calls into question the Nationals' judgment for not giving him the boot entirely.

To his credit, Church didn't take the weasel way out and whine like many athletes about being quoted out of context when they get diarrhea of the mouth and wind up in Chateau Bow-Wow. But you have to wonder if he's truly contrite, or lost in the reverie of imagining his ex burning in the fires of hell.

Maybe Church should get some religion and break bread with the Jew who, for now, is the ultimate overseer of the Nationals franchise -- baseball commissioner Bud Selig.

Cutting Your News Hole To Spite Your Profit Margins

Tuesday Bloody Tuesday In Philadelphia Newsrooms
The latest newsroom reductions at the Philly Inquirer and Daily News are not of the nip/tuck variety. Rather, they're more from the slash/burn school.
Yeah, public companies are entitled to a profit, but the larger question of how much is too much in a down advertising market looms large.
Knight Ridder says the Inky and DN garner a profit margin in the low double-digits. Good, but not good enough for Wall Street. And yet the only solution is to eviscerate 16 percent of the already-shrunken newsrooms.
Cue the smoke and mirrors.
Sure, the Inky is far removed from its Gene Roberts glory days when long, enterprise reporting from far and wide was the norm, as the paper garnered prestige and prizes while becoming the 400-pound gorilla that followed its readers to the suburbs.
But fewer of those readers have appreciated those efforts over the years, giving the Knight Ridder brain trust fodder to get rid of reporters and editors with abandon.
It'll be interesting to see if readers will notice or care that there's less local news, more wire copy and fewer reasons to make either paper a must read.
But at least the papers will be more profitable, right?
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/12695181.htm

Unfulfilling Filler: The N.Y. Times Provides A Journalistic Pork Barrel

What's For Dinner? Answer better suited for "Lost" survivors than the rest of us
Nobody expects penetrating journalism to emerge from Men's Fashion supplements. But it wouldn't hurt if the copy that's strung between the ads would have at least some substance or relevance to some readers.
The N.Y. Times fails to understand this. Yesterday's male fashion book -- and it had enough ads to qualify as such -- was replete with pitches for clothing that even many Times readers either couldn't afford or wouldn't be caught dead in, assuming they weren't like the androgynous, underfed models who donned the duds in question.
But the supplement also featured ostensible lifestyle pieces, including a food piece that focused on eating wild boar, as if that was something available at the local Gristede's to whip up for the gang.
Even if you were going to schlep to a gourmet butcher for some boar, the recipe itself warns that it's not easy, will take hours to execute, and requires equipment most kitchens don't have.
So what's the point? Exactly.
How about putting in a recipe for something that even the above-average guy has a chance at pulling off? But that would be too easy. That's not in keeping with a fashion spread replete with $3,000 suits, $200 t-shirts and $500 ripped jeans.
Which can only mean the Times never had any intention for anyone to follow through actually making this gamey abomination, let alone expect anyone to read this unmasterful missive penned by someone named Oliver Schwaner-Albright except for his name-dropping a few celebs who enjoy a good hunt for their dinner.
And you can be sure they're not wearing any of the clothes featured in the supplement when they're blasting that boar to bits. Somehow, Ted Nugent and Versace in the same sentence just doesn't sound right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/style/tmagazine/TM1860MAN.html

Totally Unironic Headline Of The Day: I Saved My Dog With The Kiss Of Life

Another hurricane success story, but this one from Irene. Good to see they have a lot of slow news days in Bermuda:
http://www.bermudasun.bm/archives/2005-09-16/01News02

The Demons Take Over Sid Rosenberg Once Again

As expected, it appears Sid Rosenberg's departure from WFAN was of his own making, after not showing up Sunday for his stint on the New York Giants pregame show. While he "resigned," that was strictly a courtesy that station management extended, and likely did so grudgingly given Rosenberg's history.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/345770p-295169c.html
While no one's commenting officially, indications are Rosenberg was in the wrong place at the wrong time, namely Atlantic City, given that he's a recovering drug and gambling addict, as well as an alcoholic.
Given his scatalogical shtick, the temptation would be to say good riddance. But it's hard to kick a man when he's down, especially when he's fallen so far that he's all but impossible to reach.
http://www.nypost.com/sports/52702.htm

Sid Rosenberg "Resigns"; Foul-Mouthed Sports Talker Gives Himself Silent Treatment

The "Sidiot" pushes himself off the air before he is pushed
It took longer than we thought, but Sid Rosenberg is gone from WFAN. First, he was finally pushed off Imus's show as the wacky sports guy in May because of a crack he made about Kylie Minogue's breast cancer.
It was one of several "jokes" that had either gotten him in hot water or booted off the air for a while. Imus always took him back because he had a soft spot for the big lug and besides, he was edgy and spontaneously outrageous, something Imus's show had stopped being about 20 years ago.
But Imus flagship WFAN didn't get rid of Sid. It allowed him to keep his regular midday sports-talk gig. And so it went until today, when Sid's co-host Joe Benigno announced his partner had resigned for "personal reasons."
No word on what those might be, or is that code for "quit or be canned."
As odious as his on-air persona is, let's hope he's not back to his addicted ways, for him and his family's sake. Rosenberg's been treated for various addictions since 1997, so he could have relapsed in any number of ways. Or maybe enough was enough.
Sick or not, a change in venue was long overdue. WFAN failed to realize that just because you can say something doesn't mean you should. That goes for breast-cancer jokes. And apologizing doesn't cut it either. Sid could have been a jackass off-mike, but once he made that his shtick, he lost his usefulness as a broadcaster.
Don't bet on Sid (he's also a recovering gambling addict). Just wish him good luck. He'll need it.

"He Felt I Had Become Too Emotional." But New Orleans Radio Reporter May Have Been First of Many

When Trying To Keep Calm Just Isn't An Option
Dan Barry's piece in the N.Y. Times today on how New Orleans radio powerhouse WWL has served as the lifeline for its beleaguered region showed how quickly events overtook its reporters and perhaps forever changed how they do their jobs. Others are bound to follow suit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/national/nationalspecial/09radios.html

Back at the downtown studio, many employees managed to flee by car or, eventually, by helicopter. Others, including the morning news anchor, David Blake, and his family, got stuck for several days, so he reported what he saw from the broken-window studio - namely, the infamous chaos at the Superdome, where crushes of people waited and withered.

His early reports had to be redone before they could be broadcast, he recalled.
"My news director said I sounded angry and frustrated," he said. "He felt I had become too emotional."

Of course, Blake's approach became the rule rather than the exception, but his experience highlights just how hard it was for journos to grab onto the extent of Katrina's devastation.

The news director Blake refers to is Dave Cohen, an extremely capable newsman, whose passion for his city has long been reflected in the freelance reports he files for CBS News. Cohen's voice betrayed a mix of exhaustion and resignation, as if he felt betrayed by Mother Nature for laying waste to his town. But outright emotion was not evident. There would be time for that later.

Cohen had no choice but to focus on the story at hand albeit one that would have been impossible to comprehend just days before and was all but impossible to fully grasp even days after the levees breached. This wasn't supposed to happen, right?

Peering out at the Superdome from what was left of WWL's downtown studios, Blake was in much the same position. If he slipped a bit from the detached observer mode that was his usual M.O., that made him no different from the rest of New Orleans.

Syndicate Gets Anal Over Dilbert Strip

So Exactly Who Was Going To Be Offended By a Porpoise Going Medieval On a Lawyer?
Scott Adams didn't get Dilbert into 2,000-plus newspapers by being offensive. Funny has long been more than good enough.
But there's an alternate version of today's panel http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20050906.html because his depiction of a vengeful porpoise venturing up a lawyer's behind might be too graphic for some newspapers, in the view of Dilbert syndicator United Media.
Adams worked up another version without a fuss.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001055186.
It was totally benign, of course, although it continues a tradition of newspapers and syndicates being Nervous Nellies about certain strips they feel might veer too far over the line, whatever the hell that is (Doonesbury, Boondocks and the late, lamented Bloom County come quickly to mind).
But give Adams props for working up an alternative version so as not to offend those who want to see porpoises used for more erstwhile endeavors, although it would've been fun to watch PETA attempt to mount a protest over a comic strip, and then have Adams respond in kind.

Memo To Kanye West

Dude: Your passion is admirable, and you may even be right. But you're a musician, big guy. In your business it's all about the timing. And dog, your timing sucks.
But telling the world "George Bush doesn't care about black people" during a telethon for hurricane victims only narrowly eclipses Mike Myers' deer-in-the-headlights look as you departed from the cue cards and Chris Tucker's bug-eyed as they cut to him almost as quickly as they dumped out of you.
If your publicists just slit their wrists, it won't be too hard to figure out why. They decided to commit hari-kari before your career did.

Charitably yours,

Steve
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/aptv_story.asp?category=1401&slug=Katrina%20NBC%20Telethon

Katrina's Not Necessarily A Big Deal Once You Leave The U.S.

Asian Media, In Particular, Don't Feel Inclined to Share Gulf Coast Pain
Rare is the U.S. media outlet that gives more than a few paragraphs to typhoons in places like Bangladesh and India, even when hundreds perish. It happens often enough, and to people who don't look like us or speak our language, that the media rarely pays them much mind.
The tsunami was a different story, of course, but even then it happened a world away and it was hard to truly get a grip on the devastation. We no longer have that luxury, of course. But do the media in other countries care? It depends on where you're reading.
Not a problem in the U.K., where The Guardian has been going heavy with coverage from the start. This morning's online edition has nine links to the main story and sidebars, including angles American media still covering the breaking story have not turned to, including how erosion caused by human activity left the Mississippi Delta vulnerable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1560764,00.html
The Daily Telegraph included a selection of increasingly desperate and angry blog entries from all over. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/01/ukatblogs.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/09/01/ixportaltop.html
The Times of London has a couple of correspondents in the hurricane zone, including Chris Ayres in Biloxi, who got this saucy quote from a survivor:
“Well baby, here in the South we’ve been through this kind of thing before,” she said. “We just clean up and get on with it. I know that God will take care of me.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1759669,00.html
But the media is much more blase in Asia three days after Katrina. The home page of Hong Kong's South China Morning Post instead had a snap of Typhoon Talim battering Taiwan, and only mentioned Katrina in reference to out-of-control oil prices. Katrina's also disappeared from the World Headlines of Asahi Shimbun.
Bangkok's The Nation is focused on its nation, not ours. The New Straits Times in Kuala Lampur used copy from AFP, but it was the last item in its World Section roundup. Instead, the lead story on the home page was about a film festival in Deauville, France. It's as if the Asian media had done its due diligence reporting on when the hurricane hit and is now moving on to other pursuits.
Turnabout is apparentlyfair play.