Winners and Losers in The Early Show Shuffle

But After All is Said and Done, Will It Amount to Anything?







Now that CBS plans to give the umpteenth makeover to "The Early Show," it's a good time to look at who over on West 57th St. is having a good day after today's announcement, and who needs a hug.

First, the soon-to-depart:

Harry Smith: He's been a good soldier and then some, toiling away on the show since 2002, with a steady parade of co-hosts. Of course, he's been down this road before, when he was on "CBS This Morning" from 1987-96. So, now he gets to sleep in, while serving as a national correspondent and the primary fill-in on the "CBS Evening News," "Sunday Morning" and "Face the Nation." Pretty sweet deal, and he may just be biding his time until June, when Katie Couric's contract expires. There's little doubt her tenure as "Evening News" anchor will end then, and she'll be in a drastically different and less-remunerative role at the network should she stay.


Maggie Rodriguez: She's also been a fill-in anchor at "Evening News," but too low-profile to get the chair full-time. As of now, she will be reassigned, though to points unknown. Since she's been an anchor, hard to believe she'd go back in the field. In this business, you save face above all else.


Dave Price: He broadened his portfolio to go beyond weather, and became sort of a wacky features guy as well. To wit, a repeat of his stunt from last year where he gets plunked in Alaska, and then has $50 and his resourcefulness to find a way home. The CBS press release said he'd slide into a new, undefined role. But it's doubtful there's one there for the taking to match his skill set.


Chris Wragge (above right): He's been doing "The Saturday Early Show" for a while, displaying a remarkable amount of spunk for someone who'd been doing the 11 p.m. news on WCBS-TV just hours before. But he's shown his versatility at channel 2, having first arrived as a sportscaster and did well enough to be the star anchor.


Erica Hill (above left): She had teamed with Wragge on Saturdays, and the chemistry was there. Hill's a gamer, and can be as credible interviewing a senator as she is deft handling cooking segments. Now sliding over from the newsreader position to co-anchor, it's a transition that should prove seamless.

Marysol Castro: Upgrade. She's been toiling for years as the weekend weather gal on "Good Morning America Weekend." Now she finally gets a weekday gig, more bucks and not have to leave her husband to deal with their kids on weekend mornings.


Jeff Glor: He takes over as weekday news reader. Indications are he'll get out of anchoring the Saturday "Evening News," though they may call on him to take one for the team and anchor holidays, like he did on Thanksgiving.



A few questions: Will all this shuffling make a difference? In a word, no.
CBS is averaging 2.7 million viewers in the morning, compared to 4.3 million at ABC and a whopping 5.3 million for the gang at the money machine known as "Today" on NBC.
There's nothing wrong with freshening a show's look and feel, but nothing is being put on the table that will a meaningful dent in the Nielsens.
The new, um, cast can do a workmanlike show and not embarrass the network or themselves. But, for now, they offer no reason for someone currently watching one of the other shows (or a local breakfast show, or "Morning Joe" or "Fox and Friends") a compelling reason to defect.
The strategy may be to concede third place, but make it a more respectable third than it is now.
CBS will also now have to find another anchor for the Saturday "Early Show" as well as a high-profile anchor for WCBS-TV. Those have also been positions that have been anything but stable over the years.

Somewhere, Captain Kangaroo is having a good chuckle.

Winning Headline of the Day

For a front-page refer in The New York Times about police cracking down on locals playing chess in an upper Manhattan playground:

Police! Drop the Pawn!

Curiously changed online to:

'Police! Step Away From the Chess Table'

First attempt was check and mate.

Ex Times-Picayune Photographer Offers a Troubling Word Picture

What Happens When You Get Too Close to Your Sources

Alex Brandon, who worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune post-Katrina, testified yesterday in a federal trial for five current or former NOLA cops accused in the death of a man in Algiers in the days after the hurricane's mayhem.
Brandon was embedded with the police department's SWAT team when he came upon an incident with two men on the ground in handcuffs jawing at police. One of the cops on trial told him not to take a picture, and Brandon obeyed. "It was, for lack of a better term, an order."
Putting aside the wisdom of following the order, what troubles me is this graf from the Times-Picayune story on the trial:

As a Times-Picayune photographer for 10 years, Brandon was well known (sic) for his extensive network of police contacts. He was also close to many police officers, a fact he testified to on Wednesday, saying he considered many of the SWAT officers to be "good friends."

Brandon now works for the AP in Washington, so the big stink he would have set off in the T-P newsroom from that statement was averted. Or could Brandon have returned to his office odor-free? Maybe Brandon's editors knew he was cozy with the cops, and exploited that so he could get up close and personal during Katrina's desperate hours. Perhaps the thought is in situations like this that expediency trumps integrity every time. Nonetheless, it does take some of the sheen of the T-P's yeoman coverage five years ago.

There's nothing wrong with being cordial, civil, even avuncular with the subjects you cover. Go ahead and like them. Hell, even admire their accomplishments. But whatever you do, don't become their friends. Then you're done as a journalist, as in stick-a-fork-in-you-because-you're-done done. You just don't do it. Or it really is end of story. The A.P. might want to remind Brandon of that going forward.

Untruth in Labeling

Original Butter? That's Just Un-Wise, Wise

Amid the kids' Halloween booty yesterday was a snack-sized bag of Wise popcorn with "Original Butter." Because you wouldn't want your butter to be accused of being a copycat.

Turns out "Original Butter" is something else entirely, as right under that label on the package is the disclaimer "artificially flavored."

That means "Original Butter" is something else, as the nutrition label indicateds. But there's no butter. Not even close.

So, it appears the FTC allows a company to call a product whatever it wants, as long as it's upfront about what it's not. "Original Butter" is just a name for a flavor. Despite common sense, it doesn't connote that there's actual butter, just the appearance of such. It's not dishonest, just disingenuous.

New York Post Should be Sacked for Cheap Tease on Eli Manning

It's One Thing to Get Readers to Turn the Page. It's Another to Have Something There When You Do

I'm not a regular reader of The New York Post print edition, but if someone decides to leave a copy on the train, I'm only too happy to pick it up, me being a foe of litter and all.
That happened to me on my home Friday night. Uncharacteristically, I work my way back to the sports section instead of my usual vice versa. Most of page 3 is taken up with a photo of Giants QB Eli Manning and his wife Abby, who the cutline tell us are "young rich and famous." Duh.
It goes on: "They are sports royalty in demand for social and charity events. He led the Giants to the 2008 Super Bowl championship, and she's the beautiful cheerleader who's been by his side since they were kids. It would seem that they've got it all, but do they?"
Uh, oh. This is a Page Six exclusive!!!!! It was almost Halloween, after all, so time to cue the skeletons to come out of the closet. A breathless dash to page 14, that day's home for Page Six, which reveals that Eli may be throwing Hail Mary's into a Diaper Genie before long. If all goes well, baby will make three in the spring. Mazel tov.
So, the answer to the above question is a resounding yes. The Post wanted us to believe otherwise, but we had little choice to fall for it hook, line, and screen pass. Still in all, they should be whistled for a journalistic cheap shot, even by the Post's shaky standards.

Barron's Bearish on Its Integrity

Just Because You Call It An Ad Doesn't Make It Right

While thumbing through this week's issue of Barron's, a curious and disturbing site awaits on page 21 below a short item about a possible successor to Warren Buffett: an ad.
Not just any ad, but one for a company called FirstHourTrading.com, a firm that plies its wares to the alpha dogs known as day traders.
It's not the product that's being sold that's problematic. Rather, the ad--notwithstanding the fact that at its top has the disclaimer "paid advertisement," looks like an article with the exact font and typeface Barron's uses for its own articles.
Of course, advertorial designed to look like regular copy is a time-honored ploy. But graphically, it's almost always dissimilar enough for even the most-casual readers to figure out that The New York Times didn't just do a gushing profile on Amish heaters.
Barron's, however, is calling signals from a different playbook. Even if it doesn't hide the fact the space has been paid for, the ad still leaves a big stink. It's the kind of questionable tactic you might read about in a publication, say, like Barron's.
Well, maybe not anymore.

In Cablevision-Fox Spat, Newspapers Come Out the Winner

Rupert Murdoch Helps Contribute to the New York Times' Bottom Line

Now that Cablevision and Fox are about to enter their fourth day of a standoff that's resulted in 3 million cable customers in the New York area without local channels 5 and 9--it's beginning to get a little tense (though not in my house, where all is harmonious with DirecTV).
This has become a big-time hissy fit over retransmission fees with nobody winning the PR war. But both sides sure as hell are trying. And spending a fortune on full-page ads in the process. Collectively, they've dropped a healthy six-figure sum at The New York Times alone. The local tabs and Cablevision-owned Newsday have also gotten their share.
That means Fox grand poobah Rupert Murdoch is dumping valuable cash into the arms of his competition--remember, he also owns the New York Post, while the cable blackout rages on.
That's may be why you don't see any editorials calling on both sides to go to binding arbitration to ensure Cablevision homes can watch the World Series, especially if the Yankees can make it past the Rangers.
Because, hey, there's always the radio. And tomorrow's newspaper to read all about it.

Break Out the Tourniquets: Ax Starts Swinging at Newsweek

A Reduced Staff to Go With a Reduced Magazine


The media landscape was on fire today.
Or maybe, that's just fired up, after double bombshells of CNN's big cheese Jon Klein's employment being canceled by the network. Ditto, more or less, for one-time NBC wunderkind Jeff Zucker's imminent departure from NBC (way to work the shoe leather, Bill Carter).
Of course, a reported $30 million kiss goodbye from Comcast will salve his wounded pride.
As it happened, this was also the day Newsweek owner Sidney Harman was scheduled to hand out pink slips, as Dylan Stableford at The Wrap reported.
True to his word, out the door they are going, with about 25 percent of the staff expected to be lopped off the masthead by sundown. They are involuntarily joining a lot of high-profile colleagues who bailed out over the summer.
We'll soon see if there's much a magazine left to put out by those who are left.

UPDATE: Via Business Insider, a Newsweek spokesman says the final number of pink-slips won't be all that bad. Unless, of course, you're among them.

Ding Dong, the Witch is...Fired

The House (Of Scorn) Finally Falls on Daily News Features Dominatrix Orla Healy

I worked for my share of jackasses, bullies and lunkheads during 20 years in the news business, which isn't unique in having dullards in charge, only that they can be more colorful and outrageious in the pain they inflict on others.
All the more reason, then, I am grateful I never had to cross paths with Orla Healy, who was in charge of features at the New York Daily News.
I say was, as the Village Voice is reporting Healy got the heave-ho today, which no doubt has set the corks a poppin' over on West 33rd.
Talk about hate. Here's how one source variously described her to the Voice: "a window into fascism in the world," a "sadist" and part of a "gangster regime that took root."
Holy, Anna Wintour, Batman!
At the same time, the Voice was told Healy wasn't fired for being a bitch, just merely a lackluster editor who wasn't doing much to pump up the lifestyle and entertainment coverage, despite those nifty presses that can print color on every page. In other words, little sizzle, even less steak.
In the end, that's the great equalizer in the news business. If you can produce results, you can be the biggest shitbag who ever turned up on a masthead. If not, then you're just another schnook who will have to pay 50 cents to read the paper, just like the rest of us.

Tumbleweeds Aren't Rolling Through Newsweek's Office. Yet.

Exactly Why is Sidney Harman Bothering?

In an interview in Media Matters, Newsweek's Howard Fineman, while explaining why he's decamping for The Huffington Post, predicted, his journalistic home for 30 years would no longer be in print by 2015.
I think he was being rather charitable.
It's not just that Fineman, Evan Thomas, Michael Isikoffk, Fareed Zakaria, Jon Meacham and just about all of the other big hosses at Newsweek have unhitched from that once-invincible wagon train.
True, these guys were big deals, and they could still bring it with eminently decent journalism. The cover story two weeks ago by Thomas and John Barry on Robert Gates was a grabber, as have other top-line enterprise pieces in recent weeks. I'm sure I'll get to the piece on the threat to traditional masculinity in the current issue real soon.
But about that current issue, and the bigger problem. It's all of 64 pages. You don't make it to 2015 when you're 64 pages.
Nor do you when a lot of the magazine looks downright ugly. The fonts and text look like an experiment gone bad circa 1975, sort of a cross between The New Republic and U.S. News and World Report at its wheeziest.
Sure, it's no longer a digest of the previous week. Like Time, it focuses now on trends, analysis, point of view. But too much of it is simply stuff you can get elsewhere in one variation or another. There's nothing wrong with it. However, there is not enough that is truly distinctive to make it a value proposition. I'm only seeing it because a 6-month subscription started showing up in our mailbox. If I had to pay...let's just say, I wouldn't. I have a hard enough time digesting two papers a day minimum, along with the other 15 magazines that pile up at home.
There's not enough there there to give up something else whose time spent reading I would devote to Newsweek.
So, as the magazine's new owner Sidney Harman prepares to affix his stamp, not to mention his checkbook, it will be intriguing to find out how Newsweek will be reinvented yet again. However, it should be telling to Harman and just about anyone else when Fineman, et al., know better not to find out.
But if this Newsweek thing doesn't work out for Harman, I'm sure there are a few newspaper publishers who would be eager to take him out to lunch. Pronto. They don't want to wait for 2015 either.

When The Subways Don't Suck

TBS Takes Over the Shuttle to Push Baseball Playoffs and Maybe Usher in a Paradigm Shift for Ads

Part of my regular commute involves taking the subway shuttle between Grand Central Station and Times Square and back. It's a quick ride, unremarkable on a good day. Except when it's not.

The shuttle trains have become a breeding ground for innovative ad campaigns that effectively do a full body wrap around the cars, inside and out, with a single theme that basically takes over just about every inch of real estate save for the windows.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the local zoos, HBO, for a "Deadwood" campaign, and HGTV have taken the plunge. These has been increasingly common on buses, but it's more striking when three or four subway cars are tricked out all over.

Now, TBS has one-upped with a full-wrap that includes TV screens to promote its baseball playoff coverage. Even depressed Mets fans, like your faithful correspondent, know when to say wow. Four screens in each car (on the shuttle that runs on track 3, for you subway geeks) are showing random baseball clips. But the cool part comes when the playoffs get cranking, and they'll show highlights from the previous night's games. It won't be anything you couldn't catch on SportsCenter, but it'll give you someplace else to look when the panhandlers come through.

Given the usual desultory state of subway ads (excepting you, Monroe College) that often mirror the quality of the service, one can only hope for more of the same on other lines.

Dr. Zizmor and Zoni Language Center? Yer, out!

R.I.P., Paste

From Our Too-Bad-But-Hardly-A-Surprise Department

Especially in the publishing business, a loyal subscriber base, street cred and a distinct market niche can mean jack squat in the fight for survival.

Such is life, or the end of it, for the print version of indie music mag Paste, which made it official yesterday that it's gonzo.

I was one of those who coughed up some bucks to help save the magazine back when it was on life support a couple of years ago. It was one of those feel-good, grassroots stories, you kind of expected Jimmy Stewart to come out and deliver a homily about angels getting their wings.

But the patient remained sick. The subsequent issues were painfully thin. The record labels were hurting and all those small labels just didn't have the dough-re-mi to let Paste whistle a happy tune to its bankers.

This leaves people interested in keeping up with what's hot and fresh for the artists who depend heavily on Americana and Triple-A radio airplay (e.g. Sufjan Stevens, The Hold Steady, Okkervill River) that much more difficult, especially with the apparent demise of the samplers that were available with each issue. I know that I purchased CDs after hearing sampler tracks, and I trust that I wasn't unique in that regard. With that pipeline shut off, bands are going to have to hustle that much more for attention, not to mention concert bookings and album sales.

To show how troubled the music business is, Paste was unable to survive even though it was the last mag standing in this genre, after Harp folded in 2008, following the lamentable path of Tracks and No Depression.

For now, there is at least pastemagazine.com, which will remain active. It's something, true. But for indie artists and their fans, it likely won't be enough.

Why You Need to Appreciate Winning Headlines Now More Than Ever

Search Engine Optimization Threatens to Suck the Lifeblood Out of Copy Editors

It's no secret that a headline that grabs you while scanning a newspaper and one that aims to accomplish the same thing online are often mutually exclusive.
After all, many folks find their way to a story through a Google search. Hence, if a paper wants their story to be on the first page of the search results instead of page 38, it is "optimized."
At best, the practice is a necessary evil. We live and die on page views, after all. When done right, online headlines are inevitably more basic, matter-of-fact. Nobody tries to be clever entering search terms. Concurrently, headlines are often written to match. And a cottage industry, of sorts, has even sprung up to show editors and bloggers how to optimize optimization.
Too bad. That means a lot of creative thinking gets left on the printed page, or isn't fully appreciated in its fuller context.
That came to mind this morning, while looking at the front page of the Home section of The New York Times. The cover story, about the makeover of the Oval Office, was headlined "The Audacity of Taupe." Simple. Clever. A real winner.
Now, it should be noted that you will see that headline if you go to the online version. Credit the Times for sticking to its guns on most of its web pages. But my unscientific survey has found many other papers who drain the juice from the print heds (I'm talking to you, Washington Post).
Again, necessary evil. But it doesn't portend well for other parts of stories, including photos and the copy itself. And even with the intact Times version, you don't fully appreciate the sweep of the story, lending even greater credence to why the headline matters.
On the front page, the Oval Office photo takes up most of the space above-the-fold. That makes you appreciate the headline all the more. Online, the image is a respectable 600 x 353 pixels, but it's just not the same. You might glance at the story but will you read it? Maybe. But its presentation is essentially indistinguishable from any other main story in that section.
But will I read the printed version? You bet. Even if Home is not a normal go-to section for me, it became one today.

Ethan Bronner Rants Instead of Writes in New York Times Coverage of Gaza Mall

Provocative Article Reads as an Analysis Piece but Wasn't Labeled as Such

You'd think The New York Times would have the drill on Mideast coverage down cold by now. After all, the dispatches from its reporters in Israel, Cairo, and Beirut, are arguably parsed more carefully than any other news organization.
Jewish groups--and I've seen this first-hand--like to pounce on anything remotely critical of Israel as anti-Zionist bias, while many Arabs typically believe the Times is in the tank for whomever is holding their tenuous sway over the Knesset that week.
So, a dispatch from Ethan Bronner (left) in Monday's paper undoubtedly further raised already-arched eyebrows.
It concerned a mall of sorts, which sprang up in Gaza City. Bronner's writing was anything but objective, more critical than observational. True, he put the mall in its proper context and sorted through the rhetoric on both sides about its significance. The problem: the tone in his writing was more strident than what should appear in the front of the A section and read like something that belonged more in the back, where the op-eds and columnists are. To wit:

To the commentators who have never been here, certain points need to be cleared up. To those who contend the mall is proof that Gaza has construction materials: the building is 20 years old. To those who have described the mall as “gigantic” and “futuristic”: it is small and a bit old-fashioned. To Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, who wrote that the mall “would not look out of place in any capital in Europe”: it would.

This is commentary, not reportage, plain and simple. Again, Bronner may be on target with his observations. The problem is in how they are presented. And this:

But the broader point many of these advocates are making — that the poverty of Gaza is often misconstrued, willfully or inadvertently — is correct. The despair here is not that of Haiti or Somalia. It is a misery of dependence, immobility and hopelessness, not of grinding want. The flotilla movement is not about material aid; it is about Palestinian freedom and defiance of Israeli power.

Says who? Says you?

In the above passage, Bronner has not only tipped the balance, he's teetered over the edge to pure opinion. A reporter shouldn't be telling us when something is correct. That's for us to decide. And however you feel about the flotilla mess--and many American Jews are deeply conflicted over this--there remain two sides to this issue. By not acknowledging that, Bronner has compromised himself as a reporter. Then again, this dispatch indicates he's grown tired of that job. However, the front of the A section is no place to audition for a spot in the back.

Stop The Insanity. Then Go Back to Sleep

Does New York Need Four Local 4:30 a.m. Newscasts? Does It Need Any?

New York TV stations will soon get to really find out just how many insomniacs, early risers, and stoners are out there, with word that WABC-TV, the Nielsen news king, will join the scrum jockeying for droopy eyelids with a newscast at 4:30 a.m.
Bear in mind that channels, 4, 5, and 11 are already squaring off at that unholy hour. The question is why.
The easy answer is that the infrastructure is already in place. The talent is already in the building. Just bring them in a half-hour earlier, recycle packages from the 11 p.m. cast, and, poof, instant show.
If you thought the anchors were too perky at 5 a.m., just wait.
Stations get to keep all the moola from spots sold. In contrast, channels 4 and 7--home of WABC--have to forego some of that with the network shows now on.
But how many people really are out there? I first encountered the 4:30 phenomenon in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, when I had to get up way early for a flight. KABC was chugging along. But out there, it's a tad more understandable. People commute from insane distances because it's otherwise too expensive. And those commutes start early and last a while.
I doubt, however, the number of denizens on the pre-dawn patrol is as large in New York. Granted, train lines have added more service before 6 a.m. to accommodate demand. But still. It's a small slice of TV pie, at that hour. Not to mention that WPIX, channel 11, will now bump up its start time to, wait for it, 4 a.m., which will give it a five-hour block of morning news and a lot of pissed-off staffers.
As for me, I'm fine with "Morning Edition" on NPR, thank you, eternally grateful that the stellar crew there wakes up in the middle of the night and I don't have to.

The Steven Slater Blowback Has Begun

Just When You Thought You Found Your Latest Folk Hero, His 15 Minutes May Be Going Down the Chute Faster Than He Did

OK, I'll admit it, I was ready to anoint Jet Blue flight attendant-gone-bonkers Steven Slater my fave guy of the week in that Howard Beale-esque way of his. We all need a little flair of the dramatic now and then, especially when he got to fulfill the fantasies so many of us have had. And grabbing two beers while he alit from the back of the plane. Classic. Just classic.
But not so fast, thanks (or thanks for nothing, killjoys) to the Wall Street Journal, which found passengers who said Slater instigated the confrontation that led to his big-time hissy fit and was a douche to another woman who asked for help cleaning up coffee someone had spilled on her seat.
Yes, yes, two sides to every story, and we've more or less heard Slater's version. It got him liked in a big way on Facebook. But it may not be the only version. Or the correct one. And anyone who's ever been treated rudely by a flight attendant (fortunately, few and far between for me, but those few have been doozies) can understand why.
Given the cattle-car nature that typifies flying nowadays, you can also understand how someone like Slater could boil over. But that doesn't mean we have to applaud him in the process.

Thank You, Daniel Schorr

A Real Legend Dies at 93

I realize NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr was 93, but I just really never thought of him as old. Or someone who would no longer have such interesting talks ever Saturday with Scott Simon on "Weekend Edition."

He was always there. He always seemed to know just about anything about the events that mattered the most in national politics and world affairs that week. He was still a force. Who happened to be 93.

With his passing, we lose a vital link to some of the grander, noble traditions of journalism. And we lost a helluva reporter. Thanks, Dan. Go in peace.

Digital Revenue at New York Times May Finally Signal a Real Paradigm Shift

Now We're Talking the Kind of Numbers That Really Matter


From yesterday's New York Times story about its parent company's 2Q earnings report, this paragraph screamed out for attention, as well it should.

"Digital advertising revenue grew 21 percent, while the decline of print revenue slowed to 6 percent, leaving the company’s overall advertising revenue essentially flat. As a result, online advertising became a larger share of the company’s overall advertising revenue, climbing to 26 percent of the company’s total advertising take."

That number is quite the revelation, given the conventional wisdom that online ads typically accounted for only 10 percent of revenue. That may still be the case elsewhere, but the Times has shown it's possible to move off that number in a meaningful way.

Of course, that's significant when circulation for the print editions continue their swoon, even if the actual total number of readers when you figure in digital is actually quite robust. Hopefully, that can translate into publishers not getting the itchy finger to slash away at budgets for the core product, thereby leaving little to read for the online edition. Too many newspapers have tragically forgot that part of the equation, which is all the more annoying when they want to impose some kind of pay wall. First, they cut staff and content, while raising newsstand prices. Then they want to charge for access to a website with a desiccated product.

That the glue to fix the broken newspaper business model may finally be found in cyberspace is a big deal. The Times has shown that a good website--in other words, a distinct product that's more than just a slick repackaging of the newspaper--is not only a good idea, but it makes good business sense. Finally.

A (Glenn) Close Call: Damages Gets a Two-Season Pickup

But There's a Catch: New Episodes Will Only Air on DirecTV

It looked like we'd be leaving Patty Hewes for good on the pier outside her house in the Hamptons at the end of the third season of "Damages."
The show was critically lauded, gushed over by the brass at FX, but it just wasn't getting enough love with the Nielsen families. Too bad, they didn't know what they were missing.
As delectably played by Glenn Close, the ruthless--to put it charitably--lawyer Patty Hewes had enough issues to have kept Freud and Jung working overtime. She knew how to bring adversaries to their knees, but her personal life was a royal mess, one that she often made. It made for great TV. And Emmy nominations.
The season just concluded was arguably the best of the three. A big reason for that was the startling but fully satisfying casting of Martin Short as a scumbag lawyer for a family whose scion made Bernie Madoff look like a striver. Short got an Emmy nomination for his troubles, along with Close and Rose Byrne, right, whose Ellen Parsons was alternately Patty's, mentee, confidant, nemesis and would-be murder victim.
"Damages" has always been good like that. Darrell Hammond, of all people, played a hitman in season 2, while Lily Tomlin had a prominent role this year. Throw in the likes of Ted Danson, Zjelko Ivanek, Keith Carradine, and Michael Nouri, among others wending their way through keep-you-guessing-till-the-end plotlines, and you have a most-satisfying hour of TV.

And despite the ratings, "Damages" lives on. DirecTV says it will bring back "Damages" for two 10-episode seasons starting next year, and relieve FX of the burden of canceling the show. The catch: unlike "Friday Night Lights," another ratings-challenged reclamation project, "Damages" will only air on DirecTV's 101 channel.

That alone might not be the best reason to dump cable for DirecTV, like I happily did six years ago. But it's pretty damn (Glenn) close.

When Is Long-Form Journalism Too Long?

Washington Post's "Top Secret America" Might Be Too Much of a Good Thing

My first thought after seeing the opening salvo in the Washington Post's on the unwieldy national security and intelligence apparatus was wow. Simply wow.

First off, look at the front-page layout above from today's paper. The story is basically the front page. But that's just the intro. The real saga--the first of three parts--starts inside and goes on for four open pages. Four.
Granted, there are graphics, sidebars, links, refers and other stuff of 21st-century newspaperdom. And I've committed to reading it. Honest. If the Post can spend two years putting together this mastodon-sized piece of Pulitzer bait, then it behooves me to see what they can do.

But therein lies the rub. I'm a newspaper dweeb. Always have been, always will be. But the question is, how many like me are out there. If you're crammed onto the Metro on a Monday morning, are you going to start chewing on a massive enterprise piece, no matter how worthy?

To be sure, if you are not one of those people, the story's website does a more-than-adequate job of bringing the story to life. You can then digest it at your own pace. And you should.

My first question is, why try to cram this behemoth into three days? It seems you could just as effectively tell the story in five or six days as you would three. The yeoman work put in by reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin would have resonated just as loudly. But faced with four open papers to sift through, I fear a lot of readers will simply skim or give up, rather than dive in.

That might have been different if the Post had started the series on Sunday, when people have more time. Which leads me to my second question: why didn't it start then, especially when the Post has a much-larger circulation, 798,000 compared to 578,000 during the week?

One answer came from managing editor Raju Narisetti, who told The New York Times that news sites see dramatically more users during the week than on the weekends. "In my view, it's the first project done at The Post where the power of the project lies online," he said.

Ah, so. It makes eminently perfect sense. Yet, print is still wagging online's dog when it comes to revenue. The Post didn't take up the better part of five pages just to provide fodder for an online venture. Or, maybe it did. If all those extra page views turn into bigger ad bucks, then we'll know the real back story.

And it won't be a secret.