Talk Box: What’s So Wrong With Negative Ads?Plus, Rachel Maddow denounces Sharron Angle’s classy effort to link Harry Reid with scary-looking people who aren’t white, on our regular cable-news roundup.
Tom Brokaw Saved MSNBC From ItselfAccording to the former NBC News anchor, it was his idea to tone down Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, and also he who saved the network’s relationship with the McCain campaign.
ByChris Rovzar
in other news
Phil Griffin: Leave Olbermann Alone!The MSNBC president’s chi is totally out of wack over all these unjust rumors circulating about his network.
Circulation Report: ‘Vogue’ Down, ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ UpPlus, Katie Couric takes control of CBS News’ political coverage, hotels keep cropping up in Gowanus, and KKR’s IPO doesn’t go as well as planned, all in our daily industry report.
A Shark Is Jumped“They call Philadelphia the new Brooklyn sometimes!”
—Chris Matthews, forecasting the Pennsylvania primary on MSNBC just now
early and often
So What Does the Liberal Media Think of Ralph Nader’s Latest Presidential Bid?
We’ll admit it, we spent most of yesterday thinking about the Oscars. We tried to do our other normal Sunday things (hating the people in Page Six Magazine, hating the people in the New York Times wedding pages, hating Chris Matthews for having that voice so early in the morning), but most of the day was really devoted to looking forward to seeing George Clooney in a tux. And when Ralph Nader announced that he was running for president again, it was a small blip on our mental radar. (Come on, in competition with imagining what it would be like to be George’s human cummerbund, it didn’t stand much of a chance.) So this morning we decided to look online to see what other, less absurd members of the media, thought about the news. And it didn’t take much digging to discover the general, um, sentiment. An assortment of news headlines:
• Nader, spoiling for a fight, says he’ll run yet again. [LA Times]
• Spoilin’ for a Prez Run, Says Nader [NYDN]
• Nader’s back, spoiling for another White House fight [AFP
• Nader enters race, rejecting label of potential ‘spoiler’ [Boston Globe]
• Ron Paul: Spoiler? [U.S. News & World Report]
This is going to be fun, isn’t it?
gossipmonger
Jay-Z ‘Took Rihanna Aside’ to Talk About Rumors of Their AffairRihanna said she used to feel self-conscious about the rumors that she hooked up with Jay-Z, but now just ignores them. Observer prepmaster general David Foxley will now be the person to call to get reservations at the Waverly Inn. Billion-heiress Anna Anisimova slept at her mother’s place on Tuesday, which is a good thing because a 400-pound Venetian chandelier collapsed and fell fifteen feet onto the bed at her own place. Rapper 50 Cent has to pay an undisclosed sum to a Post photographer for knocking him down after he tried to take a photo of him. MSNBC accidentally flashed a graphic of Osama bin Laden as host Chris Matthews was discussing Barack Obama. Robert John Burck, a.k.a. the Naked Cowboy, says he has high-profile investments. DJ AM has invited ex-girlfriend Mandy Moore to hear him spin at Room Service on Friday.
intel
Tonight: Blogging the Super Tuesday ResultsIn honor of the orgy of voting that is going on all over the country today, Daily Intel is staying up late tonight. Really late. Starting at 8:30 p.m., New York columnist Kurt Andersen is going to be live-blogging the primary results. Then, later in the evening, Chris Smith will take a look at voting in our home state and what it means, and John Heilemann will analyze the national results on both the Democratic and Republican sides of the table. So tonight, when you get home from the gym, after your friends have arrived to watch the results and you’ve ordered pizza and uncorked that magnum of Cavit Pinot Grigio that someone random dragged over, go ahead and log on to Nymag.com. After all, as the hours go on, even Lou Dobbs’s voice starts to pound against your eardrums like a Q-tip during a hangover (you know, like Chris Matthews’s voice does every day). We’ll be quietly examining what today’s voting means for the candidates and, more importantly, what it means for you.
P.S.: Last night, we were at the Met watching Carmen, and we totally spotted MSNBC’s Chuck Todd out of the office, on a date. Slacker!
