NoVa Media Watch

John Edwards's Fauquier County visit(s): Stacks of cash from a fawning sugar mama

Does every major national political scandal somehow connect to Fauquier County, or only the most entertaining? The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove -- former Washington Post gossip columnist -- calls Upperville-heiress Bunny Mellon "John Edwards' Sugar Mama."

"Her Virginia estate, with more than 100 full-time employees, boasts greenhouses and gardens aplenty, to say nothing of an airstrip for the Falcon 2000 jet that shuttles her to and from homes in Nantucket and Anguilla and last month whisked the disgraced Edwards from North Carolina to Upperville for a mysterious visit."

Last month?!

Here is Grove on a 2006 meeting at Bunny's manse, quoting a Bunny acolyte:

“He drove up from Washington and came for a cup of tea in the late afternoon,” says Huffman, who was present. “When he sat down in a chair, Bunny told him, ‘That was one of President Kennedy’s favorite chairs to sit in!’ I know he had to have been smitten with that fact, too.” Huffman adds with a chuckle, “The very next week, the Edwards people called and they asked her for a million dollars.”

An aside: I like the references to Bunny having to pay gift taxes of 45 percent. Giving away money in this country: Not that easy.

The Daily Beast's Eric Dezenhall notes: "If there is one central takeaway from the new books and news reports about the Edwardses, it is that they were the opposite of who they said they were, and their careers were campaigns devoted to proving these falsehoods were real."

But there are other "central takeaways" here. Notably that the media covered for this phony candidate and his phony wife throughout. Queen Beastie Tina Brown gets that part right even as she, like so many still, continue to tout Elizabeth Edwards as anything less than a full participant in the lies and the coverrup going back several years.

Marc Ambinder goes after the Edwards campaign staff.

Slate's Mickey Kaus has been the go-to guy on analysis of all this for many months. Here is an example from August.

The weekly Watch: The New Republic goes after the Post, live blogging George Michael's funeral, and more!

The week:

* The New Republic's long piece about the Washington Post delivers a terrific Salahi nugget:

Some in the newsroom felt the frenzied coverage of the White House party-crasher scandal was driven in part by the millions of hits the story generated. A week after the story broke, Style editor Ned Martel convened a meeting attended by 25 reporters and editors to coordinate coverage of the scandal. “If I were to call a similar meeting on Al Qaeda’s recruitment in the U.S., you know what I would get? I might get two people there,” says a senior print staffer. “You’d have trouble getting support on the Web to mobilize.”

Oddly enough, the Post declares the TNR piece "particularly lazy."

* Washington City Paper live-blogs sportscaster George Michael's funeral and for some reason mocks all the references to God. Religion at the National Cathedral! Who'd thunk it? Mocking funeral speakers: a new low, even for the ever-shrinking CP.

* Slate's Jack Schafer once again finds evidence of an urban legend continually slug around by news organizations as fact: "pharm parties," or illicit events at which kids toss pilfered pharmaceuticals into a communal bowl, out of which they then ingest any and all by the random handful. The New York Times and Boston Globe have fallen for this, Shafer reports. Among the papers listed in his latest roundup (Shafer has followed this for years) is The Chesterfield Observer in Virginia, as well as another daily I, your humble correspondent, was employed by years ago. The problem, a common one for news organizations: Taking law enforcement at its word.

* The Post's Howard Kurtz ponders: Is the National Enquirer vindicated by the (latest) John Edwards admission?

* And Boston Phoenix critic Adam Reilly writes a nice piece on how a small paper called The Boston Haitian Reporter covers the earthquake.

Free speech is back

Remember: Always read the comments.

George Will contributes an insightful but brief post to the Washington Post's PostPartisan blog, celebrating the Supreme Court's decision today overturning much of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance restrictions. Disagreeing with Will's vigorous support for the 5-4 ruling is one of many misguided commenters:

The problem with the decision of the court is that it did not protect the "Free Speech" of the First Amendment. What the court protected is "Paid Speech." The First Amendment does not protect "Paid Speech." Free speech is what it says it is: free. Free speech should not be regulated. Nor should access to mediums of free speech be regulated. So, what needs to happen is to find a way to take the profit motive out of "Free Speech." Do I know how that will or can happen? No. But as long as the court did not uphold "Free Speech" but did uphold "Paid Speech" it seems to me nothing more than a sham to say the First Amendment is now protected. Posted by: unchurch1 | January 21, 2010 11:48 AM

But soon, another commenter provides the inevitable correction:

For those who've never read it (and that seems to be most of you), here's the text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It doesn't make any distinctions between "free" or "paid" speech; it doesn't vest the freedom of speech in just individuals; it doesn't say that political speech is okay at certain times and not at others. "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." Simple. The Court finally got one right.

Posted by: dcraker | January 21, 2010 2:39 PM

Look for many big media institutions to strain themselves into all sorts of knots covering this, as the obvious ideological conflict here rages, and as they consider: Is it more proper to hate corporations than support the Constitution?

Bashing Twitter: In 2009, your fave columnists slammed away

A growing list of big-shot media stars spent way too much time in 2009 proudly waxing ominous about the social media phenomenon. Twitter was the top target. Some spouted off about this more than once. Dim the lights. We give you:

• NBC's Brian Williams this week in Time: "Our team has used Twitter on occasion. I see it as kind of a time suck that I don't need any more of. Just too much 'I got the most awesome new pair of sweatpants.' I'm going to go ahead and assume that people buy awesome sweatpants every day and that I don't need to know them by name."

• New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd interviewing Twitter founders Biz Stone and Ev Williams:

"ME: I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account. Is there anything you can say to change my mind?

"BIZ: Well, when you do find yourself in that position, you’re gonna want Twitter. You might want to type out the message 'Help.' "

• Cokie Roberts of NPR and ABC News: Twitter is "rude" and "appalling."

• Nancy Giles of CBS Sunday Morning: "Twitter sounds like what happens when something gets in your eye."

• Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts: "I will never Twitter you."

• New York Times serial errorist Alessandra Stanley considers the scourge of the culture: narcissistic tweeting journalists. "Those who say Twitter is a harmless pastime, which skeptics are free to ignore, are ignoring the corrosive secondary effects. We already live in an era of me-first journalism, autobiographical blogs and first-person reportage. Even daytime cable news is clotted with Lou Dobbsian anchors who ooze self-regard and intemperate opinion."

• New York Times Magazine's Matt Bai, on politicians who tweet: "The capital might be a better place if it became a Twitter-free zone, a city where people spent more time talking to the guy serving the coffee and less time informing the world that the coffee had, in fact, been served."

• Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker: "If you’re looking for Eureka you won’t find it while following David Gregory’s tweets."

• Here is Howard Kurtz hosting "Reliable Sources," first showing tape of Jon Stewart ripping Twitter, then hosting a debate between Twitter fan Rich Sanchez of CNN and very scary guy Gregg Doyel of CBS Sportsline in opposition. Doyel called Twitter "the teeny-bopper-ification of America." By the way he is dressed, Doyel just rolled out bed. "Eventually it will just become white noise," Doyel says. "We'll hear none of it ... Twitter is the pet rock of the 21st century."

• And our favorite: The Washington Post's Dana Milbank goes after members of Congress who tweet, but makes a big error.

Sex addiction confessional by Washington Post's Mike Wise: Was he trying to tell us something a month ago?

A desperate, creepy column from an otherwise likeable and harmless sports writer arrives today with it's own bizarre catch phrase: "I am Tiger Woods." But a month ago, Mike Wise may have telegraphed that some sort of confessional like this might be on the way.

So, first, the column.

The reason I have yet to write about the biggest sports story of the year in these pages is because Woods's plea to one of his many mistresses brought up old, awful feelings of shame, guilt and humiliation.

I won't revisit my own crash site in any detail here, but I can say the painful first step of the journey -- of seeing myself for who I really was -- also began in the worst imaginable way

No, really, REVISIT away! Don't turn back now, man!

I am Tiger Woods, and saying the greatest golfer on the planet got married too young is a cheap cop-out that misses an essential point: that this is really about a man who has everything and nothing at the same time, a guy medicating with women to fill emotional gaps -- the way some people use food, alcohol, drugs, work and golf on television

Then later, in case we missed it:

I am Tiger Woods, and I understand why the scent of a woman is unbeaten in 2009 and beyond. It is an equal-opportunity addiction, costing manicured, polished stars such as Pitino their coiffed reputations and unknown, dumpy software salesmen their families and jobs.

Where to begin? Perhaps one place would be the Nov. 17 post by Post colleague Dan Steinberg, at Steinberg's D.C. Sports Bog. In that post, Steinberg updates an ongoing-feud between Wise and former Postie and current ESPN funnyman Tony Kornheiser.

Steinberg had been following this idiotic brawl for awhile. [Here is his previous post on this.]

Steinberg quotes Wise on Wise's radio show refuting some cranky rant from Kornheiser, offered on his radio show. After yacking about this for several hours, Wise starts to wander. To ... someplace:

"How dare Tony Kornheiser criticize something I wrote about a team, when he spends a recent Sunday sitting in the owner's box, sitting elbow to elbow with a guy who is more unpopular in this town than anybody in the history of this town, and that probably includes George Bush.

"Nobody ended his career at The Washington Post. What happened to Tony Kornheiser at The Washington Post is what happened to the short-term memory guy at the end of the Memento movie. He realizes the dead body next to him was his fault. Tony killed his newspaper career. He wanted to be on Monday Night Football--and who wouldn't?--he wanted to do a radio show, which he felt he was best at, and he stopped wanting to be a yodeler.

"At some point--as I've had to do in my life, as other people have had to--when 20 people tell you that there's a problem with you, you look at yourself one day and you realize what's the one common denominator in those relationships with 20 people: Me. You take a look at yourself. So tearing down the good people at a place I'm still very proud to work is just beneath him, and I don't like that at all.

"I've done some stupid things in my career, including forgetting to take some medication once when I was at the 2006 Winter Olympics during a very dark time in my life. I've written some absolute clunkers, columns and stories I'm not especially proud of. But I haven't been consistently, outright nasty and ugly....

"I'm just gonna say, when you make personal attacks on the radio, you need to know that at some point the person you're talking about, it's getting back to him. And they have a right to feel badly about it and angry about it. And I think he needs to understand, if Tony Kornheiser understands nothing else ... Johnny Carson when he left had the best quote of all time, and it's what Tony needs today. He really needs to hear this. Be nice to people on your way up, because you'll see the same people on your way back down."

"A very dark time in my life." So perhaps these maudlin references last month make some sense now. But are we getting the whole story here? Will Wise venture into the darkness in future columns? Among the questions: Was this guy's life at one point really a train wreck, like, ok, David Carr's? Or a faux train wreck, like David Denby's? Tales of both resulted in moderately successful books. So, Mike, get to work.

We believe in being "nice" to people too. One way to be nice to people is not to insult them. Wise's column does that, all the way through. As does his radio show, on days when he turns it into Dr. Phil.

There will be lots more on Wise from the blogosphere and the media world in the days ahead. Doubtless.

Updates: More from Washington City Paper's Dave McKenna on Wise's weirdness, as well as on Kornheiser's weirdness; then Wise lobbies McKenna directly.

Update, Dec. 30, 2009: Politico media reporter Michael Calderone links to NoVa Media Watch.

Washington Post commenter on Salahi story is Montgomery County attorney who warned clients to avoid '09 polo event

The real story of Professional Deadbeats Tareq and Michaele Salahi could have been told months ago, long before they showed up at a White House state dinner.

Monday afternoon, as readers digested the first story of this week's multi-part Washington Post series on the Salahis, one man stayed busy online telling his own story in reply. And it is a pretty good one.

He has no blog or Facebook account of his own. Instead, he chose as his temporary online home the comments section following the article by Jason Horowitz, Spencer Hsu, and Roxanne Roberts at WashingtonPost.com, where under an alias he wrote at 3:50 p.m.:

I am an attorney who represents various businesses and organizations in Montgomery County, MD. In early 2009, my clients were solicited by "America's Polo Cup" to sign on/sponsor the event to be held outside on Poolesville in May of this year at substantial cost purportedly to benefit the charitable causes of "Journey for the Cure Foundation."

With just a bit of cursory research, I came to seriously question the bona fides of the Salahis and their "America's Polo Cup", and the legitimacy of their charity, "Journey for the Cure Foundation", for a number of obvious reasons.

Then "LAWPOOL," as he identified himself, lays out what he found, such as:

"America's Cup of Polo" claimed to have a 100-year tradition, which was odd since records show it appears to have come into being only several years ago; the organization's Web site claimed that other states had bid for and were pursuing it to host polo events in their states, but no evidence of anything close to such frenzy could be unearthed; Tareq Salahi "declared to the Washington Post following the 2007 event [in Loudoun County, Virginia] that $250,000 had been raised for charity, but the charity formed and controlled by him and his wife had never filed an IRS Form 990, which meant that it had never even handled more than $25,000 in any taxable year."

And he added something that had occurred after the polo events, but which the media until recently did not know: "Montgomery County Department of Liquor Control delivered $24,000 worth of booze in return for a regular, non-certified check which [surprise!] bounced. Only after this recent fiasco became public did the County file suit against the Salahis and the Foundation for the balance due for the booze."

"LAWPOOL" is in fact Poolesville, Maryland attorney William J. Roberts. How do we know? He admitted it to NoVa Media Watch when we contacted him on Tuesday.

We have been tracking Roberts for a couple weeks. We wanted to know more about his investigation in early 2009 into the Salahis and the America's Polo Cup. But he was not exactly hiding. We had noticed that he had spoken to Maryland's Gazette newspapers on the record a few weeks ago, and that he posted in the comments section at the Warren County Report, this time under his own name -- which inspired our recent reporting concerning the Salahis' threats to the Fauquier Times-Democrat.

So reading through the comments following the Post story on Monday, and realizing that the commenter must be Roberts, we wondered: What is it with this guy? He seems to be everywhere.

Chris Cooley's brother: Focusing on the family brand

Did Leesburg resident Chris Cooley get this much pub when he was healthy?

Since the Redskin tight end broke his ankle early in the NFL season, the guy has been everywhere, as NoVa Media Watch has detailed. Our point was and is: The guy IS NoVa media! His blog, his TV appearances, his in-the-works reality series. Chris Cooley the brand stays busy, healthy leg or no. Dude.

Sunday's Washington Post Magazine will point to an important cog in the Cooley Media Machine: Brother Tanner. This guy operates the Chris Cooley blog, he stays busy on the cellphone with the reality series producer, all the while doing his best to hang out on the sidelines of Redskins games and get to know various hip-hop stars. Tough life.

Here is a recent story from the sports department considering Chris Cooley's future in football.

Fauquier Times-Democrat to NoVa Media Watch: Salahis' attorney threats 'did not affect our coverage'

So how did they do it? How did White House party-crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi get away with so much bad behavior, leaving ever more businesses and individuals in Northern Virginia [and now in Maryland] fuming? All the while hiding behind their phony celebrity and their all-but-phony foundation?

One commenter to a story at the ever-fabulous Warren County Report points to one tactic (of many) employed by Team Salahi to keep the couple's own Party Train rolling, unchallenged, for so long:

The sad part, the really sad part, is that this classic example of trailer trash could so thoroughly bully so many people with their hollow threats of lawsuits that they got away with it for so long. Need an example? Here's a really good one.

Ask the publishers of the Fauquier Times-Democrat why they pulled a totally factual story down off its website in May reporting the action of the Commonwealth warning the public about the Salahis' so-called "charitable foundation." Because they were bullied with unfounded legal chest-pounding by Salahi's lawyer. That's the only reason. Gee, I think, and I tend to think most people might agree, recent events sort of make that publication look pretty darn foolish in retrospect. Just my opinion.

So, we did ask Times-Democrat editor Bill Walsh to comment on the above.

New York Times board of directors: Very white

A few weeks ago, we linked to a post by this operation that calls itself an "institute," or whatever,  complaining that writers and editors of one of AOL's new news sites are too white. No, we are not making this up.

So, Michelle Malkin, who hates the New York Times, points out: The board of the New York Times seems pretty white too!

So we conclude: The journalism world is run by white people! We must immediately rush to stop the masses in the street and warn them.

Update: Malkin has apparently been following this for awhile. Following snotty comments from Nora O'Donnell and Chris Matthews about the vast sea of whiteness present at a Sarah Palin book signing, it turns out, you guessed it: MSNBC is white as well!

Wonder what William McGowan has to say about this. We can guess.

Update II, Dec. 15, 2010: Sara Libby says ABC News is too white too!

Update III, Jan. 13, 2010: Washington City Paper: VERY white gentrifiers!

Update IV, June 21, 2010: AOL's Daily Finance media critic Jeff Bercovici courageously announces the major flaw of the new New York Times public editor: He is "another white dude."

Reading Richard Miniter's suit against the Washington Times

The slow implosion of the Washington Times has been covered randomly by D.C. media. One outfit that has been there the longest perhaps is TPM.com (Talking Points Memo). The TPM Livewire blog has posted the lawsuit filed this week by former Washington Times editorial page editor Richard Miniter.

It is quite a read, all the way through. But among the good stuff:

80. Based on The Washington Times' economic condition, the departure of many of its key executives, the non-payment of its debts, the reductions in paid subscriptions and workforce, and its apparent insolvent state, the very international nature of the Unification Church, and the South Korean residency of many of the newspaper's principals, it appears likely that The Washington Times could close suddenly and easily move its assets outside the Unites States or otherwise hide or dissipate them.

An issue I won't address here, but the elephant in the room: How do you go to work for a religious cult? How does anybody?

And:

81. Given Miniter's experience on the seven-member executive team, he is aware of still more irregularities with The Washington Times, its management and its own.

Love the ominous tone here. Very literary.

Covering NoVa CC shooting: Six reporters vs. one

A 20-year-old male walked into a classroom at the Woodbridge campus of Northern Virginia Community College and fired a rifle at least twice this afternoon, hitting no one, police say. InsideNova.com, the Web presence for the News and Messenger papers in Prince William County, has a good story from reporter Uriah Kiser, which has some stuff the Washington Post story does not: details about how a nearby high school was locked down. Even though the Post story has six names on it.

And this guy claims that the Post's "feeble mobile alert service ... was utterly silent" on this story.

Follow-up coverage will undoubtedly focus on how response by the school and law enforcement was impacted by any changes or policies enacted following the Virginia Tech murders in 2007. And the revelations from that continue to reverberate across Virginia, especially following news this week that university officials notified their own families of danger long before the campus at large.

The Tiger Woods story: How newspapers are covering it and not covering it says a lot about the new media landscape

We love long headlines!

Those following the Tiger Woods saga should take note: Newspapers are so over. Except when they are not. So, we take these declarations individually:

Newspapers are over: Check out the Orlando Sentinel story here which quotes law enforcement as puzzled over how various documents relevant to the Tiger Saga have leaked to the Internet.

Until Monday, Windermere police Chief Daniel Saylor did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the crash. Saylor said he had no idea how Radar Online obtained the incident report and said he will be investigating how this more-than-week-old report became public before being approved by a supervisor.

The leaking of documents by law enforcement, hospitals, government agencies, etc., was obviously going on long before the Internet arrived. Public documents belong to the public. 911 calls however, someday I hope, will no longer be available to the media. Just me.

But how are daily newspapers, who are supposed to know how to work sources in their own backyards, getting beat on this stuff?

Bullying Mara Liasson

The continuingly bizarre treatment of Mara Liasson by National Public Radio, her long-time employer, continues. NPR asked Liasson in October to "reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias," reports Politico.

NPR’s focus on Liasson’s work as a commentator on Fox’s “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.

The spokesperson at NPR won't comment, Politico adds, claiming this is a "personnel matter." Which is odd because in August, NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard slapped down Liasson quite publically, because Shepard disagreed with a Liasson criticism she made on Fox News of Obama's cash for clunkers program. Liasson "crossed a line," Shepard wrote, by comparing the program to the Katrina hurricane disaster in New Orleans. And so Liasson dutifully apologized. "I said something really stupid, which I regret," Liasson told Shepard.

Since when is the job of an "ombudsman" to bully those they disagree with? Since when is it the job of a big-time news organization to behave this way? It's Mara Liasson. Is there a more polite, calm, reasonable voice anywhere in Washington?

In the case of NPR, the real point for all this is to calm and soothe the ever-delicate sensibilities of the more rabid and ideological among NPR listeners. These people keep score of how many NPR people appear on Fox, and who committ other such unpardonable sins. Juan Williams, raise your hand.

The entire Alicia Shepard post should be read and studied. A quote included from an NPR exec. is truly shocking. These little scenes offer fabulous insight into how NPR sees its mission and its operation. Which is as a serious force in the Culture Wars, instead of as pure news organization. Hence the irony.

[Hat tip: Romenesko.]

Update: Alicia Shepard follows up with a truly silly explanation here. The real problem, according to Shepard? Fox news is so "divisive."

We read Lisa de Moraes so you don't have to

The Post's TV writer blew it big time on whether the Salahis would be showing up on Saturday Night Live. They didn't. To even seriously posit such a ridiculous impossibility as she did on Friday should have raised attention, but for some reason this bit of rumor mongering actually earns praise from the Post's Reliable Source column: "The skit unfolded just as our colleague Lisa de Moraes told you Friday it would."

Uh, no.

The post by de Moraes does point out that a sketch was being prepared with cast members playing the roles of our pals Tareq and Michaele. That turned out to be correct. "But word started getting out Friday that the Actual Salahis might also pop up in the bit," de Moraes then adds, in breathless-NBC-publicist mode. But the truly weird moment comes as we see part of what de Moraes considers an obvious tip-off: when the Salahis were asked about this at their media-swarmed appearance before a Warren County court Friday. 

At one point during those courtroom activities, a local Fox reporter asked Tareq about the report that the Salahis were doing a cameo on "SNL" the next night. Tareq did not seem surprised by the question, The Post's James Hohmann told The TV Column. Instead, he "half-shrugged," turned, and nodded to his attorney, who said they would have no comment, Hohmann reports.

So who was bamboozled here: Hohmann or de Moraes, or both?

Effective hustlers and cons like the Salahis fool lots of people lots of the time. Add two to the list.

Washington Post shooters invade Loudoun County

Who says the Washington Post doesn't cover Loudoun County? Three Post photographers visited the county Saturday, shooting the Middleburg parade, kids sledding in Purcellville, and a horse in the snow in an unspecified location. Does the union allow this?

You want the big news? You've obviously come to right place!

NoVa bloggers are fired up about W.H. gate grashers. Loudoun Independent: Not so much

As one of Northern Virginia's weirder stories in years continues to morph, NoVa bloggers, who know the politics, the people,the powerful in the region, are contributing good analysis. Check out Too Conservative, a Northern Virginia politics blog, where contributor Loudoun Insider points to one of many Big Issues: "The Loudoun BOS [Board of Supervisors] also has some explaining to do, and were obviously snookered by these cons for spending $136,500 to promote their sham polo event."

The first commenter following that post complains that the media is paying too much attention to this. Loudoun Independent, in an editorial agrees.

In fact, the issue pointed to here by Too Conservative shows just the opposite. Crashing a White House state dinner or what Bonnie and Clyde say on The Today Show does not mean much to Northern Virginians. This story has real value to Northern Virginians because these clowns have done much worse throughout this region for years. And the media has ignored this. As it has failed to follow the obvious trail. So when the media says "no story here," that usually means there are plenty of stories here.

It's news. If you don't think so, we're gonna miss you.

We have a long way to go on this.

The infection of the commonwealth: The Salahis are everywhere in Virginia

Solidly entertaining tales in both the Washington Post and the ever-reliable Warren County Report ("BREAKING: Salahis get ticket") about the Salahis' appearance in court today in Front Royal, to answer a suit claiming Bonnie and Clyde never paid $925 for lawn service.

The resolution, such as it is: Tareq was required to hand over a Patek Phillipe watch to settle the claim. "Under the law, the landscaper could demand almost whatever valuables the Salahis had on them for the unpaid work," the Post reported. And on the way out of town, the pair's parked 2006 Audi was ticketed by a local cop.

The media swarm was intense, apparently. A new character that extends this story to yet another Northern Virginia county: attorney David Silek of Manassas, who has represented the couple "on a range of cases since 2002," the Post reported.

So the Salahis live in Warren County, the bankrupt winery is in Fauquier County, the polo events in 2007 and 2008 were in Loudoun County, the lawyer is from Prince William County, Michaele's mother lives in Fairfax County. As does the General Assembly delegate the pair reportedly sucked up to in 2008 seeking a state law change that would ban local governments from regulating the size of events at local wineries.

Washington Post Virginia politics blogger Anita Kumar notes this and has quotes from Virginia Republican Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell indicating that he knows the couple. But Kumar leaves out what had been previously reported, that the Salahis donated $25,000 in Oasis wines to Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine’s inaugural four years ago

Angry, unpaid vendors continue speak out. A great place to find them: In comments following many of these online stories. Like this one.

Even as another side show rolls in. This is from Twitter tonight: "@gatewaypatriot I'm at the Fairfax, VA #SarahPalin book signing... only about 12 hours to go!!!"

Jayson Blair Watch: The Ethicist Victory Tour continues

Inciteful personal note: In 1983, while attending an actual college journalism ethics class, I sat quietly and respectfully while a former editor of the Detroit News told the class how his paper got caught in an ethical lapse. I think The News was still an afternoon paper at that time.

A space shuttle launch was due too close to the News press deadline, as he told the story. The paper went ahead anyway, but deliberately published a file photo of a previous launch, guessing that the launch would happen on schedule but unable to wait for the actual event. And betting that readers, the dumb saps, would not know the difference.

But then the launch was canceled at the last minute. After the presses had rolled and several trucks full of papers had left the building. The intent was clearly to deceive readers, but since the News Ruse was revealed, this guy claimed remorse. But of course his true regret was that in desperately racing after his delivery trucks upon realizing his problem, he was only able to stop some, he told us, and not all.

Thoughtful ethics message received by room-full of 20-year-olds: Drive faster. Journalism ethics courses: Invaluable!

Which leads us to our ongoing Jayson Blair Watch. The Ashburn, Virginia life coach and disgraced former New York Times star writer once again was invited to speak to a journalism ethics class, this time at the University of Albany. The Times-Union reports.

Covering fraud: The story of the Salahis points to a break in the news media chain

The Salahis' story has pointed to one area that not only news media in this country but state and federal regulators tend to avoid seriously paying attention to: philanthropic fraud.

Two tales from the Washington Post: Michaele never was a Washington Redskins cheerleader. And the state of Virginia today began a formal investigation into the America's Polo Cup, "the business entity run by Michaele and Tareq Salahi that the couple says raises funds for their charitable organization," the Post reports.

On Dec. 2, the Wall Street Journal reported on the case against Scott Rothstein, a Florida attorney accused by federal prosecutors of running a $1.2 billion ponzi scheme:

Mr. Rothstein allegedly used funds from new investors to pay back previous investors—a classic Ponzi scheme, according to prosecutors. "He spent his clients' money on real estate, cars, yachts, politics and philanthropy, all to create the illusion that ... his schemes were hugely successful," Jeffrey Sloman, the acting U.S. attorney in Miami, said in a statement.

Perhaps the Salahis understand, that all you gotta' do is say 'We're a charity,' and a lot of media scrutiny goes away. Is that what happened here?

The small papers out there continue to weigh in. The Times-Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania reports that Michaele lived in Scranton for a short time. (So should we expect to see her crash "The Office," since that show is based in Scranton?). And that Michaele's mother, Rosemary Holt, lives in Fairfax, Virginia. "We're a good family," Rosemary said. For God's sake, leave the mom out of this.

The Loudoun Times-Mirror finds more angry, unpaid vendors, and notes that the Salahis could be hiding out with someone who could be Michaele's brother in Purcellville, Virginia: "Tareq and Michaele have been living in a house in Warren County, close to the Fauquier line. It was swarming with reporters last week, and the couple left, it is widely believed, to take refuge with a relative in Purcellville. A man who has the same name as Michaele Salahi's brother owns a house on Remington Drive in Purcellville. That house was quiet Dec. 1, save for a dog barking inside." So why strain so much here to not name the brother?

Undoubtedly Rosemary has been notified.

The bigger picture is that these clowns have been left to play these games across several counties in Northern Virginia for several years, and nobody seemed to put the pieces together. Loudoun County media has covered the various disasters at big events in Leesburg's Morven Park in recent years -- long lines for food at something called the Virginia Wine Festival, as I recall, but that was not a Salahi event -- and may have reported on controversies surrounding the polo events. All of the major events there have been disasters. But then it fades away and we all move on.

The White House Party Crashers: Follow the money

As we continue to enjoy coverage of all this from the tiny Warren County Report, a commenter at today's latest White House Party Crashers story at WashingtonPost.com notes: "Sensational reporting wapo. How much more ink are u going to give these fools?"

We say: More, more, more! But here is hoping the media figure out where they have gone wrong, and right their collective ship. Though we are not holding our breath.

The Post's story today finally addresses the disaster behind the Salahis's polo events. Unpaid vendors, food shortages, lawsuits, denials by companies and organizations claimed to have been sponsors of these or upcoming events, etc. But the Post is just flat-out late on this.

The real story of the Salahis is not about their ever-growing Big Con to slide into a White House party they were not invited to. It is instead their gross, overmoneyed, lawsuit-obsessed, spectacularly disgusting and therefore wildly entertaining behavior over at least several years. And that's a story you only get by investing in real reporters and giving them time and resources to do their jobs. And by leaving behind the old ways of covering local news beats, for a game-changing revolution.

This is a Northern Virginia story that spans so many unexamined arenas. Nobody covers the real world of the NoVa's philanthropy crowd. It just does not happen. And it is a serious story. It is not gossip, or the party beat. The closest descriptor from the old newspaper beats would be "business." The business of this area and its wealth and its crazy growth will of course attract hustlers. Who have criss-crossed the region allegedly defrauding many along the way. To seemingly many here in Northern Virginia the Salahis come in contact with, these people are the Anti-Christ.

So why doesn't local media cover this world?

Tech media doubters of Apple: Often wrong, never accountable

The world's Big Thinkers are great at spouting off, but are rarely held accountable by media of all types, "legacy," mainstream, new, whatever. Tech media as well is given a wide pass by all, for some reason, and rarely is pushed to answer for its screw-ups.

So this is nice.

Here is a collection of the many claims over the last three years of certain doom that would befall Apple's iPhone, beginning with predictions upon its release in 2006. How did that end up working out, anyway? We were raising a child, and kind of missed out.

So, good for AAPLinvestors.net for pointing to such gems:

“The Palm Pre Will Be an iPhone Killer” Ross Catanzariti, PC World, 2 Apr 2009.

"I’m more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular… iPhone may well become Apple’s next Newton.” David Haskin, Computerworld, 26 February 2007.

The economics of something like this aren’t that compelling.” Rod Bare, Morningstar, 8 December 2006

The post includes a video headlined: "Microsoft CEO Ballmer Laughs at iPhone."

Krauthammer vs. Sullivan

We inaugurate a new category today: Media Brawls! With or without the exclamation point.

We prefer with.

The point: To add value to all human kind, of course!

But also to tap into a truly fascinating, tribal experience: That of the struggle for king/queen of the hill, among the most paranoid and overly sensitive of all tribes: Big Media.

As opposed to Community Media, which would be people who cover your local county boards, cops, schools, etc. Those people rarely fight in print or in public anyway. Too busy. And too underpaid to risk participating in such ridiculous behavior. But when they do, we'll be there!

So here we go.

Volume I: Andrew Sullivan, known by his enemies as "Perez Hilton With a PC," vs. Charles Krauthammer, known by his enemies as "Neocon Stooge for Likud." And that is being kind, in both instances.

Here is Krauthammer's version. And here is Sullivan's very grown-up apology.

The point to begin with? Something about the gasoline tax, and was Krauthammer consistent when he was for it or against it or something.

But we must apologize. The fact that this ended so well really defeats our point here. So we will try to do a better job of focusing on examples of truly sophomoric, hurtful, ranting, crazy-ass mud-slinging between Media Big Shots.

It's what we live for!

Seattle cop killer escape: 'Another massive media FAIL'?

We noticed this early, before we saw anybody else point it out. This is our tweet at around 10 a.m. eastern:

@ccwriter For some reason Washington Post.com and other media ignoring FNC report that the cop killer in Washington is NOT in the house. #media

And not long after, here is media critic Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher:

@gregmitch Another massive media FAIL: report for hours that cop killer trapped in home and may be dead, now--not even in house. http://bit.ly/6njuiF

Mitchell's link is to a report at MSNBC.com that gets it right. At Howard Kurtz's chat today, I submitted a question on this. He did not answer it. For some reason, WashingtonPost.com stuck with a headline on its front page that announced the guy was surrounded by police, long after the Fox News report was aired.

Not sure who was first with the corrected reporting on this. But I know WashingtonPost.com, and well as the Seattle Times, waited nearly an hour before reporting what the rest of us already knew.

(Value add! Greg Mitchell is quite the name dropper. He is a friend of Bruce Springsteen as well as a close pal of the Bee Gees. And he loves telling us all about it. Mitchell worked for Crawdaddy, a high-quality music/stoner mag back in the '70s. Wikipedia informs: "While on the run from the law, Abbie Hoffman was Crawdaddy's travel editor." Rock on!)

Helen Thomas inspires America

Flash! World's wittiest White House reporter was quoted thus at her book signing in Reston:

"I wake up in the morning," she said, "and think, 'Who do I hate today?'"

So much sunshine to spread to the world, so little time!

Read all about it.

NoVa weeklies get some respect

Northern Virginia weekly newspapers are bursting into the spotlight over the past week, and are gaining some attention for their reporting on White House Party Party Crashers Non-Invitees Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Some examples:

Warren County Report editor Dan McDermott was interviewed by D.C.'s Fox 5 TV.

This exhaustive FoxNews.com report, which includes some Associated Press contributions, credits the Fairfax County Times and the Fauquier Times-Democrat.

You know the papers we are talking about: Stuffed in bags tossed in your driveway every Wednesday, or whenever? Filled with those big photos from the girls' state volleyball tournament?

That's the one.

Kick 'em around all you want. But Big Media needs 'em in a big way these days.

[Added value time! Our favorite name of a Northern Virginia girls' high school volleyball team: The South County Stallions. Definition: "A male horse that has not been gelded." Lovely! Almost as good as the nickname female athletes are stuck with at one particular institution of higher learning: The University of South Carolina Lady Gamecocks. No definition available. Would you want one?]

Washington Post to Tech Crunch: We got your back

We were recently hard on TechCrunch. But today, we love 'em. Him. It.

Whatever.

TC's partner, the Washington Post, is offering some love as well. Read the details, but we have the juicy parts: TechCrunch, in a post by founder Michael Arrington, took on Video Professor, calling the entire operation a scam, and describing that company's very weird billing scheme. Video Professor then complained to Arrington, whose reply was brief, direct, and, uh, descriptive. And so wonderfully deserved.

Video Professor then whined to the Washington Post, which has syndicated Tech Crunch content since May 2009. VP to WP in DC: TC was not PC!

And the Washington Post said: Sorry. Can't help you.

So: Good for the Post, and good for Arrington.

But there is more here. As his journalism chops were questioned directly, Arrington decides to wax on a little here, and makes a solid case for losing the silly pretense of objectivity, suggesting simply: Write your opinion!

Our 'Front Royal Housewives' idea gains some traction

The Reliable Source team at WashingtonPost.com answered our question today thus:

Loudoun County, Va.: A commenter here last week objected to Michaele being allowed to participate in "The Real Housewives of Washington" since she lives in Warren County, Va. So: What about "The Real Housewives of Front Royal"? Hey, I'd watch. What do you think?

Amy Argetsinger: Hey, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Bravo realized that's where all the drama is and moved their action about an hour west on I-66.

I should get an agent.

Get ready for: 'The Real Housewives of Front Royal'

There is good stuff in today's story from the Northern Virginia Daily concerning the apparent crashing of a party at the White House Tuesday by Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who are residents of Front Royal. We like this quote:

Phoebe Harper, 71, who owns Naked Mountain Vineyard in Markham with her husband, Bob, said she too was surprised to learn about what the Salahis had done.

"I sat up straight in the chair and said, 'I don't believe this,'" Mrs. Harper said, adding that she's known the Salahi family for more than 30 years. "The whole thing is just [a] wild mess," Mrs. Harper added.

"[Salahi]'s done nothing but cause problems for the other Fauquier County wineries. I didn't like it because knowing those two and knowing what opportunists they are, I just thought this is just one more thing that they're up to no good in. I hope they get slammed. Somebody has to stop this nonsense."

So at least one fellow Virginia winery owner hates these people! This thing is just getting better and better. Tell us more, Phoebe.

Falls Church publisher: I thought I had a deal to buy the Washington Blade

If serious negotiations were underway to sell the Washington Blade as recently as September, is it reasonable to believe that Blade management locally would have been kept totally in the dark? Four days after the announcement of the dissolution of the Washington Blade, this is one question local media is not asking.

Nicholas Benton, publisher of the weekly Falls Church News-Press, was promised that he could buy the Washington Blade newspaper back in September, but the deal never materialized, according to a statement released by Benton himself, reported here by Washington City Paper and here on the Web site of the Virginia Press Association.

On Monday the Blade's owner, Window Media, abruptly closed the Blade and several other papers around the country covering gay and lesbian issues. We asked in our post on this that morning: Why was the Blade's closing, as covered by D.C. media, presented as such a shock? All employees were surprised, we were told. We pointed out that the paper trail of the problems faced by the major stockholder of Window, going back over a year and intensifying in recent weeks, itself should have sounded alarms, both among Blade management locally, and among D.C. local media, that the end could be near.

To paraphrase Howard Baker, sitting on the Senate Watergate Committee: What did Blade management know, and when did they know it? And: If they didn't know, shouldn't they have known?

AOL secret newsroom employs thousands! A tale of new media accountability. Or not

Star New York Times TV reporter Alessandra Stanley recently made news when her vast talent for making errors became public. [And one of her targets, film director Barry Levinson, is now objecting. Loudly.]

Stanley was treated brutally across the media universe. But as it turns out, mistakes by mainstream media attract plenty of attention and seemingly endless analysis, while those made by those in the new media world are ignored.

Take the example of big-time tech-news/gossip blog TechCrunch. Specifically this recent post about AOL's plans for extending its reach into more content areas here. TC's Michael Arrington writes:

AOL now has 1,500 people writing content across its scores of content sub-brands, we’ve confirmed. Around 1,000 of those people are working full time for AOL, the rest are freelancing. That’s more than double the number that they had creating content a year ago, and by this time next year, we’ve heard, the plan is to have 2-3x as many people as they do now.

A few paragraphs down, there is this weird addendun:

"We got the numbers a little wrong yesterday. The total number of full time writers and editors in the AOL newsroom is 500, plus another 1,500 freelancers, for a total of 2,000 full and part time contributors."

But the headline still says: "AOL Newsroom Now Has (Wow) 1500 Writers."

But: If that is the original headline, why is it still there, given the author's admitted major error with the numbers? I cannot reconcile any of this. If you edit the post because of a major error, edit the headline. Right?