Ken Bacon Dead at 64
Former Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon has died. He was only 64. Kenneth H. Bacon, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who became chief Pentagon spokesman under President Bill Clinton, died Saturday at age 64. Bacon had been battling melanoama, and was on leave was his job as president of Refugees International, a Washington-based group he joined in early 2001. [...] "Prior to working at ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 16, 2009 06:07
Murdoch: Free News Era Over
Rupert Murdoch thinks he's figured out how to fix the ailing newspaper industry: Starting charging for online content! Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" business model. Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 7, 2009 07:51
Start New Banks
In the discussion section of Steve Verdon's Obama the Fear Monger post, commentor Drew and I had a brief debate about the possibility of using TARP funds to create new banks rather than try to rescue old ones. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Paul Romer of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research makes this argument as well, with more ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 6, 2009 10:40
2008 Predictions Scorecard (James Joyner)
As 2008 winds to an end, it'll soon be time for the OTB staff to post its predictions for the coming year. First, though, is the painful look back at our predictions for 2008. Predictions that came to pass The Republicans will eventually nominate someone, pundit chatter about a divided base notwithstanding. “Ron Paul won’t win a single state primary. If he runs ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 29, 2008 09:03
Mainstream Media Obsessed with Sex, Sex, Sex!
Cernig is outraged at the sex-obsessed American press. I am now officially disgusted with America's insular and navel-gazing punditry. En masse and on a bipartisan basis the media, commentators and bloggers have decided that the Edwards Affair story is more important than events in South Ossetia. What happened, folks, did your minds cloud over at contemplation of events beyond these hallowed ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 9, 2008 18:50
Mahdi Army Transforming into Salvation Army?
The Mahdi Army might soon be the Iraqi equivalent of the Salvation Army, Gina Chon reports for the Wall Street Journal. Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- long a thorn in the side of the U.S. military and Iraqi government -- intends to disarm his once-dominant Mahdi Army militia and remake it as a social-services organization. The transformation would represent a significant turnabout ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 5, 2008 12:14
WSJ Firing 50 Editors, Hiring 95 Reporters
David Kaplan reports on a big shake-up at Wall Street Journal: WSJ is cutting 50 editorial positions as it moves to reform editing functions across print, online and mobile, according to a staff memo written by Robert Thomson, the News Corp (NYSE: NWS). paper’s managing editor. The Global News, Global Copy, Global Pagination, Monitor and the stand alone WSJ.com editing desks ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 16, 2008 18:52
Hyperlocal News Fails Without Locals
WSJ points to the failure of so-called 'hyperlocal' news portals, focusing on a WaPo venture. For believers in the power of rigorous local coverage to help save newspapers, the Washington Post's launch of LoudounExtra.com last July was a potentially industry-defining event. It paired a journalistic powerhouse with a dream team of Internet geeks to build a virtual town square ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 5, 2008 09:38
Is It Time to Invade Burma?
Romesh Ratnesar takes to the pages of TIME to ask, in apparent seriousness, "Is It Time to Invade Burma?" The disaster in Burma presents the world with perhaps its most serious humanitarian crisis since the 2004 Asian tsunami. By most reliable estimates, close to 100,000 people are dead. Delays in delivering relief to the victims, the inaccessibility of the stricken areas ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 11, 2008 09:18
Sorenson Admits ‘Profiles in Courage’ Role
Ted Sorenson has finally admitted that he had a large role in writing Profiles in Courage, for which John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize as a solo author. According to a Wall Street Journal review, Sorensen says, for the first time, that he "did a first draft of most chapters," "helped choose the words of many of its sentences" and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 9, 2008 14:45
Poll: Bush a Liability for McCain
A new NBC/WSJ poll shows that being seen as too close to George W. Bush is bringing John McCain down. I'm pretty sure that Peter Hart and Neil Newhouse already knew that, since I did, but it's good to put a number on these things (43 percent, as it turns out). Other interesting findings: 36 percent have major concerns that ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 1, 2008 06:56
McCain Hires Pollster McInturff
John McCain has re-hired Bill McInturff and his team at Public Opinion Strategies to conduct his polling. Sen. John McCain, still rebuilding his presidential campaign after last summer’s near-bankruptcy and staff upheaval, has re-enlisted respected veteran Bill McInturff as his pollster. McInturff, co-founder of the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, has been the Arizona senator’s pollster since the early 1990s and worked ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 11, 2008 06:08
Katie Couric – CBS News Divorce Imminent
CBS plans to oust Katie Couric from the anchor chair of the "Evening News" soon after the election, Rebecca Dana reports for WSJ. After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011 -- ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 10, 2008 08:03
Obama Denounces Pastor, Continuing Circular Firing Squad
Barack Obama has denounced his pastor of twenty years, the man who performed his wedding ceremony, baptized his children, and served as the inspiration for his best-selling book, because his inflammatory comments got picked up in the press and caused him some political embarrassment. In the handful of years Senator Barack Obama has spent in the national spotlight, his stance ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 15, 2008 06:31
It’s the Economy, Stupid
If you look at the following headlines from just the last 24 hours: “Most Economists in Survey Say Recession is Already Here”, Wall Street Journal “Southland Home Prices Tumble Fast”, Los Angeles Times “Betting the Bank”, Paul Krugman op-ed in NYT “Investors Flock to a Classic Refuge, Propelling Its Price Past $1000”, New York Times it's hard to conclude that things aren't going somewhat wobbly ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 14, 2008 10:22
