Outside the Beltway

Jonah Goldberg has written a bad column. In this case, an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune headlined “Why is Assange still alive?”

Starting Tuesday night, the results of statewide races will be reported by giving the percentage of “expected vote” rather than precinct-by-precinct.

After months of media reporting on the Republican advantage in outside spending, NYT reports that Democrats retain a sizable advantage at the campaign level.

Washington City Paper editor Michael Schaffer has put out a satiric memo mocking the policies NPR and others have issued to reporters regarding this weekend’s Jon Stewart – Stephen Colbert rallies

It’s apparently legitimate to call Sarah Palin a liar without producing any evidence or bothering to check facts.

The firing of Juan Williams from NPR has led many conservatives to call for an end to government subsidies. As is often the case, they’re right but for the wrong reasons.

NPR says it fired Juan Williams for remarks that were “inconsistent” with its editorial standards. In reality, it appears that Williams was the victim of the same convenient editing that cost Shirley Sherrod her job earlier this year.

Recklessness.

Despite early rumors that she would be fired when she proved not to be worth $16 million a year, Katie Couric has hung on as anchor at CBS. But her contract’s up in May and CNN seems to be the highest bidder. If not the only bidder.

InstaPaper’s business model is stealing content created by others, stripping it of the ads that pay the creators, and running their own advertising on it.

MSNBC.com is contemplating a name change to distinguish their brand from that of a left-leaning cable news channel.

Responding to the rant that got Rick Sanchez fired, Slate’s Brian Palmer investigates the question, “Do Jews Really Control the Media?” His short answer, “Maybe the movies, but not the news.”

Bill Jacobson and Glenn Reynolds seem to be overly amused that Conor Friedersdorf has the title of “senior editor” over at Andrew Sullivan’s blog.

Once again, CNN’s Rick Sanchez discovers that opening his mouth probably wasn’t a good idea.

The man best known for staging the “Acorn Pimp” videos is back in the news with an even more bizarre story.

Our 24/7 media culture has created a climate where persons accused of sensational crimes are presumed guilty.

An amusing parody of the typical press report on a new scientific finding.

More than ever before in the past, Fox News Channel will be the exclusive medium through which many of the candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination communicate with the public. And that’s a problem.

After several years in the wilderness, Dick Morris has returned as a Fox News analyst and, bizarrely, adviser to several Republican candidates for Congress.

Another new media star is coming to the rescue of an old media dinosaur. Put it’s probably too late.

Jon Stewart has made the transition into the post-Bush era much more effectively than his protege, Stephen Colbert.

The media is now starting to look at it’s own role in the whole Koran burning story, but the truth is that there really wasn’t any way they could’ve ignored the story.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart is suffering a little New Media embarrassment after writing a blog post based on comments by a Congressman who doesn’t exist.

It’s getting harder and harder to tell blogs from newspapers.

AP staff have been instructed “combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months.”

The AP will now start mentioning bloggers whose work they use in their stories. Fat lot of good that will do.

David Corn tweets, “Can I write the Hurricane-Earl-Is-Obama’s-Hurricane-Katrina piece? Or do I have to wait for Earl to make landfall? What’s protocol?”

CNN’s Rick Sanchez has apologized after referring to Barack Obama as the “cotton-picking president of the United States,” which some have termed “racially tinged.”

From the Onion News Network: “TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults”

Washington Monthly ranks colleges “based on what they are doing for the country — on whether they’re improving social mobility, producing research, and promoting public service” rather than “wealth, exclusivity, and prestige.” Too bad they don’t hire that way.

The Associated Press tells its reports to stop using the phrase “Ground Zero Mosque.” That’s a good thing.

Radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger is quitting her radio show following a firestorm over her use of the N-word.

General Stanley McChrystal has been hired to teach leadership at Yale.

The secret to getting big traffic on the Internet is to target bored office workers and crazy people.

Blogs are all grown up now and indistinguishable from other online media.