The Daily Beast Exclusive, Behind The Scenes

So I'm in the press room at the Rio today charging my computer while covering the liberal blogger confab called Netroots Nation for AOL News and I listen in as Fox News interviews DailyKos contributor Dante Atkins. He has some things to say that are germane for the tack I'm planning to take -- and, in fact, he makes the bold prediction that the Democrats will PICK UP seats in this fall's election.

When he's done on camera, I ask him to sit with me for an interview. He does. When we're finished, Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron immediately strikes up a conversation with Atkins about some of what he had said on camera.

The rest is what you can read on TheDailyBeast.Com right now, comments in which he tacitly agrees with Atkins' claim that conservative Fox News personalities essentially created the Tea Party Movement, Cameron's raising the Shirley Sherrod drama as an example of an effort by some at Fox to influence the news and about his remark that Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle.

AOL News passed on this bit, so I moved on to pitch it elsewhere and The Daily Beast grabbed it eagerly. I emailed Fox's spokeswoman for comment and got a response that Cameron claimed I had taken his comments completely out of context. When Cameron reached me, he claimed all he was doing was sticking up for the integrity of Fox's news division. Evidently at the expense of the rest of the schedule.

Thing is, Atkins, the blogger, was there, too, and not only backed up accuracy of the quotes but the context in which I wrote them. And Cameron claimed first that I didn't hear the whole thing and then that it only lasted maybe 40 seconds, and Atkins said it lasted at least 4 minutes. I thought it was even longer, but OK.

Now, those of you who follow this blog know I'm not new to analyzing and reporting on the media. I routinely defend the Review-Journal against charges of conservative bias in its news pages, I've taken journalists to task at the Las Vegas Sun, The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. I've appeared on KNPR and several TV stations discussing media matters as an analyst. In this case, I don't even know if I believe what Cameron said was inappropriate because I don't actually have a problem with reporters expressing certain types of opinions.

But I did know it was news. And so did Cameron, which is why he moved the conversation with Atkins out of the room and away from my observation.

You may wonder if it's ethical or appropriate to report on overheard conversations. Journalists do it every day. It is not necessary to be a party to a discussion to find its contents newsworthy, but as you can read in the piece, I became a party to this conversation and Cameron began it while I was still interacting with Atkins. Plus, he said stuff about his own news organization within earshot of journalists, and there were others in the room, though I don't know who they are or what they heard.

Also, Cameron hasn't questioned whether I should have been listening or even whether the quotes themselves are accurate. He just has an elaborate explanation for what he was really saying that makes little logical sense. He chose to raise the Sherrod matter and he offered the snark about Angle. If there was some deeper, more complex point of view he hoped to express, he didn't express it in this discussion.

He also complained to me that I wasn't being fair with him because I was refuting his version of events. The good news is, I was there. I heard it. I'm not taking stories from witnesses and reconciling them as journalists normally must. So when he gives his version and it is so clearly different than what I witnessed and what the other person in the conversation had to say, I am comfortable saying that Cameron is either misremembering or being deceptive. If I wasn't there, then I certainly would be dutibound to assume his version was as likely and valid as Atkins'. In this case, that's not necessary.

Will be interesting to see where this one goes and if Atkins offers up his version of the situation on his considerable forum on Daily Kos.

As an aside, I have defended Fox's news division as well. I went to college with Brett Baier and think the world of his work. Just as with the R-J, the opinion shows and the news shows are usually significantly different and differently managed. I haven't seen Cameron much, but I suspect he's a fair reporter who strives to be accurate and balanced. Then again, he did try to rewrite an entire conversation that two other people bore witness to, so now I'm not so sure.

R-J Uses AP for Ensign Day 3?

I've laid off on the local media criticism in this space for a while in part because I've learned what it's like to have some half-cocked nutjob misread and distort every little thing that happens and/or that you do. But I did have to make a quick note that the Review-Journal, on only the third day of the John Ensign sex scandal, used the Associated Press' report on its front page and had no staff-generated material on the drama other than a 360-word commentary by columnist John L. Smith.

That is really strange, especially when the Las Vegas Sun obtained the letter sent by Doug Hampton, the cuckolded husband of Ensign's ex-mistress, to Fox News dated several days before Ensign's public revelation of his affair. It's not just that the Sun beat the R-J on this one -- ya win some, ya lose some -- but that the R-J had nothing at all to report today?

I'm also at a loss to understand why Hampton, who explained in the letter that he was sending it to Fox because he didn't want his claims investigated and exploited by what he perceived to a left-wing publication, wouldn't also offer it and the rest of his story to the R-J. The Sun is viewed as a left-wing publication by many; the R-J is viewed as the Vegas print equal to Fox News Channel.

On that front, a Fox News spokesperson tells The Huffington Post that they did not tip off Ensign's camp to the Hampton letter and hadn't gotten to the point of verifying the claim when Ensign broke the news of the affair himself on Tuesday. OK, I'll buy that, especially since my own partner, himself a TV news exec, suggested exactly that scenario this morning when we saw the Sun report.

But that does not explain, however, why Fox News did not reveal the existence of the letter for days AFTER Ensign admitted the affair. How is it Fox didn't post it that day or at least the next day? As most of the media and political worlds were grappling with why Ensign would come out with this at this stage, nearly a year after the affair had ended, how did Fox NOT see themselves as in possession of a major piece of the "why-now" puzzle?

Two Things That Shocked Me Yesterday

I am not easily shocked. I am, after all, the guy who just posted an interview with Tony Curtis in which the 83-year-old talks about walking around Central Park with spunk dripping down his leg. So, really.

But yesterday, two things stunned me.

First, I was en route to the Bellagio for lunch with sources and I'd forgotten my iPod, so I was stuck listening to KNPR's fall membership pledge drive. On comes Ira Glass, the host of "This American Life." Glass calls up some guy who Glass has been told is a non-contributing listener. Ira gets the poor fellow on the line and proceeds to humiliate him, getting to him to admit how cheap he is and how he loves getting away with free stuff. The ne'er-do-well listener, clearly a Glass fan who is both thrilled to be speaking to him and crushed this is how that came to happen, repeatedly stutters his apologies and vows to send in some money.

Uh, holy crap. It was shocking. Impossible not to listen to and entertaining in a Jerry Springer way, but shocking. And people don't listen to NPR for that kind of entertainment, do they? It seemed like this was a national fundraising segment Glass had produced and not an attack on a specific Vegas-area listener, but he did conclude by warning that people should give since, "Aren't you a little bit like that guy?" And I'm sitting there telling the radio, "Uh, no. I give every frigging month."

I do wonder, though, how a non-giver would actually react to such an admonition. These pledge appeals don't ordinarily wander into blatant "You're a BAD person if you don't give" territory. They just encourage giving by positive reinforcement and, yes, some carefully worded guilt. This went beyond that motif into shaming people.

Speaking of guilt... the second thing. Miles and I were watching Fox News last night and this ad comes on. Watch it. Now.




Wow. Yes, this is a site for heterosexual adulterers being advertised prominently on a news channel that shills for the "family values" agenda! Evidently, ESPN actually banned the same company from advertising recently. Here's a Reuters report about that:



I love the part in that report where the AshleyMadison.Com dude claims this sort of activity is no different than ESPN accepting "What Happens Here Stays Here" ads for Las Vegas. Somehow I think this is a wee bit different.

Fox News, however, evidently does not. When ESPN ran these ads, they did so after 11 p.m. Fox News, however, had them airing even earlier.