Keith Olbermann is working overtime to have people believe that WaPo’s Dana Milbank, a longtime contributor to his MSNBC program, was forced off the network as a result of pressure from Olbermann over a piece Milbank wrote last week satirizing Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential presumptions.

Not so, says Milbank. “I started contract talks with CNN on July 7,” Milbank told Big Head DC this afternoon. “It has nothing to do with last week’s column. I like Keith, and I’m sorry he’s angry about my departure.”

Milbank began appearing on CNN last night on Campbell Brown’s program — the network’s competitor to Olbermann.

“Keith, working ever harder to court his liberal fan base, obviously wants people to believe he was directly involved in Dana’s exit,” a cable TV honcho not affiliated with CNN or MSNBC told BHDC. “The truth is simply that Dana got a much better offer. And Olbermann decided to spin it his way.”

................................................................................................................................................................................................
comments (19) | digg this | reddit | facebook | del.icio.us | stumble | permalink

After the supposedly serious-minded Washington Post-owned Slate.com sent out the following e-mail PR blast on Thursday night pointing to a new feature called “Hillary Deathwatch,” several Hillary Clinton supporters are decrying rampant misogyny and bias at the online magazine (the male authors of the piece, Christopher Beam and Chadwick Martin, are believed to be in their early- to mid- twenties). If not bias, just plain crassness:

The Slate.com article also depicts a cartoon Clinton caricature on a sinking ship.

................................................................................................................................................................................................
comments (13) | digg this | reddit | facebook | del.icio.us | stumble | permalink

From the City Paper:

Last July, Post gossip columnist Amy Argetsinger was making some calls on David Vitter, the Louisiana senator whose phone number had shown up in the phone records of the famous “D.C. Madam.” After the story bounced all over the country, a New Orleans madam spoke up with allegations that Vitter had been a client of her brothel.

Argetsinger was all over it, nailing an interview with the Southern madam and pushing it toward publication. But her editor, Steve Reiss, spiked the story on sourcing grounds, arguing that the Post account rested precariously on the word of the New Orleans madam. Says Argetsinger via e-mail: “Reiss was aware that everyone else was writing about her but said that we can’t use that as an excuse—in essence, that the Post had to take the higher moral ground.” Argetsinger rushed to find a replacement item.

The next day, the columnist set out to “revisit” the Vitter issue. She pumped “New Orleans madam” into Google and found that the first story to pop up came from the Post. Turns out that washingtonpost.com had piped into the Web site an AP version of the very same story that a Style editor had just killed.

Argetsinger wasn’t mad; she was encouraged. Now she had an argument for her editors: Hey, if we have the AP story on our site, why can’t we publish our own version? “I guess I was arguing, ‘look, the Post’s already tainted here,’” writes Argetsinger via e-mail. Not tainted enough: When the issue reached the desk of top editor Downie, he sided with Argetsinger’s editor.

“Two different companies and two different standards operating under the same rubric”—that’s how Argetsinger sums it up.

................................................................................................................................................................................................
comments (4) | digg this | reddit | facebook | del.icio.us | stumble | permalink

The Washington Post Company will launch a new Web site on Monday dedicated to black culture and heritage. It is called “The Root” and aims to raise the profile of black voices in mainstream media. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., former New York Times reporter Lynette Clemetson, Terence Samuel of AOL Black Voices, Malcolm Gladwell, Thelma Golden, William Julius Wilson, John McWhorter, Charlayne Hunter Gault, and other prominent figures are joining in the project. The site will go live at 12:01 a.m. ET on Jan. 28 at TheRoot.com.

................................................................................................................................................................................................
comments (8) | digg this | reddit | facebook | del.icio.us | stumble | permalink

Jackie Kucinich’s behavior at the Dana Milbank party aside, newish Wonkette editor Megan Carpentier had a blast chatting up The Washington Post’s resident gossip, Amy Argetsinger (right). Just look at that grin. Megan’s arrived!

Earlier: New Wonkette Editor Says Hello to Big Head DC

................................................................................................................................................................................................
comments (10) | digg this | reddit | facebook | del.icio.us | stumble | permalink