Heh. In discussing the ladies of primetime cable news, newly re-upped Keith Olbermann acknowledges Fox News' Greta van Susteren and MSNBC's own Rachel Maddow. Somehow, CNN's Campbell Brown got left off his list. [TVNewser]
Before Sarah Palin can continue her crazy career with a lucrative talk show deal, she'll have to prove that she can hold her own in front of other sympathetic hosts. So right now, she's getting courted by everyone from Babs to Oprah to suspender-wearing Larry King.
So far though, she's only accepted one offer, and the most obvious one to boot, Greta van Susteren over at the "sympathetic" Fox News.
CONTINUED »
Campbell Brown should be given a medal of honor for her election coverage. After tearing into McCain staffers and calling Tucker Bounds out on his bullshit, the CNN anchor is equally disgusted with the right's scapegoating of Sarah Palin after the campaign is over.
I find it so stunning that the very people who introduced us to Sarah Palin, who told us she would make a great Vice President, have now turned on her with a vengeance. They are the top advisers to John McCain's failed campaign and they are desperate right now to find someone to blame for their long list of mistakes.
Right on, Campbell! You go girl! But since when is it okay for one of the lady anchors from our new "Year of the Woman" to support Palin? Why, now that the election is over, of course!
CONTINUED »
Oh, happy days, we've finally come as nation to a point where we can recognize women as strong, independent political figures, not only in the spectrum of legislation or the presidential race (but whoa, Sarah and Hillary!), but as the heavy-hitting inquirers of those politicians as well.
Just look! Salon named Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, and Campbell Brown as three of the central figures in "The Year of the Woman," as they call it. And that's great news!
Sort of.
CONTINUED »
Whoops, out of left field right? There were rumors floating around that the CNN host of No Bias, No Bull might have another bun in her oven, but Jon Stewart calls it and she doesn't deny it, so it's true. Congrats!
Also important: remember what we said yesterday about wire-services having to adopt a less objectivity-based position in order to keep up with the Jones, a.k.a. the blogs? Brown pretty much says the exact same thing about being scheduled to compete on CNN with Bill O'Reilly on Fox and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC:
CONTINUED »
Newly minted media darling Campbell Brown, the host of CNN's Election Center, is moving quickly to establish her "Cutting Through the Bull" brand of campaign coverage. Brown has been praised, and attacked, for calling out Obama and McCain and their surrogates for total douche moves. Last night was no different, when she addressed the issue of race baiting. (See here.)
But before you go calling Brown a partisan "journalist" who's in the tank for the Democrats, recall that she's just as comfortable calling out the Obama campaign: CONTINUED »
Always looking for the next big thing in television news media — Katie Couric, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Anderson Cooper, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Mike Huckabee have all received the treatment — it appears we're ready to move on to our next nominee: Campbell Brown. The NBC veteran who left the network just a couple months after losing the Today show vacancy Couric left to Meredith Vieira, Brown signed with CNN and became a respectable, albeit benign and forgettable, asset.
That was until she started practicing journalism and calling out lies for what they are: lies. And calling out non-answers for what they are: non-answers. And you know what that got her? Glowing treatment from the New York Times' Jacques Steinberg!
We've been here before, of course. Andrea Mitchell did this once. But now that Campbell Brown, host of CNN's Election Center, made John McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds look like a hapless fool and called out Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, we have a new national journalist hero! CONTINUED »
Despite what David Blaine might have you believing, there are appropriate ways to criticize George Bush's economic policy and his seeming inability to have any sort of foresight when it comes to national crises. CNN's Campbell Brown does a good job giving it to the boys upstairs this season, like when she took on John McCain's spokeperson Tucker Bounds by demanding examples of Sarah Palin's qualifications for vice presidency.
Now Brown is abandoning any last vestiges of nonpartisan journalism as she incredulously questions Bush and Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson's decision to ask American taxpayers for $700 billion to save the economy from ruin:
Thanks to Campbell Brown actually doing her job, John McCain will not be sitting down with Larry King. The Republican nominee canceled his softball interview with the network after Brown went "over the line" during a segment with McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, trying to get him to name one redeeming quality about Sarah Palin that made her qualified to be commander-in-chief, should John McCain act his age and keel over. Bounds couldn't name a single qualification, which meant Brown asked the question again and again, showing just how backed into a corner the GOP's nominee might be. All this must've upset McCain, who supports the war in Iraq and the war with the media. Which is why his camp yesterday notified CNN that he was pulling out of his King interview. Yes, the one sit down where the only challenge would be to let the question asker fart more than you.
There was this one time when NBC News' Andrea Mitchell practiced journalism.
Now, CNN's Campbell Brown gone and done it!
Here she is trying to get John McCain's spokesman Tucker Bounds to give just one example of Sarah Palin's readiness to be commander-in-chief should McCain somehow get elected and then die.
If you don't have the four minutes to spare, we'll sum it up for you: He can't.
More importantly is Brown's refusal to let Bounds off the hook. What's this — follow up questions and holding people accountable? New!
Most arguments over which cable news anchors are hosting political coverage resolves around folks like Keith Olbermann and Shepard Smith — obvious pundits with biased opinions who, if you ask a Journalism Ethics 101 professor, have no business reporting hard news.
And then there's this late-night blog post from Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, which doesn't go after a pundit, but rather CNN's Campbell Brown, who he says CNN had "no need" for during its Super Tuesday coverage, and that including her was the network's "big mistake" of the night.
Also: Zurawik might be a sexist bigot. CONTINUED »
OMG Someone Had A Baby CNN anchor Campbell Brown had her first kid, a boy, yesterday. See, even though she’s famous, she still experiences the same joys as regular people. That’s why this is news. [People]
• Tom Snyder dies, and with him dies the legacy of the funny late-night comic.
• The Bancroft family still divided on whether or not to sell their company to an sinister old man who has deep pockets and no soul.
• Redstones continue to hate, sue and publicly debase one another.
• In moving to CNN, Campbell Brown becomes one of only three women currently hosting her own primetime cable news show, and joins the illustrious ranks of Greta "Legs" Van Susteren and Nancy "Crazypants" Grace.
• Less than a week after getting publicly lambasted by Bill Keller of the NYT for shoddy reporting, Slate's Jack Shafer wonders whether disgraced journalists should get a second chance. How topical!
• How Condoleezza Rice went from the most popular girl in the White House to total social pariah.
• 24 to elect its first female president, much to the dismay of former tv "prez," Geena Davis and Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber to make the leap from writing/producing trashy theatrical productions to writing/producing trashy reality television.
• Second Life makes it easy for unhappy computer nerds to find salvation in…their computers.
• Chicago Sun-Times too become too liberal for Conrad Black's liking.
• Campbell Brown leaves NBC to have babies, work for CNN and "do something besides fill in whenever Brian Williams is on vacay."
• Ever wondered what color Pucci caftan Elle fashion director Nina Garcia wears to the beach? Yeah, neither have we.
• Campbell Brown announces her pregnancy on Sunday's Weekend Today. ABC's Good Morning America to respond with a two-hour special in which Diane Sawyer weeps openly, and announces that her "biological clock is ticking."
• Rupert Murdoch is on the brink of closing deal with the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, he's not yet on the brink of getting the requisite Dow Jones' board/Bancroft family approval.
• Things that drive newspaper readers crazy include wet papers, grammatical errors and cartoons that are too pretentious to be funny.
• Microsoft pays well-known tech bloggers to recite its slogan, continues to shun notion that attractive people (or celebrities!) occasionally use their products.
"NBC NEWS star Campbell Brown expected to join CNN," breathlessly reports Drudge. "Announcement imminent as final deal points are being completed… Developing…" Meanwhile, that's not the only CNN shake-and-bake: Paula Zahn is also losing Paula Zahn Now, says TVNewser, confirming a claim we made back in October about the network zoning out Zahn.
[Images via]
If Friday was "old guy news" day, then today is "female talk show host day." And despite Martha Stewart's attack on Rachel Ray, Campbell Brown is the star of this show.
And do you know why? Because she is just so sexy. With her full lips and bouncy hair, Brown is a total vixen sex-pot. One can barely look at her without going into a sexual fantasy frenzy. And those clothes! So tight and revealing, so full of come-hither suggestions.
Well, that's what this Radar headline is suggesting, anyway. That Campbell Brown is too damn sexy for morning news television. But it's not because of any of the reasons we stated above. That would be ridiculous. What makes her so sexy is that she doesn't have kids.
Despite widespread reports that Campbell Brown, co-host of the top-rated morning show's weekend edition, was on the very short list of potential successors for the CBS-bound Katie Couric, a source who was involved in NBC's decision making process tells Radar Brown never really had a shot, on account of her youth, looks, and, especially, her lack of kids.
Oh. Sorry. We guess we defined "sexy" by different terms. According to NBC, or Radar, or some combination of the two, Brown's youth (according to IMBD she's 39) and the fact that she hasn't popped out any babies yet, is a major fuckin' turn-on.
Obviously, this realization can only lead to one logical conclusion: Pamela Anderson should join the cast of Today. Sure, she's about the same age as Brown — but she has kids. Ding!
Non-sexy, suitable for TV, and women all over Nebraska can easily relate to her. Now, why didn't NBC think of that?
Campbell Brown Too Sexy for Today? [Jeff Bercovici, Radar]
Hey everyone, listen up. Boys are stupid, too! Not just girls, ok? Boys can be just as stupid as girls. They can be arm candy, and bank accounts, and starfuckers just as well as girls can.
NBC said it before, and today on Today, they said it again. Honing in on "mimbos" or "himbos" Campbell Brown grilled Atoosa Rubenstein on who the "it" stupid boys are today.
We applaud the Today show and NBC for their fight against this sexism. It's so easy for editors of men's magazines to sit up there and say word for word "Paris Hilton is stupid" or "Hilary Duff is completely vapid and worthless." It's about time we gave guys like Wilmer Valderrama and Kevein Federline the same type of attention and accolades for being total fuckin' idiots.
Talk about progress.
Stupid girls? Don't forget the stupid boys [Paige Ferrari, MSNBC, May 5, 2006]
Girls can be bimbos, but can guys be himbos? [Today Show]
Spring is in the air, people. Despite Jared Paul Stern dominating every other inch of black and white print, a few people managed to go through with their planned nuptials last week.
Campbell Brown and Richard Johnson were both married this weekend — though, unfortch, not to each other.
Brown, the weekend co-anchor on the Today show tied the knot with Dan Senor, "a Republican strategist and Fox News analyst," last weekend, and their dreamy story was the subject of yesterday's New York Times Weddings section.
And an obviously gleeful Johnson married Sessa von Richthofen on a yacht Friday night, among a who's who guest list. (Seriously, doesn't he look thrilled?) Though the details of their relationship were covered ad nauseum by the Times, it was the Daily News who shed publicity on the figures they are attempting to destroy with every breath.
These two really lucked out with the wedding gifts this year. Brown received a huge dis from the Today show when she was passed over for Meredith Vieira, and Johson got linked to one of the biggest scandals in New York Post history.
Mazel tov, medialites!
Campbell Brown and Dan Senor [Lois Smith Brady, New York Times]
Page Six editor makes own gossip at chic nups [Angela Mosconi and William Sherman]
• Marc Jacob's boyfriend defends him when girls and disgusting fashion cross their path. [Gatecrasher]
• Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn are house hunting in Chicago. See, no matter how famous New York celebs get, they will always hunt for apartments. [Page Six]
• One of Today's thousands of substitute anchors, Campbell Brown got married over the weekend. After repeatedly telling her viewers that she wasn't eating for a week before the wedding, we are surprised she could actually walk down the aisle. [People]
• Because nobody actually watches it, maybe if we call Miss America "a reality show" involving catfights and showers, viewers will tune in? Yeah, unless all of them are 17 and live in Laguna, it's not gonna' happen. [amNY]
• We don't think the housekeeper with a hundred stitches in her head is laughing. [Fishbowl NY]
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