The Young Turks, Countdown, and The War Room will all feature live Florida primary returns, with reporter David Shuster providing on-the-ground coverage for all three, and there’s a strong possibility that Cenk Uygur’s The Young Turks will go live again at 10pm.

Monday night also saw the debut of former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm‘s new show, The War Room, which is the next step in fulfilling Current’s promise to feature a 24 hour slate of news and commentary. At a press conference to roll out Gov. Granholm’s show a few months ago, I pressed Current TV executives to reveal who else might join Granholm, Olbermann, and Cenk Uygur‘s Young Turks in the network’s lineup. For some reason, they decided they’d rather unveil their programming on their own timetable. Spoilsports, I say.

Still, it doesn’t take a genius to see that Bill Press, a TV veteran as well as a popular syndicated radio host, is a natural fit for Current. His appearance in the Countdown anchor chair could be an indication that a Bill Press hour on Current is in the offing. With Bill’s radio show starting at 6am, he would probably be a better fit for an earlier timeslot, perhaps 6pm.

Eliot Spitzer, who’s still looking for a cable news home since the cancellation of his CNN show last year, would also be a great addition to the Current slate, and his style and skill set match up well with Gov. Granholm. A Spitzer show at 10pm looks like a good bet.

Since Countdown‘s debut on Current TV last year, the network has been building on the audience bump they got from Keith Olbermann’s hour, and have been working on signing more cable systems to allow them to reach more households. Current is now available in 60 million US households, and as they build their brand, they expect that total to increase, and with it, their programming’s ratings.

Read the missives the hacker sent out before being deleted by HuffPo’s staff:



(h/t BuzzFeed)

The cable networks are projecting that Bachmann will finish in 6th place ahead of Jon Huntsman.

“I think as the numbers are beginning to trickle in, I think reality is beginning to dawn on some of the candidates and one of them may be Michele Bachmann who put such a big effort in here. Could not get the full backing of the evangelical pastors in part because of her gender — her staffers are saying privately,” Fineman explained. “They don’t want to sound like they’re complaining but that’s part of it.”

“Some of them said so publicly. She is now about to be told by her inner circle that she should call it quits, and that conversation my understanding has not quite taken place yet but is about to take place. She is supposed to go to South Carolina tomorrow. She may or may not go but I think there is a very — I just know her top people are telling her or getting ready to tell her that it’s time for her to drop out.”

“Do you think she might endorse Santorum?” Matthews asked.

“I think she’ll wait on whatever she does. I do think her endorsement is valuable and that she has a passionate group of supporters. Other than Ron Paul, I would say the most personally passionate supporters of all the voters taking part in the caucuses tonight were Michele Bachmann ‘s — there just ended up not being very many of them.”

Watch Fineman report on the future of Bachmann’s campaign below via MSNBC:

In an exclusive interview with Mediaite, O’Keefe defended his tactics, and his decision not to publish exculpatory recordings of EPI officials refusing his operative’s advances.

“To Catch A Journalist” is the latest in a series of O’Keefe projects that use hidden video cameras and contrived situations to discredit individuals and institutions with whom he disagrees. In this case, the meat of his expose´ is a surreptitiously recorded phone call with a professor named Jeff Keefe, in which the professor assures the caller that the think tank he works for will “kill” the research (hypothetically being commissioned) if the caller doesn’t like the results. Later, O’Keefe associate Christian Hartsock confronts Keefe with a transcript of the call, and Keefe denies ever having said that. (Prof. Keefe did not return requests for comment for this article.)

On this point, O’Keefe appears to have the goods on the Rutgers professor, but as Sam Stein reported last week (before O’Keefe released this report), the think tank that Prof. Keefe does research for, the Economic Policy Institute, was contacted several times, by the same O’Keefe operative, and refused the same advances. Tape recordings of those conversations appear nowhere in O’Keefe’s reporting. As far as I can tell, Prof. Keefe is not authorized to speak on EPI’s behalf, but EPI President Lawrence Mishel certainly is. If he rebuffed O’Keefe’s operative, why omit that recording?

When contacted for this story, EPI communications director Jody Franklin told Mediaite, “Project Veritas, an ultraconservative organization run by James O’Keefe, manufactured a story designed to discredit the Economic Policy Institute, the latest in a series of attacks on progressive organizations. EPI has a long, accomplished history of publishing reliable, credible economic studies. We stand behind our research.”

She went on to say, of Professor Keefe, ““Professor Keefe is not an EPI employee. He does not speak for EPI or set EPI policy. He is neither part of any aspect of our decision making process, nor is he familiar with it.”

“EPI would never commission research by an academic and not publish it because we had an ideological disagreement with its results,” Ms. Franklin continued. “Of course, EPI does not publish everything that comes across our desks. The single overriding determinant as to whether EPI publishes a study is the quality of the work, but other factors are also important, such as the work’s relevance to current policy debates and whether it is interesting and new.”

In part two of our interview, O’Keefe defends his omission of those exculpatory recordings, reveals more about his process, and teases upcoming “To Catch A Journalist” features. Here’s the audio of part two of our interview, followed by the transcript. Coming soon: James O’Keefe On The CNN Caper, His Pimp Costume, And Mainstream Journalism.

NEXT:Transcript Of Tommy Christopher’s Interview With James O’Keefe: Part Two

Keefe is currently an assistant professor at Rutgers University who, according to his profile, specializes in “state and local government public employee compensation, employment levels, dispute resolution, particularly interest arbitration, health benefits, and pensions.”

Via a recorded telephone conversation with someone described by O’Keefe as a “Project Veritas decoy,” Keefe appears to offer to kill an economic study if the research were to be unfavorable to the underwriter, the “Economic Policy Institute.”

O’Keefe specifically alleges that the Rutgers professor offered to kill “an economic study in a pay-for-play deal in order to defeat SB5,” which is an Ohio anti-collective bargaining bill. The video depicts a conversation that appears to support this allegation, which Keefe later defends to Christian Hartsock, a partner of O’Keefe’s in Project Veritas. While the video looks damning, given O’Keefe’s track-record of questionable editing (regarding his initial Pimp/ACORN stunt and his NPR funding scam), a healthy dose skepticism is never a bad idea.

The second part of the undercover video alleges that Sam Stein — who is a well respected White House correspondent for Huffington Post and frequent contributor to MSNBC’s Morning Joe — is guilty of getting his sources drunk so that he can get good stories from them. Stein refutes the story, and tweeted his followers, shortly after receiving the call from O’Keefe, “James O’Keefe just called to ask if i get my sources drunk in order to get their scoops… I’m usually drunk. not my sources though.”

It should be noted that O’Keefe, in confronting Stein about the alleged drinking, isn’t himself completely honest in his question. Stein’s journalism professor said that Stein “goes out drinking at night with people,” never saying that he “gets sources drunk.”

“Saying that Sam goes out drinking with sources in DC is like saying he goes out breathing with them,” said Tommy Christopher, a colleague of Stein’s, and a frequent critic of James O’Keefe. “People let their guard down in social situations. Stop the presses!”

O’Keefe’s modus operandi is to bait criticism with an edited initial release, then put out what he claims are “unedited” transcripts and clips, which often refute some of the criticisms, but still don’t add up to what they’re presented as. It appears, though, that whatever thread he’s pulling on with EPI, his gratuitous smear of Sam Stein could seriously undermine his findings. We shall wait for Part 2 to see what emerges.

Until then…watch the video below, courtesy of Project Veritas:

You may recall that, earlier this year, the 26,000 member strong Newspaper Guild called for all unpaid Huffington Post bloggers to withhold work in support of a pre-existing strike.

RELATED: Dan Abrams Takes On The Huffington Post ‘Strikers’

Now, seven months later, the Guild has released the following explanation for dropping its boycott of the news and entertainment site:

We appreciate the Post’s lively engagement in an ongoing dialogue. After a number of very productive meetings, the Huffington Post has agreed to draw a bright line in the sand between staffers and bloggers, with (unpaid) bloggers no longer being assigned stories or expected to cover news.

“Expected to cover news”? Bercovici adds reaction to the news by a HuffPost spokesperson:

We remain excited about and committed to our Eyes and Ears citizen journalism initiative. In fact, Ryan Grim in his remarks to the Guild at its yearly dinner last night explained the value of citizen journalism, and underscored that this complements the necessary work of paid reporters — it’s not meant to replace it.

Indeed, the Huffington Post has long kept a stable of paid writers and editors whose work has been (depending on where you’re standing) augmented by or has existed in tandem with the work provided by unpaid bloggers. How exactly that distinction will play out now and whether it will be different in practice remains unclear given the wording of the Guild’s statement — particularly where “expectation” is concerned.

h/t Forbes

The Huffington Post first created an Oasis at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008, where it offered treatments and events enjoyed by the likes of host Charlie Rose, writer and media personality Joel Stein and The New York Times‘ David Carr.

The venue space is downright beautiful, and the AOL Huffington Post Media Group was kind enough to send us a few images to share with all of you. Check ‘em out, below. And take a look at the Oasis’ offerings and schedule of events right over here.

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Oooooh! Aaaaaah!

“Does anyone happen to know what this bizarre creature is- just found in our pantry- & how one can encourage it to exit?” he tweeted, attaching a video of the little and long-snouted thing, lowly hissing in the corner.

Twitter was quick to identified the little guy as an opossum, and advised Greenwald to lead him peacefully back out into the wild with a trail of cat food. Ever-wise, their plan worked: cat food and “creature are gone,” and Greenwald is back to business.

Check out the thing for yourself:

H/T Huffington Post

Limbaugh’s take went more like: “My dogs have created more shovel-ready work than Obama has just this week alone. The new puppy. Honest to God. More shovel-ready work for me this week than Obama has created all two and a half years.” There were more puppies, but the gist is the same.

“I guess I’ve become show prep for the GOP debates now, too,” Limbaugh told Huff Post, sounding flattered that Johnson might pass the joke off as his own.

Johnson claims the lift was an accident, and that he had been sent several jokes “by his buddy” earlier in the day to consider and thought, “wow, that was really funny.” He feigns ignorance as to where his buddy originally heard the joke.

So no points for creativity, but kudos to Johnson for knowing the good jokes, even if he doesn’t know where they come from.

The figure is significantly less than the 27,000 generals on the ground had hoped for, and less still than the 10,000 they said they could work with “in extremis.” Officials are concerned that drawing the number down to 3,000 troops on the ground will render their limited missions ineffectual. ”There is almost no room for security operations in that number; it will be almost purely a training mission,” voiced one source with concern.

Huffington Post’s Joshua Hersh has confirmed the figure, adding that there “may end up being as many as 5,000 troops in the country at any time, given the logistics of troop rotations.”  The draw-down, he emphasized, might significantly decrease American presence, but will not cut it out entirely. According to Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for the Center For American Progress, “the American footprint will remain quite large no matter what … We’re going to have the largest diplomatic and development presence in the world, and there’s going to be a very large army of private contractors defending them.”

The plan, already signed into action by Panetta, still requires Iraq approval. Presumed cost-cutting reasons aside, the Pentagon sounds unready to explain the drastic drop, spokesman George Little commenting only that “Discussions with the Iraqis on our post-2011 strategic relationship are ongoing, and no decisions on troop levels have been made,” and saying that the Pentagon will “continue to proceed with troop withdrawals as directed by the president.”

Meanwhile, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani has in recent days called on central Iraqi government to keep American forces in the country, saying that: ”Iraqi security forces are still not prepared to secure protection for Iraq and the Iraqi army is not prepared to guard borders and the air force possesses nothing.”

Watch Bret Baier on Fox below:

 

The clip was first posted on Media Matters and, while Beck is certainly not a fan of theirs, he directly nearly all of his anger towards the Huffington Post and its writer Katherine Fung for this post. Presumably, this was because it was the presentation of his comments that really angered Beck as Media Matters posted the clip with no commentary.

Beck dissected the HuffPo post, decrying everything about it as unfair including the headline: “Glenn Beck: Term ‘Colored’ Is ‘Not A Bad Thing,’ ‘African American’ Is ‘Ridiculously Stupid.’” As Beck pointed out, he was saying it was “ridiculously stupid” to say when you’re not in America as African African sounds silly. He has a point that the headline is misleading, but he might be splitting hairs there as “ridiculously stupid” does basically sum up how he feels about the term anyway.

“You have to ask yourself, why did Katherine Fung and the Huffington Post write this and allow this to run? Why? The only reason is to smear and discredit me. These people that read the Huffington Post, they don’t know who I am. They don’t listen to who I am. I have to tell you, I was in South Africa, I was surprised that anybody even knew my name. You wouldn’t believe the amount of hate that people have towards me. Why? They couldn’t even tell you. They would tell you half truths and everything else and, when I was finished speaking, they’d all say, ‘My gosh, that’s nothing like-’ Is it? Isn’t that strange. Isn’t that strange. It’s almost like somebody who has billions of dollars is running a smear campaign.”

Beck then broadened his critique to the media at large (including a shout out to us here at Mediaite).

Below is Beck’s response. Below that are his original comments. What do you think? Was HuffPo or anyone else unfair?

(h/t GlennBeck.com)

In a blog post about the article, GLAAD lists the various gay stereotypes and misconceptions that appear in Fairbank’s report. For example, she quotes a student who tells her that students participating in prostitution do so in order to “afford the extravagant and often lavish gay lifestyle” and writes that “unlike in the straight world, many say they find working as an escort on the gay scene to be an accepted, even applauded practice.”

As GLAAD sees it, phrases like “gay culture” and “gay scene” have no place in a piece of serious, socially conscious reporting:

These are not phrases that should appear in any piece of responsible journalism (that’s not debunking them as myths) let alone one published by an outlet that frequently publishes positive and affirming stories about the true diversity of the LGBT community. But this article doesn’t stop at just presenting the “gay scene” as a single-minded monolith – it also claims that this gay monolith supports prostitution.

Let us be clear.

These are the false stereotypes put forth by the staunchest opponents of marriage equality. These are the false stereotypes that were used as rationalization for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and they’re the false stereotypes that anti-gay activists used to fight against its repeal. These are the false stereotypes responsible for the bans on domestic partnership and civil union recognition. These are the false stereotypes put forth as reasons why gay and lesbian couples shouldn’t be allowed to adopt children.

The Huffington Post offered a response and explanation of the article that GLAAD has called “inadequate:”

Our coverage of students who sell themselves to manage their college debt has aimed to be sympathetic to their plight — not sensationalistic. But based on our reporting, we found that young women and young gays are part of communities that often view the matter differently. We found that for many gay men, the use of escort services and the exchange of money for sex appear to carry less of a stigma, according to extensive interviews with gay escorts and members of the gay community.

While the Huffington Post’s explanation is, to us, reasonable — this was an article based on the actions and reactions of a small sampling that happens to reinforce a pervasive and fairly negative gay stereotype — we understand GLAAD’s disappointment and frustration. Terms like “gay community” and “gay scene” often work bolster the idea that all or even most gay individuals act or think in one set, particular way. It would be ludicrous to suggest that all straight people rally around the same causes or enjoy the same activities or have the same goals or political beliefs. While it may be true that some gay (and/or straight female) college students engage in prostitution to fuel a life where partying, material possessions, sex and youth are highly valued, it would be absurd — and irresponsible — to suggest that is the unavoidable symptom of belonging to some secret, rainbow-shrouded society known as “The Gay Community.” Are there pockets of gay young people who act like this, and who accept and encourage this behavior in other young gay people? Of course. Are there historical and socio-political factors that play into this behavior? Maybe! That’d he an interesting theory to study. But does being gay automatically equate to being promiscuous, devaluing love in favor of lust, or being hopelessly materialistic? Of course not.

What’s your take, though? Should the HuffPost article have been worded or executed differently? Is it an example of lax journalism? Is GLAAD compeltely off the mark here? And where are these college kids’ parents?!

h/t GLAAD Blog

But I personally feel that HuffPo is really reaching new levels in journalistic “zazz” with some of their headlines. The following slideshow is to honor the great online news source’s commitment to creating headlines that leave me consistently torn between laughter and horror. It is an art form that they deserve to be commended for.

I intended for the piece I wrote last week to be a one off, but good ol’ HuffPo just keeps knocking them out of the park. I can’t resist the urge to screen shot. So without further ado here’s this week’s dose of link bait:

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Christopher Hildretch had never been one for the whole cops and Dunkin' Donuts cliche, so he decided to take on the system. Bless you, Christopher.

Huffington has faced fierce criticism for her conversion to left-wing politics that Rep. Bachmann, while certainly fending off a barrage of criticism of her own, never had to deal with. Much of this, of course, has to do with the fact that Rep. Bachmann switched teams very early on in life, and aside from some work for the Carter campaign in college, while Huffington experienced this conversion very late in life, and at a very convenient time– during the darkest of the Bush years, when a market had opened for liberal dissent and vocal calls for big government. But it also have to do with the nature of the change in ideology and the climate in which it happened.

That Huffington was once a conservative before metamorphosing into the liberal web proprietor we know today is no secret; she had lent prior support for Newt Gingrich and professed belief in small government. Here’s how a Salon column from 2003 described her evolution:

Of course, Huffington’s current political incarnation — anti-SUV polemicist, diarist of corporate greed — is an unlikely development for a woman who came to American political prominence as the wife of oil magnate Michael Huffington… She was widely viewed as the brains behind [his] campaign, and when it failed, she went on to work with House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Then she began a slow, surprising evolution leftward — talking up the rumors of Warren Beatty’s presidential run, championing the candidacy of Republican insurgent John McCain, hosting the distinctly activist Shadow Conventions during the boring Democratic and Republican presidential-nominating gatherings in 2000, and finally, organizing the Detroit Project, which raised money and produced the controversial anti-SUV ads.

As the proprietor of the Huffington Post and author of several political tomes, it is difficult to recall her as anything but what she is today, but for those who saw her rise as a right-wing talking head, her current reinvention is difficult to reconcile. Take, for instance, an interview she did with Judge Andrew Napolitano on Freedom Watch, where the libertarian host asked point blank of her new position, “How can anyone take you seriously?”

Rep. Bachmann, in contrast, seems to take her days as a college liberal are mostly taken in jest, as she told a Michigan Republican gathering this year. “I’m a Minnesotan who had ‘DFL’ – that’s what we call Democrats in our state — stamped on my birth certificate,” she noted. This only changed when she read Gore Vidal‘s Burr, when “as a reasonable, decent, fair-minded person who happened to be a Democrat, I thought, ‘You know what? What he’s writing about, this mocking of people that I revere, and the country that I love?’” Unlike Huffington, one can see vestiges of the present Rep. Bachmann in her description of what she was like as a “liberal.”

What’s more, those on the right that condemn Huffington don’t do so simply because she abandoned their cause, but because she did so after having established herself with it. Experiencing a political conversion later in life and doing so in the political spotlight is nearly unforgivable in this highly polarized, futuristic world of 24/7 cable news and internet politistalking– a world, ironically, that Huffington had a great hand in constructing. It is not too different a phenomenon from what cost former Republican-turned-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter his seat in Congress. There is a point of no return in a public career from which one simply cannot survive as a respected political figure.

In Bachmann’s case, the switch was neither public nor as ideological as a change of label. She notes above that she was a Democrat by default. It is telling that she was a Democrat under Ford– given the insidious nature of the Watergate scandal, it would be wiser to distrust of the few remaining Republicans in the Ford era than of those looking for an alternative to seemingly endless corruption. And then there’s the eureka moment she thanks Gore Vidal for providing her. Nothing we know about Rep. Bachmann today would be incongruous with the idea that a book mocking the Founding Fathers would be offensive enough to her to prompt a political conversion.

For Huffington, it was the inconsistency of her beliefs that drove her to switch. She has admitted in interviews that her conversion was prompted by an increased trust in government. “I actually believed that the private sector would be able to address a lot of the issues that I believed were very important,” she told John Stossel in a 2008 interview. As much as Rep. Bachmann rails against the far-left extremism she sees in the Obama administration, there is no evidence she would not support a conservative Democrat who shared her beliefs on the size of government, because those haven’t changed.

The templates to follow for such conversions vary greatly, depending on the time and place in which each were enlightened, but to take the two at face value and claim that Huffington gets much more flak for having come from the right is to ignore a large set of factors that contributed to the lighthearted nature of young liberal Michele Bachmann turning into one of the more beloved and feared conservatives figures of our time and made the reverse phenomenon in Huffington far more controversial.

Update: A Huffington Post spokesman sent us the following statement:

I’m emailing you to correct inaccuracies in your story. Arianna Huffington did not for Governor of California as a conservative. She ran as an Independent. Furthermore, you claim that is was the “inconsistency of her beliefs” that caused her to change her politics. The truth is less dramatic: she has always been progressive on social issues — pro-choice, pro-gun control and, pro gay rights — even when she was a Republican. However, whereas she once believed the private sector would address America’s social problems, she realized first-hand that that wasn’t going to happen without government action.

Did you know that women who went to college are now going online to meet rich men who will buy them presents and give them money in exchange for sexual favors? Like, ick! What kind of world are we living in? I totally agree with Star Jones; ”ethically, morally and in my neighborhood… When you return sexual favors and expect some kind of renumeration, my mother would call you a hoe”.

That’s like, exactly how I felt when I read about this story two years ago in Cosmopolitan. Except I wasn’t as outraged last time because the story was right next to this really scary article on honeymoon murders (really serious issue too, guys!) and that one totally got me thinking.

But in all seriousness, this morning the Today show decided to address an issue that has recently exploded. This controversy has mostly been manufactured by an incredibly long winded HuffPo article that dared to take offense at what is essentially prostitution with a fancy website.

The article contains interviews with several “Sugar Babies”, who sleep with wealthy men under the assumption that said men will help them pay off their student loans. These women are billed as intelligent, wealthy and on their way to success:

I’m honestly surprised there aren’t more college students doing this,” says Jennifer, not blinking. She’s a 23-year-old recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College.

Fed up with young, unemployed men her own age, Jennifer recently began trawling for a sugar daddy to pay down about $20,000 in student loan debt. She also wouldn’t mind a clothing allowance or rent money for her studio apartment in New York’s East Village.

A week ago, she boarded a plane to Florida to spend the weekend with a 30-something banker she met on SugarDaddie.com. He told her his house was undergoing a renovation and instead drove her to a nearby hotel, where they spent the night together.

“Yeah, sure, he could have been a psycho, a killer,” says Jennifer over breakfast. At nine o’clock in the morning, she’s in a full face of makeup. On her profile she describes herself as a yoga teacher and personal trainer. “Barring rape or death, what’s the worst thing that could happen to me?’

Indeed. Well, women like Jennifer found a defender this morning on the Today show. Donny Deutsch says, “shame on us for passing judgement”. Yeah, shame on us! Also, “everything in life is some kind of transaction”. But “[his] children are growing up in privilege so that’s not going to be an option for them, of course.”

Naturally this didn’t exactly fly with Jones and the other women. After Deutsch suggested that this might actually be a positive thing he was basically attacked by the other female panelists. One responded to his point, “who are we to sit in judgement if this girl ends up going to medical school and that’s the way she’s going to do it” by saying “[I] don’t want her to go to medical school after she’s spent half her life on her knees, I’m sorry”. 

The discussion continued to get more heated when Deutsch compared these Sugar Babies to women who stay with their husbands for security instead of love.

However, with the exception of the last argument in the segment, Deutsch doesn’t make bad points. He was obviously brought on the show to play the role of devil’s advocate in this back-to-school controversy, but he is articulate and in some ways his points about the importance of education are true. But he appears on a show with a distinctly feminine presence and argues an unpopular point. The result is this half uncomfortable, half incredibly entertaining argument.

Watch the fight below:

(h/t)

But I personally feel that HuffPo is really reaching new levels in journalistic “zazz” with some of their headlines. The following slideshow is to honor the great online news source’s commitment to creating headlines that leave me consistently torn between laughter and horror. It is an art form that they deserve to be commended for. So without further ado, here is a roundup of the phenomenal journalistic achievements that HuffPo has made this week.

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This confirms all my worst fears about West Virginia. Also, school principals.

The mysterious ghostwriting episode I discussed earlier today (see below) is now explained. Apologies to the Huffington Post.

I received a flurry of messages in response to the post, including an apology from Linda Gibbs, Deputy NYC Mayor for Health and Human Services. She reminds me that we spoke months ago (early May, as it turns out) about my willingness to edit and sign an op-ed about the proposed SNAP ban prepared by her staff that was to be submitted to the New York Times.

I vaguely remember reviewing such a piece and approving its submission. When I heard that the Times had rejected the piece, I promptly forgot about it.

As far as I can tell from reviewing my sent and deleted messages from Linda Gibbs, none mentioned co-authorship with Geoffrey Canada, and the piece submitted to and published in the Huffington Post does not mention the involvement of the NYC health department.

The press director for Harlem Children’s Zone tells me that the piece was later submitted to two other publications that also turned it down. I was not cc’d on either of those submissions or on the one to the Huffington Post.

Hence my confusion.

—

Nutrition expert and Food Politics writer Marion Nestle was surprised to see her name included in the byline of a recent Huffington Post article titled “NYC’s SNAP Sugary Beverage Ban Is the Right Idea.” While the article — described as being co-authored with Geoffrey Canada, President and Chief Executive Officer of Harlem Children’s Zone — reflected Nestle’s views on nutrition, she insists she never wrote it, nor has she ever met Mr. Canada.

She took to her blog to muse about her name’s inclusion in the HuffPost piece:

A colleague congratulated me yesterday on my Huffington Post article—co-authored with Harlem Children’s Zone’s Geoffrey Canada—on SNAP (food stamp) benefits and sodas.

I was amazed to see it. I don’t recall writing it and I don’t believe I have ever met Mr. Canada, although I would be delighted to do so. The article does indeed reflect my views but does not read like something I wrote.

So I guess thanks are do [sic] to Mr. Canada or to the ghostwriter. If anyone knows the story behind this, please tell!

We reached out to Mario Ruiz, Huffington Post / Aol VP of Communications, who helpfully cleared things up:

The post was submitted to us by Marty Lipp, Communications Director of the Harlem Children’s Zone, as a piece co-authored by Geoffrey Canada and Marion Nestle, and was published Friday. Dr. Nestle subsequently informed us that she had not, in fact, co-written the post, so her name has been removed.

Stewart began with an update on his fight with Fox News, including today’s coverage on the network asking viewers whether the politically-irrelevant, not-at-all-an-activist humble comedian was “racist,” but mostly showing clips from Sunday’s one episode of Fox News Watch and advertisements or clips from last night’s The O’Reilly Factor, where Cain was a guest. Stewart interpreted this as a network-to-network call to arms, and made a futile attempt to get the strongest people on Comedy Central to back him up (alas, Krod Mandoon was canceled a long time ago).

That left Stewart out to defend himself from the claims, especially from Cain, that he was attacking him “not because I always use offensive caricatured voices, but… because Herman Cain is black and conservative.” He did not particularly address whether his accent was racist or not, or whether there was a legitimate possibility that Cain was offended– after all, the segment was, to Stewart, about Fox News, not about the person offended by his joke who happened to be interviewed by Fox News.

Instead, he took the thoroughly unsurprising angle of using his career as a comedian as a shield against any possible impropriety. Noting that some on Fox argued that anyone mimicking Cain with an accent similar to the one Stewart pulled off, he quipped, “I did get into that story using a wheel with a dildo on it, which likely would’ve gotten them fired as well.” Since the best defense is always a good offense, he then turned his team on himself to find even more offensive accents to add to the collection that may upset Fox News, and titillate headline writers: “Prepare for tomorrow’s Huffington Post headline: ‘Stewart Eviscerates Stewart.’” Then behold: a highlight reel of offensive Stewart accent moments.

The segment via Comedy Central below:

Keller clarified that he’s not against social media, and has never said as much. And, although he has previously written things like, by using social media platforms like Twitter, we are essentially “outsourcing our brains to the cloud” and that the microblogging site is “the enemy of contemplation,” Keller believes the misconception surrounding his take on social media is the result of people either not really getting what he was saying (“stoopids”) or some people’s vehement adherence to the cult of technology (making them “h8rs”):

Some of it comes from people who haven’t paid close attention to what I’ve said on the subject, and some of it, I think, comes from people who know better but who have made a reputation for themselves by being digital evangelists and cyber-puritans, who treat any hint of skepticism as heresy.

Here’s how Keller addresses the deal over the whole stoopid Twitter thing, stoopid h8rs:

In case you’re wondering, by the way, I do not believe that Twitter literally makes people stupid. If you read the column, you know that I posted a hashtag — #twittermakesyoustupid — followed, please note, by the word “discuss.” The point was to throw out a subject for discussion, and see how the medium dealt with it, which was pretty much the way I expected. (A hashtag is a topic, not an argument. ) I think Twitter can encourage distraction, superficiality, short attention spans, bumper-sticker-level discourse. It can make you SOUND stupid. But, no, I don’t think it makes you stupid.

It’s ok, Bill. Because Twitter totally does make people stupid!

As for editing, Keller says he’s pretty much raring to hand over the reins to incoming editor Jill Abramson, sharing that he was kind of reluctant to get into it in the first place, even calling the two years he spent writing op-ed columns after acting as managing editor his “blissful exile.”

DeRosa (that sly fox!) brings up the Huffington Post – clearly the Pizzazz to Keller’s Jem – in a question about aggregation. “People go to the Times for great original reporting,” he said, instantly alienating the writhing, yelling, heaving bulk of Mediaite’s commentership, “but increasingly people also want to be able to go somewhere that synthesizes all the news around different subjects. Personally, I think Huffington Post tries to do this but is very disorganized and difficult to follow.” Keller didn’t mention HuffPost by name in his response, but basically made the point that aggregation is wonderful and useful when done properly.

But the most telling portion of the interview, for this editor at least, is what basically amounts to a throwaway line on Keller’s part:

I follow Twitter and pay attention to it, but I rarely Tweet because I have a rather large platform here, called The New York Times.

Therein lies the problem with many people who work online, whether in addition to enjoying a print platform or not. Twitter is not a smaller, lesser platform compared to a legacy media outlet like The New York Times; it’s simply different. And, yes, sometimes people say and do stupid things on Twitter. Sometimes those stupid things even lead to things like, say, the resignation of a New York congressperson. But there’s an immediacy there and a personal connection that is lacking in publications like the NYT.

I agree with DeRosa’s assessment that people turn to the Times and its competitors for great original reporting, but there’s a whole world of information and differing viewpoints and amazing creativity out there beyond The New York Times (It’s called “The Bronx.”), and Twitter acts like a portal to all of this. Tornadoes rip through an American city? Twitter has pictures in real time. That’s great, original reporting that The New York Times can and should aggregate for the benefit of its readers. Uprising in Libya? Twitter gives its supporters a global platform and a mouthpiece. A celebrity makes a stupid comment? Twitter is the mirror we can hold up to ourselves, showing us how various people react and deal with this information. It’s a beautiful thing, and it’s a shame when people who have a hand in gathering, analyzing and disseminating news think of it as merely “news lite” rather than a wonderful tool and resource that not only provides additional nuance and perspective to news and entertainment, but that is also a means of connecting to one’s readership, critics, sources, supporters and detractors.

And, you know. That very attitude makes the Times look out of touch. Really and truly.

h/t Reuters

CBS News wants you to know that reporters at The New York Times, Mediaite, The Huffington Post and Entertainment Weekly all got it wrong in comparing Scott Pelley‘s first week as anchor of The CBS Evening News to the final weeks of Katie Couric‘s time in the chair. As we put it yesterday, “it’s too early to fairly judge the CBS Evening News‘ transition from Katie Couric to Scott Pelley in terms of ratings, but in his first week on the job, Pelley largely held on to the viewers Couric had, but seems to have lost some of the viewers who tuned in for the post-Couric newscasts with interim anchor Harry Smith.”

James Hibberd at EW.com had pretty much the same take:

News ratings are a marathon, not a sprint, as any network publicist will tell you (especially if their show is struggling), but it would have been nice to see at least a little spark when Scott Pelley took over at CBS Evening News last week.

Though Pelley received a slight bump his first night, he averaged 5.7 million viewers for the week — matching what Katie Couric delivered last month. The figures were also slightly lower than what substitute anchor Harry Smith averaged.

But CBS argues the comparison isn’t fair–that the only true comparison is to look at Pelley’s first week in comparison to the same week a year ago. By that yardstick, as Bill Carter writes in The Times:

On that score, Mr. Pelley did improve CBS’s numbers, by about 300,000 viewers. In that week last year, Ms. Couric had 5.44 million viewers. This year, Mr. Pelley had 5.74 million.

In the audience that the news divisions sell to advertisers, viewers between the ages of 25 and 54, the two newscasts had the same rating, a 1.3, both this year and last year.

The so-called “Weinergate” scandal has been the gift that keeps on giving, as far as many media outlets have been concerned, and it’s interesting to see how each has managed to put its own spin on the story.

Let’s take a look at how they (and, yes, we) managed it, shall we?

New York Post

This kind story was, basically, tailor-made for New York’s most notorious rag. If The New York Times is the (wonkily left-leaning) crown jewel in this city’s media crown, then the New York Post is its jester’s hat. Entertaining, shocking, unabashedly vulgar and, despite it all, begrudgingly beloved. I mean, come on! The puns, people! His name is Weiner:

“Disgusted Democrats letting Weiner shrivel”

“Weiner likely to endure a rough sex probe”

“NYers: You’ll never be Mayor ‘Crotch’”

New York Times

The NYT has approached the Weiner scandal with its typical mix of straightforward reporting and op-ed pieces, all with the sort of florid prose we’ve come to expect from the Lady Most Gray:

Those elders must be hoping to heaven that Mr. Weiner departs before the machinery of investigation is gassed up and rumbles toward the Internet Protocol addresses where he composed his epistles.

They even had a characteristically classy take on the fact that the man’s name is, you know. “Penis:”

We Weiners, though, are eminently adaptable. It’s a survival thing. At some point, my father, Seymour, changed the pronunciation of our family name from WEEN-er to WHINE-er because, really, who wants to be known as Seymour WEEN-er? It was a Faustian bargain, to be sure, but a wise one. At least that’s what I thought until “Saturday Night Live” aired a popular skit about a couple named Doug and Wendy WHINE-er. They would speak, of course, in grating, whining voices that my classmates parroted whenever they pronounced my last name, which was often. Those were difficult years.

It’s hard, sometimes, being a Weiner.

>>> NEXT PAGE: Is Mediaite obsessed with all things cockamamy?

Titling his article “Politicians and Porn Don’t Mix” (tell that to the producers of Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?), Sanchez cites an article from The Forward which details the business dealings of Suky, primarily a real estate dealer who made a foray into opening up a bootleg pornography store. “Suky is a pornographer who even deals in pirated porn. The Forward documents his support of several philanthropic organizations,” Sanchez notes in his piece. The truth is, The Forward‘s article doesn’t describe him as a pornographer, only a salesman– and the “pirated part,” to which Sanchez’s “even” gives the impression that the material is forbidden for legal reasons regarding the content, either because the participants were too young or were engaging in illegal behavior, referred only to copyright violations:

In 2004, Suky bought thousands of adult DVDs from the Canadian supplier that was accused by producers and distributers [sic] of adult videos of bootlegging. A June 2004 invoice from the supplier filed as an exhibit in a case in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York gives a sense of what he was distributing: 71 copies of “Only the Best of Seymour Butt 8,” 250 copies of “Taboo 1,” 150 copies of “Natural Wonders 13,” among tens of thousands of other titles. The order totaled $14,308.

Suky now works as a real estate developer and is “the right-hand man to a powerful Sephardic kabbalist rabbi,” according to The Forward, but in his business dealings has contributed to campaigns on both sides of the aisle. Sanchez writes:

Researching public records, I found that Representatives Eric Cantor and Anthony Weiner have both accepted campaign contributions from Suky. Weiner accepted the campaign contribution in connection with his campaign for Mayor of New York.

Cantor accepted over $48,000 from Suky.

Both Cantor and Weiner are good public servants. For that reason, they should return Suky’s money. Period, end of story. The sources of political donations matter, and who our politicians are willing to associate with for the sake of campaign contributions is a serious issue and one on which we must focus more attention.

In the aftermath of “Weinergate,” the fact that Sanchez had the foresight to find the illicit connections certainly demands the most attention here, although accepting campaign donations from someone who sold dirty DVDs and sending dirty .JPGs to various women are entirely different behaviors. If they weren’t, logic would lead to the conclusion that Rep. Cantor has similar skeletons in his closet, a completely absurd and unfair accusation to make. This does not discredit Sanchez’s consistency in calling for members of both parties to do what he deems the right thing. In cases such as these, it is fairly easy to turn the story into a left/right issue, and Sanchez– who discovered and assembled this data himself– fails to fall into that trap.

But far beyond calling Sanchez prescient, this article highlights the discrimination many in the legal sex industry face from many who participate in “legitimate” businesses.

Sanchez posits that pornography simply doesn’t belong in the political world, and that people in the industry should be universally shunned by elected officials. Note: Sanchez doesn’t argue that Suky’s donations should be invalidated because of his illegal distribution of materials, but rather because he is a “pornographer.” The broader dictum here that Sanchez proposes is that no one who has ever even so much as sold pornography should be allowed to have a political opinion that they can monetarily back up. If he truly means what he writes, then Jenna Jameson and Pamela Anderson shouldn’t be able to donate to campaigns, either, and it is still up for debate whether amateur porn stars like Kim Kardashian should have a say. In a world where bankers, trial lawyers, lobbyists, and other assorted evildoers get to put their money where their ideologies are, signaling out individuals that participate in a perfectly legal and not particularly malicious occupation as unfit to have political opinions feels arbitrary. If corporations are people, too, porn stars surely must be.

With Lawrence O’Donnell away on jury duty, The Nation‘s Chris Hayes took the helm, opening the story by calling Breitbart a “character assassin” before relaying the necessary facts of the story. After enough of a crash course for the rest of the segment to make sense, Hayes showed a clip of Breitbart on CNN, immediately followed by Jeffrey Toobin‘s comments on the network that Breitbart’s involvement was simply “too bad.” He then turned to Huffington Post reporter Alex Wagner and lamented that watching Breitbart on CNN made him “want to give up” because the story was “so preposterous.” “This person who has been so discredited so many times,” he said of Breitbart, chastising CNN for having “such a serial manipulator of the media” on the air. Wagner agreed, though then tried to veer the conversation back to Rep. Weiner, who by this point feels like a minor character in the scandal after all the Breitbart talk. While Wagner addresses the situation, the chyron below her reads “Not so Breit,” with a picture of– you guessed it– Andrew Breitbart. Wagner does mention this evening’s “informal press gaggle” and Rep. Weiner’s defensive response to any questions about the matter, but Hayes returns to the question that really matters: is Andrew Breitbart evil, or unforgivably evil?

Many news sources (including Mediaite) upon the story breaking over at Big Government chose to give their readers a caveat about the torrid history of the site and its proprietor. Affiliating a Congressman with lewd photos sent to a young woman– no matter what his role in the transfer of that photo may be– is a weighty charge, and when only one website has covered it, there is reason for pause. But it has been three days, that young woman has spoken, the technology seems to give no direction in which to judge, Rep. Weiner has been less than cooperative with the press on the matter, to say the least, and most of the mainstream media has returned home from the holiday weekend and dug up far more than the slim pickings of evidence available Saturday morning. Four days later, the story is far bigger than just Andrew Breitbart.

That is not to say that there is no room in which to provide the audience with a disclaimer that the man who broke the story isn’t exactly the most trusted voice in American media (but, then again, polls show nobody else is either, unless “Don’t Know” is an accredited journalist. In which case, someone get that man a Pulitzer!). Certainly MSNBC knows their audience, and it’s the type of audience that would look out the window if Andrew Breitbart said the sky was blue– precisely the sort of audience that would gain very much from knowing that, after Weiner’s fiasco of a press conference, CNN’s Dana Bash has risen to the top of the media effort to get to the bottom of this strange, strange story, and that many sources as averse to Breitbart as Hayes appears to be are having second thoughts on the veracity of the original report.

The announcement came in the wee hours of the morning via Aol’s own TechCrunch, which also shared that Yahoo will be hiring Singh as the new editor in chief of the Yahoo Media Network.

Pitney was previously HuffPost’s executive editor, having initially served as the site’s politics editor throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, before becoming the site’s national editor and Washington bureau chief.

HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington sent an internal memo about Pitney’s promotion:

I’m delighted to announce that Nico will become the Managing Editor of The Huffington Post Media Group. Jai and I have been talking for some time about his desire to return home to California and his family. I’m delighted to announce that Nico will become the Managing Editor of The Huffington Post Media Group. Jai and I have been talking for some time about his desire to return home to California and his family.

via TechCrunch

But I admit that I read that article with an agenda. I held my breath, eagerly scanning the pages (ha ha, that’s a joke, obviously I read it online) – would my one contribution to the pop culture canon merit a mention? Would the name by which Brian Williams has come to be known by so many of his fans, especially on Twitter thanks to efficiency of character count, make the cut? I speak, of course, of BriWi.

But what was this? It was there, all right, but – sacre bleu! – it was all wrong: “I was in the studio during the taping of a recent “Slow Jammin’” segment, the one that preceded the tie mishap. A recurring joke in these bits involves Fallon’s bestowing various slow- jammin’- appropriate nicknames on Williams—Brizzle, Brilliams, and, my favorite, BriWi.”

Emphasis added.

Well. I’m glad he likes it – and I’m glad Jimmy used it! – but it’s been a living, breathing, joyful part of the Brian Williams canon since Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was just a twinkle in Lorne Michaels’ eye. And, for the first time, the story can be told.

BriWi is my stupid, goofy nickname for Brian Williams, borne not of any desire to de-gravitas the Voice of God but from the blogger’s quick-post imperative. Long before it appeared in print, I was using it as a shorthand for saving photos at Eat The Press, the media page at HuffPo which i launched in June 2006 as – ha – the first stand alone vertical on the site. In 2006/2007, the Big Three anchors were big news (Katie Couric moves to CBS! Succession drama at ABC! Hold-your-breath weekly ratings!). It was before any of the networks had implemented embeddable video code into their online infrastructure, and it was before the networks really cared much about online anything. The big news in that area was that BriWi had started a blog (Katie followed suit; Charlie never much cared for that side of things). So anyway, a lot of my coverage involved network news.

The nickname itself first appeared in print on June 8, 2007. Jason Linkins, who took over Eat the Press from me when I left HuffPo and still rocks it like a hurricane to this day, was then a clutch contributor, and I was reviewing a post he had written about the coverage of Paris Hilton (brings you back, doesn’t it?). After a brief back and forth, which I have included for posterity below with Jason’s permission, I suggested this headline: “BriWi and KaCo on PaHi: An Exegesis.” (This was also in the days before SEO, where wanton, goofy headlines were not punished by an uncaring bot-filled Internet). Whatever you might think of that headline now, nonetheless we went with it, and it lives online forever more. Good times.

From there it was just a hop, skip and my own maniacal use away from nickname infamy. The blog world was smaller back then, and all you needed to get on the radar of TV news people was a pickup from TVNewser, and my old pal Brian Stelter (now a killer at the NYT). Stelter picked it up, I kept using it, people started adopting. Gawker probably used it, also Jeff Bercovici at Radar/WWD/Portfolio/it’s hard to keep track. The world kept turning and the news kept covering it and in between BriWi would say hi to Jon Stewart or Letterman or crack wise at the Time Person of the Year panels (do they still do those? They were fun!), and I would use my goofy nickname and drive it home. (I did try for expansion, but alas, “ToBro” for Tom Brokaw never quite caught on.)

Next Page: “BriWi” blows up, and the transcript that started it all.

Since Aol CEO Tim Armstrong and Arianna Huffington jointly announced plans to merge their companies on Super Bowl Sunday, many media critics have guessed how these household brand-name media companies would specifically co-mingle. And while its been widely reported that, post-acquisition, Aol has bee shedding numerous writer, reporters and content producers, Mediaite hears from a credible source that in the coming days, Aol News will officially fold its operations entirely.

In early March, reports surfaced of upwards to 750 individuals being laid off as a result of the merger, the majority of which they claimed were technical staffers overseas. However, nearly 120 of these staffers were in editorial roles, immediately raising questions about Aol’s integration strategy with Huffington Post content. In fact, one could reasonably wonder what exactly comprises the Aol News department right now, apart from some blue ribbon reporters still on staff and an AP newsfeed.

Aol CEO Tim Armstrong clearly saw HuffPost as a turnkey content solution for his burgeoning strategy to grow his media assets and distance himself from the subscription/ISP revenue model, which clearly makes Aol News redundant.

Since launching just over five years ago, Huffington Post has redefined what is currently considered successful Internet content strategy, with smart original reporting combined with fast third-party content curation ,and clever headlines. But the editorial tilt to Huffington Post is its unique point of view, or as some have noted, its “coastal tabloid sensibility.” Its worth nothing that Huffington Post launched as the liberal alternative to the Drudge Report.

While one can reasonably assume that the “Aol News” brand will still exist online, more to the point, all of the content will be produced and overseen by the Huffington Post team.

The folding of the Aol News department and replacement by HuffPost will create an interesting dynamic between the more predominantly “red state” Aol users who will now be directed to “blue state” oriented Huffington Post content. Regardless, this provides the most convincing argument to date that Huffington Post was only “acquired by Aol,” as far as the finance departments are concerned.

When reached, Aol did not immediately provide comment. We will update accordingly.

This makes Zeller the third big name that has left The New York Times for HuffPost after national editor Tim O’Brien and business editor Peter Goodman. And with good reason, apparently: according to a source at the paper, the move is “all about the money,” even if Zeller won’t exactly be making the $400,000 and $350,000 O’Brien and Goodman are raking in, respectively.

Said Zeller of the move:

It’s been a source of great pride for me to walk through the doors of The New York Times every day, and I’ve just been so immensely lucky to have had the opportunity to grow and learn the craft in that environment. I will truly miss the folks there. But I also think it’s critically important that we continue developing and nurturing a diverse new ecosystem of quality journalism across a variety of platforms and business models.

He also told Business Insider that he sees the move to HuffPost / Aol as a “new adventure” in newly-charted territory.

In addition to effectively poaching Zeller from the NYT, HuffPost has also brought aboard Paul Raushenbush, who is leaving his position as Princeton’s associate dean of religious life to become HuffPost Religion’s senior editor.

h/t Business Insider

The exception to this lack of coverage, Maddow said: liberal websites like Think Progress, Daily Kos…and one other famously left-leaning site Maddow apparently feels isn’t so left-leaning these days. Here’s how she put it:

“…and thanks to reporters like Jason Linkins at Huffington Post, which used to be liberal but who knows anymore.”

Man, HuffPo really can’t catch a break lately (except for the whole “getting $315 million” thing). Video below, via MSNBC.

Andrew Breitbart

We meet in Breitbart’s hotel lobby, then cast about for a Starbucks to settle into. Even as we search for a suitable location, the interview is already underway. Perhaps fittingly, Breitbart and I end up in the Starbucks across from Fox News’ midtown headquarters.

Breitbart can go for hours dismantling arguments from and about the American left– he despises their elitist system and has spent many years both working inside it, and studying it from afar. Much of Righteous Indignation chronicles his years as a “default liberal,” when, he tells me, all the books he read in college literature classes were “about rape,” and injected him with a pervasive self-loathing for being American.

Yes, academia is a major Breitbart target– in my estimation, his biggest and most complex. He calls the current higher education system a “factory” of liberal thought where, ultimately, “there’s no there there” intellectually. In his book, Breitbart corroborates his arguments, that the current academic system is dangerous, with copious references. However, he doesn’t rely simply on your standard Marx and Engels (and, of course, Saul Alinsky), but Jean-Jacques Rousseau, critical theorists of the Frankfurt School, and a host of other citations straight out of your standard sociology core curriculum. The result, he explains, is that “if you go into an academic institution with a clean slate, you are very likely to come out a liberal. That is a huge problem.”

For conservative academics, he argues, the problem is not indoctrination, but exclusion for having the “wrong” ideology, citing Camile Paglia as an example.

NEXT PAGE: Andrew Breitbart defends the Sarah Palin as a “very intelligent, well-read lady.”

Gawker, noting that Working Life featured a means of contacting Tasini with advertising inquiries, asked him whether he ever successfully sold ad space on his blog and, if so, whether he used that profit to reimburse his contributors for their work:

There was never a thought that we would do that.

Oh, I see what you’re doing. Are you comparing my little blog to the Huffington Post? That’s absurd.

Gawker concedes this point while also noting that Tasini has something of a history of “getting paid without doing too much work himself,” pointing to his previous lawsuit against The New York Times Co. as well as his “Creators Federation” project – a now-defunct nonprofit from which Tasini managed to receive $46,700 in consulting fees between 2002 and 2003.

The nonprofit, Tasini explains, was created as a lobbying group for creative writer types, but he was forced to shut it down after two years when he didn’t receive the response he’d hoped.

The article manages to make Tasini seem opportunistic (a criticism Huffington also hinted at in her response to the lawsuit) but – playing Devil’s Advocate here – the man could also be seen as someone who is just plain creative when it comes to making money. If you can’t beat the system, join it to a degree. Then try to beat it again.

The same goes for fighting the blogging machine as with running for Congress, we suppose.

h/t Gawker