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First up, lets take a look at the historically left-leaning Huffington Post:

Ok, I’ve got to give credit to this one. Not only did they boil an incredibly divisive issue down to two words, one of them’s a pun. Mad props, yo.

I doubt things were as cheerful over at NewsBusters…

Yeah, and I bet they then used that toothpick to abort more babies! Seriously, the scent of sour grapes here is so strong it smells like fine wine.

Anyway, this is a women’s issue in every way so I bet the ladies of Jezebel have quite a bit to say:

And quite a bit of photoshopping. I don’t know, “Disgrace for the Cure” is fun, but Huffington Post is still winning the pun game.

However, the absolute, gold winner of the day, the most ridiculous headline we could possibly find on this story, the pinnacle of partisan pontification came from the good folks at Breitbart.tv:

Wow. Just wow.

Thanks to Rick Santorum, Thursday night wasn’t a total victory for Mitt Romney, but the former Massachusetts Governor clobbered chief rival Newt Gingrich all night, and caught the former Speaker flat-footed on a number of occasions. Perhaps because they haven’t had a chance to watch the game films yet, the Gingrich campaign is blaming the crowd. From The Huffington Post‘s Jon Ward:

“They definitely packed the room,” Kevin Kellems, one of Gingrich’s senior advisers, told The Huffington Post early Friday morning. “The problem for them is their candidate, at several junctures, couldn’t remember what he had said before on an issue or what the fundamental truth is on a given topic. TV viewers tend to notice and remember things like that.”

A more junior member of the Gingrich campaign said in an email that it was “obvious” that the Romney campaign had worked to make sure the audience was overly favorable toward the former Massachusetts governor.

“I was getting calls and emails from all over saying this,” the junior aide said. “Just average people saying, ‘Wait a minute.’”

It’s a neat resolution of the chicken-or-egg argument; did Gingrich suck because the audience wasn’t responding to him, or did the audience not respond because Gingrich sucked? No, the theory goes, Gingrich was awesome, and the audience sucked. However, the actual debate tells a different story. Mitt Romney was locked and loaded, attacking Gingrich more aggressively than in previous debates, while Gingrich seemed unprepared. Rick Santorum, meanwhile, continued to be the stealth batting champ of these debates, landing several devastating hits on Romney.

This accusation follows Gingrich’s complaint, earlier this week, that NBC’s Brian Williams should not have silenced Monday night’s debate audience. Since uproarious audience support buoyed his debate performances in South Carolina, and greatly contributed to his victory there, it’s not hard to understand why Gingrich’s campaign would be concerned by the Florida audience desertion.

However, there’s no evidence that Romney packed the crowd, and even if there were, this kind of complaining doesn’t help Gingrich. At best, it demonstrates an unwillingness to take responsibility for his own poor debate performances. At worst, it gives the impression that Gingrich needs a supportive audience in order to perform. These debates aren’t 3rd grade dance recitals, and neither is the presidency.

As for silencing the audience on Monday (it holds its applause until the end, or it gets the hose again!), the media reporter in me hates the idea. Those audiences have provided countless memorable moments this election season. However, they can also influence the outcome of these contests in ways that have little to do with the substance. This year may see the debate audience become the new x-factor in the Nixon-Kennedy, sizzle v. steak conflict.

…ok, maybe this is just a comedy sketch. It’s still pretty darn hilarious.

Watch the video from Jest below:

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

In an interview with Mediaite yesterday, James O’Keefe defended his false assertion that a journalism professor told him that Sam Stein “get(s) sources drunk” to get a story out of them. After our interview, a reader emailed us to point out that O’Keefe’s Project Veritas was accused of doing the very same thing, on steroids. According to The Newark Star Ledger, an O’Keefe operative spent three hours buying drinks for schoolteacher Alissa Ploshnick, all while secretly videotaping her.

Ploshnick, a 20-year veteran teacher who was once commended by President Bill Clinton for heroically saving the life of a student, was suspended from her job over her unwilling appearance in an O’Keefe project called Teachers Unions Gone Wild, an appearance she says was fueled by the demon booze for which O’Keefe now tries to smear Sam Stein. From The Star Ledger:

Ploshnick, 38 and single, was unlucky enough to be hit on in an East Brunswick bar in August by a young guy working for pretend journalist and admitted criminal James O’Keefe, the conservative attack dog who pleaded guilty to federal charges of entering a U.S. senator’s office under false pretenses. He is on probation. He also tried to embarrass CNN recently by setting up a planned, taped attempt to seduce reporter Abbie Boudreau. It failed when one of his operatives tipped Boudreau off.

O’Keefe’s operative bought drinks for Ploshnick and began asking about tenure. Ploshnick talked about how difficult it was to fire a tenured teacher. She said some things she shouldn’t have said. She quoted someone else as having used a racial obscenity, the so-called “n-word.”

But the phony Lothario sitting with her — plying her with drinks and laughing and egging her on — taped her every word. Including that word.

After our interview, I emailed James O’Keefe to give him a chance to respond to this apparent hypocrisy. The exchange became very involved, so I’m simply going to reproduce it here, as I think it illuminates something that most people miss about the name of O’Keefe’s endeavor, Project Veritas. It’s not a noun, it’s a command: Project Veritas.

Also included are responses from The Newark Star Ledger‘s Bob Braun.

This is the video to which O’Keefe refers in our email exchange:

NEXT: Full Text Of Emails Between Tommy Christopher And James O’Keefe

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. 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.”

The titular scoop in O’Keefe’s piece, though, is based on another clandestine video, this one of Sam Stein’s old journalism professor, Dale Maharidge, apparently for the sole purpose of digging up dirt on Stein. The best O’Keefe’s operative can manage is to get Maharidge to tell him that Sam “goes out drinking at night with people,” and to make the observation that “you get some booze in people, and suddenly the stories start to flow.”

O’Keefe then called Sam Stein, and from that innocuous observation, told him this: (emphasis mine) “Do you booze your sources up to get a story out of them or get your sources drunk to get information out of them? Because that’s what somebody told me.”

In the piece, O’Keefe also asks why Sam didn’t “include the story about Jeff Keefe in his article,” which carries the clear implication that Stein was trying to cover up what Professor Keefe had said, when in fact, that “story about Jeff Keefe” hadn’t been released yet.

In the first part of our exclusive interview, I challenged O’Keefe about these false and misleading attacks on Sam Stein. Here’s the audio of that portion of our interview, followed by a transcript: (watch for the remainder of our interview, coming soon)

Tommy Christopher: You’ve got this story out, it’s called To Catch A Journalist Pt. 1. Who’s the journalist and what have you caught him doing?

James O’Keefe: It involves a White House correspondent for the Huffington Post, Sam Stein, who I interviewed, and he denied he boozes his sources up to get info out of them. We’re doing an ongoing series of videos investigating journalists…misinformation, bias, cover-ups, this kind of came together serendipitously, I didn’t really see this story coming together like it did, but in the course of our investigation, a journalism professor, Dale Maharidge who is a Pulitzer prize winner at Columbia, he told us that he had Sam Stein as a student. and I thought the public needed to know what he was saying about Sam Stein. I confronted Sam Stein about what the professor said, and he empirically denied it, so one of them seems to not be honest about the tactics involved.

TC: So what you caught him doing was drinking with sources?

JO I think it’s two-fold. The first part of the story is there was– we and our research into the Economic Policy Institute and Rutgers University professor Jeff Keefe. Professor Keefe was willing to kill an academic study if it didn’t reach the conclusion that a buyer wanted, which I think is unethical. The Huffington Post had a lead story on the top of their banner last week which neglected to mention anything regarding Jeff Keefe and they neglected to go undercover. It’s a big deal when an academic professor is willing to kill a story. For some reason Sam Stein didn’t dig deep enough to find that info out. So that led me to look deeper, okay this guy is a White House correspondent for the Huffington Post, he’s a political reporter, he’s gotten accolades, why isn’t he covering – why isn’t he mentioning in his lead story, this fraud we uncovered with the policy institute? That’s the first half of the story…

TC: The story that Sam wrote was written before you published any of your findings, wasn’t it?

JO: That’s right, but why didn’t the HuffPo not cover, why didn’t they dig deep enough to find out what we found out, and automatically jump to the defense of the Economic Policy Institute?

TC: So it’s not that he didn’t cover it — it’s that you got a scoop that he didn’t get.

JO: If you’re an award winning journalist I think you ought to find this information out, but thats half the story. The other half is this Pulitizer prize-winning professor making a statement about his student, and that student denying that statement on the record. So I think if you put all these items together I think you’ve got quite a story.

TC: I saw the video and what the professor said to you was not what you asked Sam Stein, the professor said to you that Sam Stein goes out at night drinking with sources, and you put some booze in people and suddenly the stories flow. You asked Sam if he gets his sources drunk, those aren’t the same thing, are they?

JO: Well, I think the viewer can decide, I mean, I can’t, I’m not going going to make a…

TC: Did the professor tell you that he gets his sources drunk, and you just didn’t play that part?

JO: It’s on…no.  It’s on video. The entire thing is on video, so you can decide…

TC: Did the professor say that Sam gets his sources drunk?

JO: What the professor said is on videotape, in the video that I published…He said… I’ll have to find the quote exactly, but it’s in the video, so you don’t need to ask me what the professor said. It’s in the video.

TC: But answer my question. If he didn’t say that Sam gets his sources drunk, why did you tell Sam that’s what he said?

JO: Well, it’s …the way I interpreted what the professor said and I asked a question to Sam, I tried to word it exactly but Sam put words in my (mouth){what O’Keefe actually asked Sam Stein was “”Do you booze your sources up to get a story out of them or get your sources drunk to get information out of them? Because that’s what somebody told me.”-TC} … he said are you asking me if get sources drunk to get information out of them –but I think the… professor in my opinion — this is my interpretation, you can have a different interpretation — the professor at Columbia University seems to be saying he goes out drinking at night to get information out of people. That seems to be very similar to liquoring people up, boozing people up, getting them drunk, that seems to be a very similar thing, now you can cop out, and say no it’s a different thing. The denial is his.

TC: I’m a reporter in Washington DC, I go out drinking with people all the time, I don’t get them drunk.

JO: Well, he said “booze people” in order to get a story, that’s how a story starts flowing. I think that’s very similar to getting people ‘liquored up’, I’m going to put a question mark on it because people can decide for themselves whether this is a contradiction…

TC: Why not just ask him — why not relay the quote accurately? Why paraphrase it? I don’t understand.

JO: It was a one-take phone call, and he made that statement and I said what I said. I’m providing you all the facts, I’m showing you the video. So you can draw your own conclusions. I’m not misleading or misrepresenting anything because I’m publishing exactly what I asked him, and exactly what the professor said. There’s no misrepresentation here, there’s no wordsmithing on my behalf, I’m showing you videotape of what he said.

TC: You’re saying he’s denying something that you have evidence of that isn’t true. What he denied was getting sources drunk, which is not what the professor told you — so it is misleading.

JO: It’s not misleading because Im showing you the recordings.

TC: You misled Sam in your question, so you cant really criticize his answer if you didn’t relay the quote accurately, can you?

JO: Well, that’s up to the viewer to decide. I think that’s kind of a cop out, but that’s up to the viewer to decide. If people reasonably believe that the professor was not saying that he gets liquor in people to get information out of them — if that’s something that you believe is completely distinguishable from what I asked Sam, then that’s up for you to decide, but the good news about what we do at Project Veritas is that we provide recordings of things so you can make up your own decisions about things. So that you can make up your own decisions. And you can decide, okay one of these people are misleading, one or the other ones, but I can tell you something, I would interpret what that professor from Columbia to be saying he gets alcohol in people to get information out of them.

TC: But James, as a journalist, if i were going to ask Andrew Breitbart about something you said, you’d want me to quote you accurately, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you object if I mischaracterized one of your quotes?

JO: When I interviewed the reporter Sam Stein, it was a one-take phone call and I asked him what I asked him, and he said what he said, that’s where we stand. But because I’m showing you both tapes I’m allowing the viewer to decide. I’m allowing people to look at that tape, look at this tape, I trust Sam or I don’t trust Sam. Why did he hesitate when I asked him that question? Are we on the record, James? “Um uh no.” You can watch the tape and you can decide for yourself.

Take a look at our gallery and let us know: Do you agree with our choices? Vehemently disagree? Have you sworn to ever read anything debt-related ever again? And who would you have added or removed from our lists?

Winner: Chis Jansing (1 of 14)

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Chris Jansing earns high marks for hosting live coverage on MSNBC for five hours Sunday night, offering an real-time, in-depth look at the unfolding discussions.

Charlie Sheen’s stage tour got off to a rocky start in Detroit where the former Two and a Half Men star was booed off stage. But things got progressively better, with positive reviews in Chicago and a standing ovation in Cleveland.

News of a possible government shutdown was one of the most talked about stories of the week, with Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and President Obama failing to reach a budget deal. The Huffington Post spells out some of the possible side-effects.

Fox News has announced that Glenn Beck’s show is coming to an end. Unfortunately, Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts has announced that they will be producing several other television projects with Fox.

Archaeologists near Prague have uncovered what they believe might be the first known gay caveman. The copper age man was buried with artifacts normally reserved for women.

This photo of an abandoned mineshaft went viral on Reddit this week, after being called The Ultimate Anti-Zombie Fortress. Reddit’s resident anti-zombie defense experts got to work suggesting design improvements, resulting in the most entertaining meme of the week.

The Huffington Post has always defended its pay model by noting that its contributors are paid – in exposure and increased opportunities. But how do the bloggers themselves feel about their lack of monetary payment? One company providing content to the Huffington Post, Visual Arts Source, announced its plans to seek payment, and urged other unpaid contributors to strike in solidarity. Our own Dan Abrams even weighed in on the Newspaper Guild’s support of the strike.

Researchers from U.C. Santa Barbara’s Carsey-Wolf Center developed a survey to find out just how individual bloggers feel about the site’s payment system. One of the researchers working on the survey explains why they decided to conduct it at this particular time:

We have been planning this survey from the time we heard about the merger.

The merger provides an opportunity to focus on the conditions of digital labor (e.g., bloggers), and who is responsible for value creation (contributors v. distributors) in the digital environment.

Researchers searched out the email addresses for various HuffPost contributors, and contacted them directly. Questions on the survey include the following:

- Do you feel you should receive part of the $315 million AOL used to purchase the Huffington Post?

- Do you feel that the Huffington Post’s brand has changed since the merger with AOL?

- How would you compare the conditions at the Huffington Post to other sites you have blogged for?

- Some have raised concerns about the labor arrangement bloggers have with The Huffington Post. In your opinion, what do you think is the best way for bloggers to address the issue of compensation for digital labor?

Survey results are due out next month.

h/t Forbes‘ Mixed Media

Since the HuffPo purchase, many current and former Politics Daily writers have expressed reservations to me about the site’s future, citing significant cuts in pay for writers at Politics Daily, the Huffington Post’s infamous reticence to pay all but a privileged few writers, and their status as a content competitor to Politics Daily.

In the run-up to the purchase, AOL shut down a raft of its other websites, including Asylum.com, for whom I have written since June of 2009. Asylum was doing monster traffic, and unlike many AOL sites, didn’t depend on the AOL network for external clicks. But like Politics Daily, Asylum did place a premium on talented freelancers, and paid them very well compared to other online entities. In hindsight, the shutdown of Asylum (and others) could be seen to have been in anticipation of acquiring a high volume of content on similar topics, from people who write for free.

Another possible obstacle for Politics Daily to surmount is the fact that Arianna Huffington will now control the AOL Welcome Screen, the portal that drives millions of AOL users to network content every day. Welcome Screen placement is determined at twice-daily pitch meetings, and is highly coveted. If Arianna has a choice between promoting political content from HuffPo, versus similar content from Politics Daily, the result could be a severe erosion in PD’s traffic. Politics Daily’s emphasis on deeper coverage (as opposed to just getting something up first) adds to that challenge.

Finally, I would observe (as a founding contributor to PD) that Politics Daily Editor-in-Chief Melinda Henneberger and Arianna Huffington each have their own very strong, not always compatible, vision for how to cover politics. When it was first created, Politics Daily was pitched, internally, as sort of an antidote to the Huffington Post, and contrasts between the two sites’ approaches were key to those internal communications. Henneberger’s vision was so strong, in fact, that several AOL execs told me, at the time, that she was given an unprecedented level of creative carte blanche. Now that Arianna Huffington holds even greater influence, the potential for conflict presents a further obstacle for Henneberger to overcome.

I asked Politics Daily Executive Editor Carl Cannon to address some of the concerns raised by myself, and others. Ordinarily, I would have folded his responses into the narrative of the article, but I’m including our exchange as-is, in the interest of preserving context: (via email)

Tommy Christopher: Several PD writers have expressed uncertainty about the site’s future due to the acquisition, some citing significant cuts in pay for writers. Have there been such cuts, and can you be specific?

Carl Cannon: It’s true that we have scaled back the payments to freelancers in recent weeks, and although it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to those writers to cite specifics, I can say that this step was taken in an attempt to ensure Politics Daily’s survival — you know, to bring costs in line with revenues — and not as some harbinger of trouble.

Tommy Christopher: Also, welcome screen placement drives a significant amount of your traffic. Will Arrianna be in charge of that as well, and do you think Politics Daily will get the same level of promotion on the welcome screen, given that you’ll be competing with HuffPo content in most instances?

Carl Cannon: As I understand the merger, Arianna Huffington will oversee all these AOL News and news-related operations, including the AOL Welcome Screen. I’ve also been told that no decision has been made when (or if ) the AOL and HuffPo operations will become one and the same. So it remains to be seen how the various existing AOL sites and channels will be fused together.

Tommy Christopher: I know Melinda has always had a very strong vision for Politics Daily as a deeper, more mature HuffPo (this was how the site was pitched to us when we transitioned from the Political Machine). How will she handle taking direction from someone whose vision conflicts so with her own?

Carl Cannon: Tommy, I don’t remember ever hearing Melinda Henneberger compare Politics Daily directly to The Huffington Post, so I don’t know about that. As to how Melinda will handle herself under new management, well, we’ve already had a change at the very top of the company — and at several steps in-between– since she and I arrived at AOL, and we’ve worked closely with the new people every step of the way. I’d also say that the writers and editors Melinda hired continue to appreciate her passion, professionalism, vision, and talent — and share her pride in what we’ve built.

Tommy Christopher: AOL execs told me that Melinda’s contract included fairly ironclad carte blanche on editorial/hiring decisions at PD, which could be a somewhat effective firewall against dilution of the site’s vision. Can you say when that deal runs out/is up for renewal?

Carl Cannon: I don’t expect that the “firewall” you described is all that ironclad — if it even exists. Yes, we’ve been very independent at Politics Daily regarding hiring decisions, our mission, our news judgment, and all the rest, but we’ve worked closely all along with AOL News, AOL.com, and other entitites in the company as we’ve gone along and we’ve never been under any illusion that we’re magically insulated from the corporate hierarchy.

Tommy Christopher: Finally, what would you say to PD writers who are concerned about the site’s future, given the concerns I’ve mentioned, plus the recent shutdown of several successful AOL sites (like Asylum) leading up to the merger?

Carl Cannon: What I would say to people who are concerned about the future of Politics Daily? I would say that this is a concern Melinda and I share. These have been a difficult few years in the news business, as you yourself know. But we will be discussing the details with Arianna Huffington, David Eun, and others with AOL in the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, I believe we should keep putting out the best site we can until or unless we’re told not to.

In preparing for this story, Carl correctly pointed out that my prior relationship with Politics Daily (and Melinda Henneberger) might create a conflict of interests. It is true that Politics Daily and I had a tempestuous breakup, and that Melinda Henneberger is not my favorite person, nor I hers.

But, to the extent that I have a dog in this fight, I am rooting for Politics Daily to do well. I still count several of the site’s contributors and staff among my friends. Additionally, I have been a freelance writer for AOL for my entire career (even to this day), and have nothing but gratitude for their continued faith in me. Finally, like most freelancers, I’m not a huge fan of HuffPo’s content-farm, freebie writer business model, which makes it hard for other writers to get paid, and depresses the wages of those who do.

That is not to say that HuffPo doesn’t have its merits, obviously. The journalists they do pay are top-notch, and while their content is frequently watered down by sensational click-bait, HuffPo is often more nimble than Politics Daily at exploiting the microscopic news cycle.

In a perfect world, AOL’s political coverage would take the best that each site has to offer, and the two would co-exist, and complement, each other. But the media horizon has historically gravitated toward the lowest common denominator. Only time will tell where that leaves Politics Daily.

The Huffington Post’s executive editor, Nico Pitney (pictured), explained the site’s reasoning in an email to a private, liberal listserv. Here, Pitney is responding to an earlier comment on the topic of compensation by Nixonland author Rick Perlstein:

rick, i wonder whether twitter, facebook, and dailykos will ever pay me for the content i’ve provided them, and which they’ve happily monetized. probably not, but i don’t mind. i understood what i was getting out of writing for them when i did it. which is I think the same case for our bloggers, who get their own benefits from posting on our site, ask to do it, and often yell at me (usually justifiably) when it takes too long for their post to go live. back in college i spent months of my life trying to get my own small blogspot blogs off the ground. it was an incredibly frustrating exercise. huffpost didnt exist at the time, but if it had, i would have jumped at the chance to be published there.

Forbes‘ Mixed Media blogger Jeff Bercovici – who formerly wrote for Aol – weighed in on the discussion in his own column, pointing out that, of course, there’s a difference between writing on a social networking site and writing for a major media company.

Of course, this particular model had proven profitable for the Huffington Post and it hasn’t suffered from a dearth of contributors, even if they happen to complain about lack of payment after the fact. Perhaps the chance to have a platform on a well-known site is incentive enough to override not being compensated monetarily, especially as the site seeks to become more “local” through its deal with Aol.

Time will tell, we suppose.

h/t Forbes

Maher was steadfast in his belief that there was no challenger the Republicans could throw at Obama who’d have a realistic shot of beating him. He asked Huffington almost rhetorically if there was a Republican she could think of who might get her vote over Obama…but all he got out of her was, “Well – who knows who is going to be running in 2012?” Pressed further, she said she “[doesn't] know enough about Jon Huntsman,” the U.S. Ambassador to China, to definitively say she wouldn’t vote for him.

While none of this exactly constituted a ringing endorsement of Republicans, it certainly wasn’t a rining endorsement of Obama, either – she said she couldn’t even rule out a third-party candidate coming on strong if unemployment remains around its current level, and criticized Obama for sometimes pushing the wrong issue at the wrong time (ex. “health care over jobs”). She did, however, praise his conduct on the situation in Egypt, calling his remarks about the need for true democracy “Obama at his best.”

Video of Huffington’s remarks, via HBO, below. While we’d still bet on her sticking with Obama in 2012 (provided, of course, the 2012 apocalypse doesn’t arrive and the earth swallow us whole before election night), she did leave the door cracked open.

That’s heartening news for Beck and for the future of his site. The Conservative author, TV host and radio personality was hit with some bad news earlier this week when it was announced that his radio show would be dropped from New York’s WOR station due to insufficient ratings.

Morgan’s role as the site’s president was announced by The Blaze late yesterday, when it also announced that former Premiere Radio Networks president Kraig Kitchin would be joining as sales director. (Premiere is Beck’s distributor.). Morgan’s new role is described as “establishing The Blaze as a premiere digital network curating content, community and debate and further leveraging Beck’s loyal audience.”

Morgan, for her part, says she is “looking forward to expanding the team and developing businesses around topical content in all areas that engage audiences and drive a healthy national debate.”

Intriguing.

The Hustler publisher conceded that Assange may not be everybody’s conventional image of a “journalist” (mine is Robert Redford‘s Bob Woodward—sorry, Dustin Hoffman, you put me on edge). But he did offer what he knows about censorship, saying that “the free flow of information is ultimately less harmful than the impeded flow of information. A democracy cannot exist without total access to the facts.”

This led him to declare, “Julian Assange should not face a prison sentence. We should have a ticker-tape parade for this brave man.” Somebody’s got a man crush. You can read the entirety of his op-ed over at Huffington Post.

According to the plaintiffs, Boyce had sent to Huffington a memo “outlining a website where ‘political luminaries and public figures should be invited to blog’” back in 2004. Apparently, “The Stassinopoulos Report” (which employs Arianna’s maiden name), “Arianna’s on Fire,” and “Arianna Says” were among the contenders for this new site’s name. Their lawsuit claims that she and business partner Ken Lerer pulled an alleged Mark Zuckerberg when they “shook hands at the end of the meeting and said ‘It will be great to work together.’” The next year, The Huffington Post was launched sans Boyce and Daou, who “have no written contract, and no evidence that Huffington and Lerer considered them formal partners,” only an e-mail in which they seem to take the supposed partnership more seriously than their counterparts.

According to Politico, that might in fact be the case:

Huffington called the charge of stolen ideas and broken deals “a completely absurd, ludicrous supposition” from men whom she’d turned down for jobs on the site.

“We have now officially entered into Bizzaro World. James Boyce and Peter Daou, two political operatives who we rejected going into business with or hiring 6 years ago, and who had absolutely nothing to do with creating, running, financing, or building the Huffington Post, now concoct some scheme saying they own part of the company,” she and Lerer said in a written statement to POLITICO, writing that the two “tried to cash in” before filing suit and “said they’d go away for just a little money.”

And then things get bizarro-er: according to conservative-media extraordinaire Andrew Breitbart, he actually invented The Huffington Post. As reported by Wired:

“I created the Huffington Post,” he says simply. “I drafted the plan. They followed the plan.” Huffington disagrees, saying that while he helped with strategy, the idea for the site was cooked up at a meeting in her living room after the 2004 elections. Breitbart, she says, “wasn’t present.”

At this point, it seems like everybody but Tina Brown invented what we now know as The Huffington Post. So, who’s right? Well, the truth is that it probably wasn’t invented, only discovered —its model was an inevitable one that was simply waiting for someone to use it. But unless this lawsuit proves otherwise, it will remain Arianna Huffington’s model.

It features Jon Stewart as a cult-leader who is so infuriated by Beck’s rally (which he watches while applying some kind of facial cream like the Hollywood elitist he is) that he calls a meeting of his “secret liberal cabal” to destroy it. Soon we’re given such memorable moments as Larry King using the bathroom and one of the Huffington Post busses running over a guy in a Gawker shirt.

The whole thing is like every Conservative complaint about the Daily Show ever presented in cartoon form. They even took a swipe at the show’s audience by presenting them as stereotypical stoned hippies. It’s as if the team at NMA set a goal to be name checked on Fox News by the end of the week. It’s still hilarious and makes for funnier Conservative humor than most Conservative humorists actually make (*cough* Half Hour News Hour *cough*)

The self-proclaimed clueless journalist started contributing to HuffPo in 2007 without pay, as is the norm at a vast number of new media sites. However, as is also the case at many digital publications, she continued to work without considerable compensation, a fact that has prompted Fowler to brand her resignation as “Bittergate.”

In her post, she: claims that her work for the online publication was “often as good as anything HuffPost’s paid reporters” produce, publishes a presumably private e-mail exchange with HuffPo editor Roy Sekoff (on which Arianna Huffington was CC’d), and offers some caustic commentary on Howard Fineman, who is leaving Newsweek for HuffPo, where he will undoubtedly be paid more than most of the site’s “6,000 opionators.” Said Fowler:

The Huffington Post just took on Howard Fineman, a fine political pundit and maybe one of the last to leave the sinking ship Newsweek. I predict he will stay about a year. Maybe two. He doesn’t want Newsweek to be the last thing on his resume. He needs some “street cred” in new media. Then he will go on to a university lectureship (Princeton, perhaps) or a think tank or a foundation in order to round out a prestigious career. Likely both Fineman and Huffington are under no illusions about the hire. But here’s the thing from my point of view. So Fineman is getting a six-figure salary. Deserved. But why is there not a quarter of that for me?

Fowler’s tenure at HuffPo has been eventful in itself; she was considered a driving force of the publication’s earlier years, during which her political coverage garnered attention in traditional media outlets like the New York Times — something of a feat in the pre-iPad age. [Interestingly, Fowler's end of her published conversation with Sekoff was conducted from both an iPad and an iPhone.]

On her way out, Fowler still seems committed to grabbing the national media’s attention. Consider the final words of her lengthy diatribe: “Maybe I’m worth a tenth of Howard Fineman?”

Alas for Fowler, the HuffPost’s answer appears to be a resounding no.

While Ali Hasan’s Republican credentials are seemingly about as strong as they come, he did write an article for that bastian of evil lefty nonsense, the Huffington Post. While he was trying to make his point that the Muslim congregation in question had been in the area already for more than two decades, a helpful chyron at the bottom of the screen informed audience members that he “wrote in Huffington Post that mosque opponents are bigots.” No matter what viewers felt about him at that point, chances are they weren’t going to be fans after that. They might as well have thrown a chyron up that said “EATS BABIES.”

Ingraham herself hammers Ali Hasan on this point at the end of the segment, claiming that he was alienating Conservatives with comments like that. She’s most certainly right. However, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that maybe, just maybe, Conservative Muslims like Ali Hasan are feeling a little alienated right now as well.

In The Nation, Eric Alterman wrote a piece arguing that a progressive presidency, at least for now, is not possible in this country. In doing so, he immediately states — as if fact — that most people who call themselves progressives would be underwhelmed by Obama:

Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.

Alterman devotes his lengthy piece to what he says is the reason progressive leaders cannot have their way in America: structural limitations.

Face it, the system is rigged, and it’s rigged against us. Sure, presidents can pretty easily pass tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful corporations. They can start whatever wars they wish and wiretap whomever they want without warrants. They can order the torture of terrorist suspects, lie about it and see that their intelligence services destroy the evidence. But what they cannot do, even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, is pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in his 2008 presidential campaign.

While Alterman’s argument lays out how our political structure prevents progressive legislation, a piece in Politico uses the argument to support “why Obama wins by losing.” In it, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei discuss how despite his achievements, Obama is widely perceived as “flirting with a failed presidency”:

You can argue over whether Obama’s achievements are good or bad on the merits. But, especially after Thursday’s vote, you can’t argue that Obama is not getting things done.

The problem is that he and his West Wing turn out to be not especially good at politics or communications — in other words, largely ineffective at the very things on which their campaign reputation was built. And the promises he made in two years of campaigning turn out to be much less appealing as actual policies.

The Politico piece does have a good premise, but the Huffington Post’s Jason Linkins rightly points out faults — including the issue that most of the story is based entirely on anonymous sources, with authors simply stating “interviews with officials in the administration and on Capitol Hill, and with Democratic operatives around town.”

Furthermore, Linkins takes issue with how the Politico writers downplayed unemployment. Linkins’ makes a sound critique, because the numbers prove (as they have for years) that unemployment numbers are directly correlated to a president’s approval ratings.

These above mentioned pieces are legitimate examples of political analysis. Yet the broader picture seems to show an increasing interest in how progressives specifically might assess Obama’s presidency. Perhaps this is because we already know how conservatives feel (and it’s not pretty). Perhaps it is because we’re sure to hear more and more about how independents feel as November edges closer.

Yet, at least right now, the focus on progressives seems a bit disproportionate. What kind of effect does this kind of semi-polarizing coverage have on the country’s dramatically polarized political landscape? It would be naive to think the media does not influence the public — and while these individual publications may not be reaching everyone, the big picture does. In an ideal world, we would focus more on policy and ideas. In the real world, most things seem to be defined by political parties.

(Let’s just first apologize to The New Republic‘s online literary section, also launching today. It’s like rain on your wedding day?)

But back to Carlson and The D.C.: The Guardian puts them in good (read: profitable!) company already, as “the third Washington-based news site besides Politico and TalkingPointMemo.” Plus: “The welcome note from Arianna Huffington wishes “Happy linking” and claims the distinction between right and left being a leftover of an outdated mainstream media approach.”

MediaMatters, predictable, not enthused: “Not an auspicious beginning for Carlson’s new right-wing news site,” they write, before slamming a Drudge-like misleading headline.

MediaBistro, meanwhile, has comment from Carlson, who calls the site “straightforward.” He promises they’re not out “to grind any axes, or in reaction to any other site. We just think there isn’t enough coverage of politics and government, so we’re going to add some.” PaidContent has an interview with the site’s founder as well.

As for the Twittersphere, reviews are decidedly mixed.

Gundisalvus: Daily Caller shows again that mix of opinion, reporting is new journalistic formula http://dailycaller.com

LibbySpencer: Just looked at The Daily Caller. Ha Ha Ha Ha… Rog must be popping champagne. It makes PJ Media look good.

Expatina: The Daily Caller’s slogan today could be: All Harry Reid, All the Time. (yawnnnn)

Delrayser: Good to see the Daily Caller has learned the lessons of HuffPo. Launch day & the front page is already full of cleavage.

Anamariecox: Two most popular items on Daily Caller site are by its chief competitors (Arianna an Breitbart.) Smart stunt casting or bad sign? Both?

From one recent launch to another: good luck, D.C. See you out there!

Now, it seems even HuffPo’s enviro-conscious “Green” section has succumbed to this condition with the blunt entreaty to “WATCH: Walrus Gives Himself Oral Pleasure (NSFW)“

My first response is “Why would I want to do that?” Still, I understand the curiosity at work here. Perhaps we have our first definitive translation of the phrase “Coo coo ca choo.”

I’m obviously familiar with the concept of a grabby headline. It’s just that the sheer volume of these blunt, shouting headlines to hype even the most minute items have a deadening effect. They also undercut Arianna Huffington’s recent high-minded entreaty to ignore stories like the Balloon Boy fiasco in favor of stories about homeless children. If they ran any such stories at HuffPo, they’d be under a banner like “WATCH: Kids Sleep in Things That are NOT HOUSES!”

For those of you who really want to see a walrus getting to know itself, I guess I’d rather have you watch it here than someplace else. Enjoy?

Esquire

The Huffington Post has the report:

Hold Esquire’s December issue in front of a webcam, and an on-screen image of the magazine pops to life, letters flying off the cover. Shift and tilt the magazine, and the animation on the screen moves accordingly.

Robert Downey Jr. emerges out of the on-screen page in 3-D, offering half-improvised shtick on Esquire’s latest high-tech experiment for keeping print magazines relevant amid the digital onslaught.

According to paidContent, the issue cost upwards of six figures. Esquire‘s art director David Curcurito compares it to a caveman seeing fire for the first time, but it rightfully conjures memory of Entertainment Weekly‘s much-hyped, but ultimately disappointing video ad from earlier this year.

The Heart Corporation title — like all of publishing — is struggling, and though it’s high budget and forward-thinking, nothing indicates desperation like digital gimmicks and special issues. HuffPo breaks down Esquire‘s recent ad slump by noting, “The number of ad pages Esquire sold in the first half of the year fell to roughly 319, down 26 percent from 431 the year before, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.”

Clearly, the magazine hopes garnering some buzz for stepping into the future is the beginning of answer. It’s ironic to realize that while the internet contributes to the downfall of the traditional magazine market, they’re incorporating surprises like a 3-D issue in hopes to get the blogs buzzing, which will in turn send people to the newsstands. Or so they hope:

But that still leaves Esquire and the rest of the business in a waiting game to see if advertisers return as the recession eases.

With all the dazzle in the December issue shown off, Granger rests back in his chair, the view of midtown Manhattan behind him out of the 21st-story window of Hearst’s glass and steel tower on 8th Avenue.

“I just hope it starts coming back soon,” he says. “It’s got to, right?”

For instance, whereas the Globe features a month’s worth of giant photos from Afghanistan, HuffPo opted for Lohan at the “Rock the Kasbah event Monday night in Los Angeles,” followed by Sting from a Tuesday night book party. Guaranteed to drive web traffic, The Big Picture’s first pic(k) was a savvy one, as a high resolution image of the starlet reveals far more than you’d expect from a 23-year-old.

We’re taking bets on who The Huffington Post will feature tomorrow, but our money’s on a real looker, to counter Lohan’s vaguely unflattering portrayal or Sting’s neutral appearance. With this new feature, The Huffington Post wins with clicks, and the real losers are the makeup artists to the stars — now under more pressure than ever.

Check out The Big Picture here.

But some of the most talented and influential bloggers still work under the radar. Whether they write for niche audiences or are simply less visible than their more mainstream counterparts, these men and women are the unsung heroes of the blogosphere, known to circles of insiders, but uncredited for the vaster influence they hold.

In this in-depth, magazine-length feature (6500 words!), Mediaite has assembled a list of 25 of the best underrated bloggers you need to know, drawing from a variety of backgrounds, and explained why they matter. You’d do well to learn — and bookmark, and RSS — the names you don’t know already. If they aren’t themselves household names in a few years, the odds are good that they will continue to smartly analyze the news, break stories, serve as role models for others, and put their stamps on the flow of information far beyond the Internet.

Below we’ve designated five themes and selected five up and coming or under-appreciated bloggers in each category, including:

Hidden Hands: The workhorses behind blue-chip sites with tremendous clout who often go unrecognized for their accomplishments as individuals.

Blogs Bloggers Read: Bloggers behind sites worshipped by insiders that mold the shape of the online conversation.

Niche Experts: These are the writers whose areas of focus may not garner them the biggest following, but in music, fashion, cars, business, and food, they’re as good as it gets.

Power Hitters: They may be big names already, but they are somehow still undersold considering the amount of work they put in and the amount of influence they wield.

Reinventors: Bloggers who, rather than resting on their well-deserved laurels for past accomplishments, have continued to innovate and reinvent their editorial presences on the web.

>>>NEXT: The first five top bloggers are the Hidden Hands…

(image via)

My intention was not to bait national controversy when I wrote a piece after Ted Kennedy’s death titled, “The Footnote Speaks: What Would Mary Jo Kopechne Have Thought of Ted’s Career?” for The Huffington Post. The short editorial discussed Kennedy’s accomplishments and the role Kopechne may have played in them, and speculated as to whether she would have felt that his singular career (made possible by his failure to serve jail time for her death) might be worth the injustice she suffered.

I thought it was an apt time for reflection, free from the ideological battles of the past; the right thought differently. The post — in particular the last line, “Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it” — was picked up by the conservative echo chamber and repeated ad nauseum by the right wing media machine. First it was Fox News Radio, blasting me for my “offensive and amoral suggestion.” Then Rush Limbaugh entered the fray, announcing that my post meant that “liberal young women like to die for the cause of advancing Kennedys’ careers.” Then came The Washington Times, The O’Reilly Factor, The National Review and just about every right-wing blog on the Internet. I was denounced as a “sick and twisted liberal.” In poured the hate mail, filled with violent and sexually explicit language. The blogosphere exploded with vitriol. A few people called in threats to my office. I fielded questions about security, and began to worry about going outside.

No one can say the right wing media isn’t efficient when it comes to creating maelstroms in teapots, or that they don’t make full use of the resources available; The Huffington Post and other left wing sites have become easy trolling grounds for conservative media looking for a sound bite or quote to stir easy controversy. Twitter, the perfect medium for disseminating a short, context-free message, is also a quick feed for more knee-jerk reactionism. In fact, the right’s topic hijacking was so effective that in a matter of days, the conversation about Kennedy’s Senate record, the causes he championed, health care reform, or any other relevant and important issue was entirely sidelined by entire news segments about…a single line in my blog post.

As for the now-infamous kicker itself, there was no discussion or debate – I was asked to appear on John Gibson’s Fox News Radio show, and had an argument that went nowhere (the highlight was when Scott Allen Miller asked if Mary Jo would have approved of a minimum wage increase), while other conservative radio hosts asked me to come on their show and “defend my offensive remarks.” (I declined.) But no other news outlet offered me the chance to appear and have a rational debate, or even expound on the intended meaning of my remarks. The lack of relevant discussion in favor of flame-fanning sound bites was impressive in its effectiveness. As with “death panels,” “socialism,” and countless other partisan shibboleths, the power granted to the phrase “maybe she’d feel it was worth it” was exhaustive. It was pure political theater wielded beautifully, with conservative news outlets veering the discussion wherever they choose – which is usually straight into fear-based misinformation. This tactic for delivering information is irresponsible and unethical, sure – but even more invidious is the effect it is having on American discourse.

It’s no small irony that Kopechne, a staunch Democrat in life, was the centerpiece for this frenzy. The gist of my post was that she believed passionately in the causes that Kennedy championed — a fact that may lend those causes even greater importance. But that slightly nuanced point didn’t matter a bit to Limbaugh’s foot soldiers, who wasted no time launching their full-on rage assault. So I’m spending the summer’s end deleting e-mails without reading them and looking over my shoulder, while a loud and substantial portion of the news media has reduced its conversation about the greatest Senate career in history to a sideshow act about my personal failings. Then again, at least it kept Laura Ingraham from plugging death panels.

Melissa Lafsky is the founder of Opinionistas.com. For money, she’s the deputy web editor at Discover Magazine, and the former editor of the New York Times‘s Freakonomics blog. You can follow her on Twitter at @lafsky.