CNN Staffer Responds To Leno’s ‘Phony Phone Call’ Segment

video

by Mark Joyella | 1:27 pm, April 20th, 2011

» 7 comments

NBC’s late night comic Jay Leno took on CNN’s Paul Steinhauser on the Tonight Show the other night. What? Who is CNN’s Paul Steinhauser, you ask? Geez. What kind of political geek are you? Steinhauser’s CNN’s deputy political director based in the DC bureau, and he appears on camera during the day, and often in the background when anchors like Wolf Blitzer are doing liveshots from the DC bureau. Leno aired a funny clip stringing together a series of these clips, and in each one, as soon as the liveshot begins, Steinhauser picks up his phone–to Leno, clearly faking importance with a mock three second phone call.

“There’s this guy on CNN, I see him every day and every time the camera’s on him, he pretends to be on the phone. This is annoying to me,” says Leno, setting up the clip. “This is stupid! I’m not falling for it!”

So what’s the real story? In an interview with CNN’s T. J. Holmes, Steinhauser insists the calls are real. “I’m a popular guy here at CNN. People call me. People call me all the time.”

What about the strangely short duration of those calls? Holmes asks, “who has a three second call, Paul?” And Steinhauser finally comes clean that yes, many of those calls are people buzzing his desk to say, “hey, you’re on TV” and he says yes, and hangs up. At least, that’s the official story.

Perhaps a new daytime drinking game? Wait. That didn’t come out right.

Watch it here, from CNN:

CNN, Jay Leno, NBC, Paul Steinhauser, T.J. Holmes, Tonight Show, Wolf Blitzer

MrTPar_taY

Barack Obama is an uptight, prissy, dishonest, megalomaniac, ego fractured, old, useless failure.
TfT

When this guy answers the phone, does he call americans slugs? oh wait…..that might have been someone else, caught on a hot mic, and then edited by CBS….but then again, maybe that didn’t happen. I have read about it on Drudge, and seen it on other sites, but no one at mediatie is talking about the possibility that the “hot mic: adventure of hehimself, might not have been accidental at all. In fact, perhaps it was a set up with Obama and CBS in cohoots, especially, since the part they released has been put forth as a positive for Obama, and the other part, has been edited and the entire story spiked.

But I don[‘t know….can someone at mediaite please follow-up on the whole CBS edits hehimself to protect hehimself storyline?
ElCapitanAmerica

MrTPar_taY said:
Barack Obama is an uptight, prissy, dishonest, megalomaniac, ego fractured, old, useless failure.

Whoa are you ok there? What does that have to do with this story.

Guy got caught, too bad he couldn’t just admit that he was trying to look busy for the cameras :-)
Probably NOT wrong

MrTPar_taY said:
Barack Obama is an uptight, prissy, dishonest, megalomaniac, ego fractured, old, useless failure.

True! True!
But he is not a very good President.
stoogedudes

MrTPar_taY said:
Barack Obama is an uptight, prissy, dishonest, megalomaniac, ego fractured, old, useless failure.

Dammit, this thread is dead, but I wanna play the “Spurt random BS about something that has absolutely nothing to do with this article” game!

Andrew Breitbart has a tiny mouth as if he ate a tube of Preparation H.

Ok. Now it’s someone else’s turn. Remember, it cannot be anything remotely related to this article.
MrTPar_taY

stoogedudes said:
Dammit, this thread is dead, but I wanna play the “Spurt random BS about something that has absolutely nothing to do with this article” game!

Andrew Breitbart has a tiny mouth as if he ate a tube of Preparation H.

Ok. Now it’s someone else’s turn. Remember, it cannot be anything remotely related to this article.

Keen observation! What’dya think about a biden presidency?
tatboy

“Perhaps a new daytime drinking game? Wait. That didn’t come out right.”

What… Wait… What didn’t come out right? What’s wrong with daytime drinking and games?