Is this man guilty of 'blackface with voice'? (YouTube)

By now, you've probably written your heated HuffPost post about how horrible those Nazis at Volkswagen are for coming up with such a racist commercial for the Super Bowl. (Actually, HuffPost already found a new racist Super Bowl ad; they have moved on.) The spot, which was leaked early--because who cares, they already paid their bazillions, so why not release it on YouTube days before the actual event? It will only generate more buzz that way!--features a Caucasian man with a Jamaican patois accent running around his office like Michael Scott in that one episode where he comes back from Sandals.

And it did generate "buzz," so there's that. Unfortunately, it was the kind of buzz that comes from a dozen angry blogger/Sean Paul bees flying towards your face.

Well, we're of two minds about this. First of all, just a big congrats to Volkswagen for having this be your best (pre?) Super Bowl ad. Those spots cost, as we mentioned above, a bazillion dollars, and you only want your best and brightest material to shine through. And if that is this commercial, so be it. (Or rather, SoBe it, because you remember when the iced tea drink also had some sort of Super Bowl scandal?) It makes us really long for the days of Peter Stormare, but whatever.

Here's the thing though. It's not a racist advertisement. Not really. There are totally Caucasian people who live in the Caribbean islands and some further South American posts who speak along the lines of what Wikipedia describes as "post-creole speech continuum." They are pretty rare, and to be honest we only know this because of one terrible live concert in Roatan that included popular songs like "You Don't Have to Be Gay to Ride a Ferry." But at least we can say conclusively that yes, there exists at least three white men who definitely speak with an authentic "Jamaican" accent. And four, if you include this guy.

You are welcome, Mr. Volkswagen CEO. We've just made the airtight defense for you next time Charles Blow references "blackface with voices" on CNN.

"I was told that they wanted the contributors to be more available -- essentially, closer to Washington," Ragin' Cajun Mr. Carville told Politico, noting that it was the network's decision. "I'm not always available, I don't live there." The couple primarily resides in New Orleans.

The ideologically opposite couple have been a topic of interest (how do they do it?) and inspiration (if they can make it work despite different political outlooks, maybe there is hope for all of us) since they married after they worked against each other in the 1992 presidential campaign. Although Mr. Carville's candidate (Bill Clinton) won against Ms. Matalin's candidate (George Bush I), ultimately, it was a victory for love.

In honor of their departure, we found a 2009 CNN interview outlining their secrets to successful compromise within a marriage.

"I don't have a position on anything domestically. So I just say yes, and then go on and do it," Mr. Carville said, in response to a viewer's question about their marriage. "I would say the three ingredients to successful marriage is surrender, capitulation and retreat."

"Spoken like a true liberal. What a martyr," Ms. Matalin responded. "Faith, family and good wine. That's how we do it."

If politics make strange bedfellows, we suppose punditry make even stranger ones.

Clip below:

The news was first reported in a press release from ABC that announced a number of staffing changes at the network.

"Jake is leaving ABC News for an opportunity at CNN.  You’ll hear more about his new anchor role from his new network," wrote ABC. "For years, Jake has set the pace for the White House press corps.  A ferocious reporter – and now a best-selling author – he has built a reputation as one of the most prolific and multi-talented journalists on the beat, scoring scoop after scoop."

Mr. Tapper's new network released their statement moments after the ABC announcement came out.

“We are thrilled to have Jake join CNN and take the helm of a brand new weekday program,” said Ken Jautz, executive vice president of CNN/U.S. “Jake is an exceptional reporter and communicator, and we look forward to developing a program that takes advantage of all of his strengths, his passion and his knowledge of national issues and events.”

“With CNN’s impeccable reporting during the elections and the exciting changes in the works for the network, this is a perfect time to join the CNN team,” Mr. Tapper said, in CNN's release. “I am excited about the prospect of working with both the new leadership and some old friends and colleagues.”

Mr. Tapper made news yesterday when he asked Barack Obama where he has been on gun control during the president's press conference on gun policy.

Rob Marciano

CNN's Rob Marciano, a comforting face during Hurricane Sandy, is moving away from weather coverage; the meteorologist is moving to Entertainment Tonight, where he'll be breaking Kristen Stewart and The Voice news alongside Nancy O'Dell.

Mr. Marciano, who received a Peabody Award for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina, has a degree in meteorology from Cornell.

Fareed Zakaria at the 2011 Time 100 Gala. (Getty Images)

Time editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria has lately been the subject of much chatter among colleagues past and present—some of it rather unpleasant for the marquee pundit. And while Time and CNN have done a review of his work and are satisfied that no further issues remain, it doesn’t look like his problems are over just yet: One of his former colleagues at Newsweek has asserted to Off the Record that he ghostwrote a piece that ran under Mr. Zakaria’s byline.

After being accused of plagarizing The New Yorker’s Jill Lepore recently, Mr. Zakaria explained himself to the New York Times’s Christine Haughney: he claimed to have conflated his notes from Ms. Lepore’s piece—apparently copying a passage from the article into longhand—mistaking her thought patterns for his own. Ms. Haughney added, in a veiled aside, that Mr. Zakaria, formerly the editor of Newsweek International, “said he never had an assistant write a column in 25 years and that he began using a research assistant for his column only in the last year.” Maybe so.

However, Jerry Adler, who took a buyout from Newsweek but remained on as a contract science writer says that in 2010 he was commissioned to write an introductory letter, going out under Mr. Zakaria’s byline, for a stand-alone commemorative issue on the environment pegged to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Knowing full well that the piece would go out under Mr. Zakaria’s name, the two-time National Magazine Award finalist says, he wrote the five-paragraph piece, never discussing it with the putative author. “He made some changes, maybe. But he didn’t say, ‘Do this and don’t tell anyone.’ It came to me through channels.”

(Disclosure: this reporter was a college intern at Time in 2007 and at Newsweek in 2009, but did not work or interact in any capacity with Mr. Zakaria in either case.)

For his part, Mr. Zakaria declined through representatives to speak to Off the Record. Nisid Hajari, an editor who worked closely with Mr. Zakaria at Newsweek, indicated: “I edited literally hundreds of pieces by Fareed, big and small, over the years, and they were almost entirely researched and always written by him,” though he didn’t recall this specific case. “Not unusual, if you ask my wife,” he added parenthetically.

Writers’ referring to others’ research, and, often, language, through written files prepared by reporters is a longstanding practice at weekly newsmagazines, though editors familiar with the practice indicate that a reporting or co-writing byline is de rigueur. Noting that today’s editors write their own letters, former Time managing editor Jim Kelly remembered, “My first job at Time magazine [in the 1970s] was, in fact, writing the publisher’s letter. The publisher signed it, Jack Myers, he couldn’t have been more pleasant. I went to meet him the first week, and he said ‘No, just make me sound good, kid.’ The publisher never wrote the letter.”

“It’s possible that he filed to Fareed in the classic newsmagazine team fashion,” said Tony Emerson, former managing editor of Newsweek International. “In team journalism there’s a lot of debates over who deserves the byline. It sounds to me like he could have pitched in with Fareed and is angry he wasn’t credited for his contributions.”

“This isn’t an issue of plagiarism, per se,” said Mr. Emerson. “This is an issue of—whose byline was it?”

And, as in the past, the letter to the readers existed to assuage the publishing side. “The business side had apparently promised [advertisers] that Fareed would write the introduction. They probably did this without asking Fareed--he either wasn’t available or he was too busy. I was asked to do it, which I did,” said Mr. Adler. “It appeared under his byline.”

The entire project, indeed, was a sop to the sort of advertisers and newsstand buyers whose brand value Mr. Zakaria’s name is meant to entice. “That project had just about zero journalistic value. It was an advertising vehicle, a revenue-producing deal made by the business side at a time when Newsweek was desperately trying to keep its head above water,” said Fred Guterl, formerly of Newsweek and now at Scientific American, in an email. Mr. Guterl said he did not recall anyone writing the piece “except Fareed himself,” but noted that it was possible that Mr. Adler had prepared research and written a file for Mr. Zakaria, a claim Mr. Adler denies.

Mr. Adler, whom colleagues describe as well-respected at the magazine, has no ill will toward the highly leveraged Mr. Zakaria. “This was something that didn’t originate with him. Newsweek was trying to capitalize on Fareed’s brand. It wasn’t going to advance his career at all.”

PLEASE TURN AROUND.

Otherwise, here are your Friday Evening Media Briefs:

Contain Your SchadenFareed: If you're reading this after 4PM on a Friday, then you no doubt already know that Fareed Zakaria was busted for plagiarizing having an article that contains some of the same words as New Yorker writer Jill Lepore's piece on the NRA. He 'fessed up; Time suspended him for a month, and CNN suspended him indefinitely. His apology:

"Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers."

Note the first two words, but also, the quick confession. 'Guess someone learned their lesson from L'affaire Lehrer. Rather than read all the thinkpieces about What It Means To Plagiarize Now or whatever people are going to dream up at brunch—which isn't even a real meal—over the weekend, you should just go back and read Jonathan Liu's 2008 review of Zakaria's The Post American World (a critique on the pundit-as-careerist) instead. [The Atlantic Wire, @HuffPostMedia]

All is Sunny on Planet Money: Following up on the piece we posted on Thursday examining Yasha Levine and Mark Ames's ethics colonoscopy given to NPR's Planet Money host Adam Davidson, we heard back from a spokeswoman at The New York Times (where he has a column at the Times Magazine), who issued a statement to us on the issues presented yesterday:

We have discussed this situation with Adam and we’re confident that there has been no violation of our policies around speaking engagements and no conflict of interest.

So there's that. [Previously]

The New York Times Gets Choosy About Attribution: The Times refused to credit a blog named STFU Parents because it implies bad words, says an assistant at the Public Editor's office. So why did they allow LMFAO and an entire piece about a blog titled "Fuck I'm In My Twenties"? Here's a better question: Could they come up with a more condescending response than this?

We feel some obligation to try to maintain The Times as a respectable publication and respect all of our readers. You have your approach. Other publications have their approach. And we have ours. That's what makes the world go round.

Probably not. Let this serve as a reminder that the Times' "approach" is to be selective about who they have respect for and who they don't. Sometimes, it's their readers, and sometimes, it's people they choose to quote but not attribute! [The Atlantic Wire]

The Learning-Things-As-An-Adult-You-Should-Have-Learned-As-A-Kid-Trend: It's almost complete. Within 24 hours of one another, two pieces went online for publication in this weekend's papers. One is in tomorrow's New York Times about a transportation reporter learning to ride a bicycle (as an adult). The other is in today's Los Angeles Times, about learning how to swim (as an adult). One more and we have a trend. Suggestions from the newsroom include "Learning How To Tie My Shoes (as An Adult)" and "Learning How to Write (at the Post)." [NYT, LAT]

Technology Writer Does Job: Not that this isn't a usual occurance, but Gizmodo blogger Sam Biddle went off the rails, resulting in a wonderfully misanthropic rant against technology and its consumers. Buried in it is an important opinion about tablet computing not expressed nearly enough by the media-technology cheerleaders who think neat toys will save media:

Tablets are a complete luxury item—PURE luxury—and owning one makes you an asshole, instantly, categorically. It's a wonderful toy. But a toy. A big boy toy. Nobody needs an iPad. Nobody. Not a single person, unless you're literally so stupid and/or infirm that you can't use a keyboard and mouse like the rest of the industrialized (or barbaric) world. iPads are a status symbol, a second computer that's built expressly for convenience.

Correct. Most technology writers are reluctant to admit things like this, however, because it would probably compromise some level of access and then, likely make them insecure about the necessity of their own careers and shaky about their livelihoods. Of course, those are the least necessary technology writers out there, but so it goes. [Gizmodo]

Rolling Stone's Web Site's Evolves, as It Always Has. A Tweet from Forbes writer Kashmir Hill:

Very sad that Matt Taibbi's review of Dark Knight Rises is not online. Rolling Stone's approach to the Web never ceases to bewilder me.

She's right. Nothing more to add. [@kashhill]

Have any lessons for us about things we could learn that we should have learned as children? Like, to hold all entities equally accountable for the same things? Or: Not to copy other people's work and pass it off as our own? Wait, we've already learned those. So just send us tips and copy-edits instead.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

One down, two to go.

In an email to journalist Andrew Sullivan, CNN host Anderson Cooper put an end to longstanding rumors by writing: "The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud." Mr. Cooper's orientation had of late been the topic of discussion--the TV host had been featured in an Observer cover story on "the glass closet" due to his openness regarding all aspects of his life but his orientation. Writing today of the need to be a visible part of the gay community, Mr. Cooper wrote: "I do think visibility is important, more important than preserving my reporter’s shield of privacy."

Bourdain.

For example...

On Paula Deen

"The worst, most dangerous person to America is clearly Paula Deen. She revels in unholy connections with evil corporations and she’s proud of the fact that her food is bad for you."

On Guy Fieri

"I look at Guy Fieri and I just think, '...I'm glad that's not me.'"

"If I had to be him for five hours, I'd hang myself in a shower stall."

"Anyone who's on TV, if you can’t have a sense of humor about yourself, it's going to be a very tough road. If you can't make fun of Burrell and Fieri, comedy's dead."

On Bobby Flay

"In service to this new, groin-level dynamic, even poor, loyal, Bobby Flay was banished from cooking anywhere near as well as he actually could—to face off with web-fingered yokels in head to head crab cake contests—to almost inevitably (and dubiously) lose...They're sending this poor guy all over the country, to trailer parks and meth labs."

On Sandra Lee

"Pure evil. This frightening Hell Spawn of Kathie Lee and Betty Crocker seems on a mission to kill her fans, one meal at a time. She Must Be Stopped. Her death-dealing can-opening ways will cut a swath of destruction through the world if not contained...The eye-searing 'Kwanzaa Cake' clip on YouTube, of Sandra Lee doing things with store-bought angel food cake, canned frosting, and corn nuts, instead of being simply the unintentionally hilarious viral video it should be, makes me mad for all humanity. I. Just. Can’t. Help. It."

On Bourdain's Brief Time at the Food Network

"I knew there was no light at the end of the tunnel the day we were joined by a new hire—the lawyer and the (it would soon be revealed) outgoing execs stood up and said, "Say hello to Brook Johnson … who we're all delighted to have join us from … (some other network)." Ms. Johnson was clearly not delighted to meet me or my partners. You could feel the air go out of the room the second she entered. It became instantly a place without hope or humor. There was a limp handshake as cabin pressure changed, a black hole of fun—all light, all possibility of joy was sucked into the vortex of this hunched and scowling apparition. The indifference bordering on naked hostility was palpable."

On The Food Network's Programming

"2007 was also the year that Food Network canceled 'Emeril Live,' and stopped ordering episodes of 'Molto Mario,' a calculated break with the idea of the celebrity chef as a seasoned professional and a move toward an entirely new definition: a personality with a sauté pan."

On Scripps' Purchase of the Travel Channel

"I'm definitely taking a wait-and-see [approach]. I'm not happy about sharing a hot tub with Guy Fieri, is what I'm saying."

"Given recent developments, I would say that anything could happen. I'm giving the whole enterprise some serious thought. I know that my crew and I are really into pushing this season as far as we can go creatively. We are doing an entire show in black and white, dubbed in Italian."

From Bourdain's 2010 memoir, Medium Raw:

""It's Sandra Lee's world. It's Rachael's world. Me? You? We're just living in it. If this wasn't clear to me then, after Aunt Sandy had turned me inside out, left me shaken and husked, a shell of a man—like the remains of a lobster dinner, it became absolutely clear just last week: When Scripps Howard, the parent company of Food Network, outbidding Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, bought my network, the Travel Channel—for nearly a billion dollars.

I remember now, from a distance, my earlier, dumber self, watching Emeril, hawking toothpaste (and later, Rachael, endorsing Dunkin' Donuts and Ritz Crackers) and gaping, uncomprehending at the screen, wondering, 'Why would anybody making the millions and millions of bucks these guys are making endorse some crap for a few million more? I mean … surely there's some embarrassment to putting your face next to Dunkin' Donuts—what with so many kids watching your shows—and Type 2 diabetes exploding like it is … Surely there's a line for these people, right?'"

It is safe to say this may have been in the works from quite some time. Like, since the day Scripps purchased Bourdain's network. He may have found more liberal masters in CNN (the same network that decided to make a disgraced governor a television host and that made an attempt at syndicating VICE video clips two years ago). Here's hoping they show him and his crew that kind of liberal approach to television.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Just a few days after Gawker introduced their recent and short-lived foray into corporate espionage-cum-pranksterism in the form of The Fox News Mole, one Joe Muto found himself on CNN, speaking with Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources about the week he'd just had. In that interview, he explained that he was "completely blackballed within the cable news industry after working at FOX News," which is to say nothing of how his job prospects might be now ("it’s pretty safe to say my career in cable news is over"). Is it, though?

The paradox the Fox Mole presents is simple: News organizations rely on sources for news stories, but are often taken aback when they, themselves, are news stories. Sources have any number of motivations and incentives to betray the trust of a secret and talk: They could have something to gain from the secret being out there. They could, in their minds, be partaking in an altruistic act for the public good. Or they might just be petty and annoyed. Whatever the case, the news-gathering industry has relied on people telling reporters things they're not always supposed to since the Fourth Estate was established.

Which is why as any media reporter can tell you, it's always interesting to watch the way media companies react when they are the ones subject to leaks. Some are empathetic; others, who would argue that reporting organizations are subject to a higher need for confidentiality than those they report on, become Wrath-Of-God furious. Which, it could also be argued, is rife with laughable naivety, double-standards, and blatant hypocrisy.

We were curious, both about the legitimacy of the motives Muto claimed and about his prospects in media after Life As A Mole:

1. Was Joe Muto truly "completely blackballed within the cable news industry after working at FOX News," as he claimed he was?
2. Assuming he met all qualifications as a hiring prospect, given his now well-documented past, would people working in media hire the Fox Mole?
3. Muto joked that the only place he might be able to get a job now was CurrentTV. Could he?

Network executives at CNN and MSNBC were adamant that both networks had hired and currently employed workers who had once worked at Fox News (naturally, none of them wanted to be quoted or named for this particular story). As for the top brass at these networks:

Ken Jautz (Executive Vice-President, CNN):

"Going to pass on this," through a network spokesperson.

Phil Griffin (President, MSNBC):

"Going to pass," via a network spokesperson.

David Bohrman (President, Current TV):

[Didn't return a request for an interview, after speaking with Mr. Bohrman and a Current TV communications exec.]

We polled some editors to see, given that they work in the news business, what kind of trust they would instill in someone who had publicly gone through the episode Joe Muto just did:

Kerry Lauerman (Editor-in-Chief, Salon):

"I'd need to know more. I certainly wouldn't disqualify him for working at Fox News. And I wouldn't disqualify him for being a mole, if he could convince me it was an act of moral righteousness. But it does bother me that he lied to Fox honchos after they confronted him. Journalists who are comfortable liars should make everyone supremely uncomfortable."

Ben Smith (Editor-in-Chief, Buzzfeed):

"I'd be very leery of hiring someone who had been a disloyal an employee, an obvious contradiction because of course I've long relied on leaks from people acting against their bosses' interests."

Elizabeth Spiers (Editor-in-Chief, The New York Observer):

"I think the whole thing's more of a management lesson: Don't do anything you'd be embarrassed to have leaked by a mole. And assume all internal communications might as well be prefaced with FOR PUBLICATION."

The Fox Mole has not posted since April 12th, the same day Jeff Bercovici at Forbes reported that Joe Muto made $5,000 off of his grand exit from the network and Gawker posted the legal threat Fox sent them. The stunt has earned Gawker over 1.8M pageviews.

That doesn't count the recent Gawker post bylined not by Muto, but staff writer John Cook: a small cache of Roger Ailes' internal network missives sent "to staffers at The O'Reilly Factor in 2008 and 2010," which were "recently obtained" by the site.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

CNN Chief Business Correspondent Ali Velshi was apparently traveling on the same flight as serial entrepreneur, and Fox News, BusinessWeek, and Huffington Post contributor Grant Cardone on today's Delta Flight 1063 out of JFK when a bird smashed into one of the engines shortly after takeoff, which, according to Velshi, filled the cabin with smoke.

According to Cardone, who claims to have video of the birds hitting—not up yet—they were seagulls. But he does have video up right now of a post-birdstrike engine in action. Even more, can you guess what he was doing when the birds hit? Book publicists, be proud:

But, they're safe:

That said, there's a lesson here, so New Media students, take note: This is how you get Twitter followers.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek