Jerry Stiller and Angela Lansbury. (Photo credit: Getty Images).

In a glossy media city that values professional polish, NY1, Time Warner’s no-frills news channel, enjoys a certain cult following, as evidenced by the high-profile fans who gathered at the New York Public Library last Thursday to celebrate two decades of “weather on the ones.”

The event reflected the unassuming charms of the station, where anchors style themselves and pan-away shots reveal a bullpen that is more Community than The Newsroom. Though there was an open bar, the wine glasses had thick stems, and the hors d’oeuvres, while tasty, might have arrived straight from Trader Joe’s.

“I love being part of New York City, and a part of New York City that is very unique is a small station called NY1,” said Jerry Stiller. “Pat Kiernan is wonderful with the newspapers. He starts reading them at 6 o’clock and you are ahead of the game already,” Mr. Stiller continued. “But there are no twists. It’s just the pure news; no other station does that.”

Earlier this year, Mr. Kiernan—whose In the Papers segment has made him as famous as one can be in New York without being famous everywhere—publicly lobbied to sit next to Kelly Ripa on Live! With Kelly at the more humane hour of 9 o’clock. Then, very publicly, he didn’t get the job. “It usually isn’t so public,” he told the Transom. “Even for TV jobs, you usually just go into a studio somewhere and the crew knows you are auditioning, but you haven’t had five million people critique your audition.”

Many of the guests at the anniversary party were relieved Mr. Kiernan didn’t get the gig.

“My girlfriend, Sandra, can’t live a day without it,” said Scott Adsit, who plays Pete the producer on 30 Rock. “We’ve been to a lot of Hollywood-type parties and Broadway-type parties, but I’ve never seen her this excited to meet celebrities in my life. She’s beside herself to be in the same room as Pat Kiernan.”

So he was trying to impress her?

“Yes! I’m trying to get some,” Mr. Adsit replied.

“Is that—what’s her name, the woman who does the parenting report?” Sandra Bauleo, Mr. Adsit’s tall brunette girlfriend, whispered. Indeed, it was Shelly Goldberg, who has been recommending kid-friendly activities to viewers for years.

Meanwhile, mayoral hopefuls (when asked, most said that they will announce “after the presidential election”) came to kiss Errol Louis’s ring. Mr. Louis hosts Inside City Hall, the nightly show about city politics.

“They are my constituents; I represented them when they were on 42nd Street and I represent them in Chelsea Market,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.

“I’ve been watching NY1 literally since they started. I was on the Dinkins campaign,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “I’m a ‘weather on the ones’ type of guy. And of course, Inside City Hall.”

“There are two shows I DVR: the first is Boardwalk Empire and the second is Inside City Hall,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

Veteran NY1 anchors Roma Torre, Louis Dodley and Budd Mishkin accepted praise and blue Tiffany’s boxes—they were part of the original team of reporters who started 20 years ago.

“I couldn’t live without NY1. I wake up to it and I go to sleep to it,” said Angela Lansbury. “It’s like a very dear friend.” Ms. Lansbury hummed the channel’s soft-jazz theme music.

Waiters passed around miniature black-and-white cookies and cake lollipops. It was time to head home.

The anniversary party was the same night as the vice-presidential debate, so the library cleared out promptly as everyone rushed home to watch Joe Biden duke it out with his “friend, the congressman.”

The next morning, like always, we woke up to NY1

The governor also criticized the existing standing committees charged with monitoring ethical violations, which have yet to discipline a slew of lawmakers who have run afoul of the law (Joe Bruno, Hiram Monserrate, and others).

"There is a standing legislative ethics committee and I'm wondering what you'd ever had to do to get them to meet and police themselves," Paterson said 

"You've got a situation where the legislators will not turn on each other and discipline each other and we've disgraced ourselves," he said.

When Louis said the "moneyed interests" in attendance for the governor's speech yesterday didn't like what they heard, Paterson agreed, and said, "They went right over and patted the legislators they control on the shoulder and go out and make nasty remarks about me after I made the speech."

Later, Paterson dismissed the rival ethics proposal state lawmakers had been working on. 

"What the Legislature was planning on doing was putting a couple of bandages on the problem and sneaking it in behind my back," Paterson said.

His own plan, he said, would even monitor good government groups, "which they won't like," he said, noting his bill calls for requiring the groups to make public who their funders are.

"Here are good government groups who are always talking about what government is doing, and no one knows who their donors are," Paterson said. "It's about time they realize they have been drunk with power, just like the legislators."

Paterson is doing a round of radio interviews this morning, which are keeping a few reporters busy this morning.

"The legislature, had they passed the wealth-based plan that I initiated, we wouldn't be here. The fact is they didn't do anything. The only thing they did was take $391 million of stimulus money from next year and used it to fill the gap in 2009," David Paterson told Errol Louis on WWRL, continuing his legislative bashing. "If the legislature had done it, we could have protected these school districts. I'm now across-the board reducing those payments."

Louis asked Paterson whether special interest groups--such as unions representing teachers and hospital workers--are to blame for the crisis. Paterson said they were doing their jobs. He again blamed legislators.

"The shame of it is that elected officials whose job it was to address this left Albany, left a half billion gap and dumped the whole thing on me. Then they want to sue me because I want to keep the state from becoming insolvent," Paterson said. "I think the real lesson to be learned here, Errol, is that actions have consequences and choices matter. People are going to remember who stuck their head up and who stuck their head in the sand, and shirked their responsibility."

Two other choice quotes from the interview:

First, Paterson explained his confidence that a court would uphold his mid-year cuts. "Hey listen: I hope that these groups keep suing me. They're not going to beat me. I said that in the lieutenant governor race and everyone laughed at me, and who's laughing now? We have a lieutenant governor."

And then, as he complained about Wall Street firms not paying bonuses and how it de-stocked state coffers, he quoted Barack Obama's admonishment of bankers this Sunday. Paterson, not on the best terms with Obama, gave a speech last week defending Wall Street.

"I'm not interested in helping any fat cats on Wall Street, but if we don't pay the bonuses, who gets the money?" Paterson said.

"What I said was that if I were making the decision, it's not the decision I would have made," Paterson told Errol Louis on WWRL. "New York has been through a lot. Not only were 2,700 people killed on September 11, but remember the federal government and the Environmental Protection Agency told us it was safe to work and live near ground zero and it turned out it wasn't."

"That was considered to be un-American," Paterson continued. "Look, being vigilant against the terrorists doesn't mean we sacrifice the public health of people who are forced in the same area, and many of them got sick later on, and now it's kind of embarrassing. So it was a very difficult time for New Yorkers. There was post-traumatic stress syndrome."

The Obama administration has signaled it does not want Paterson to seek election in 2010. Paterson nonetheless promised to support the decision for the trial.

"They have more data than me," Paterson said. "Why they're having a civilian trial instead of a military one is something I have not had the opportunity to research, but that's our president, and if that's the way he wants to do it I will comply 100 percent with him."

Louis also criticized Bloomberg for defending the comment by drawing a comparison to Detroit.

“New Yorkers, all too familiar with gutter politics, reacted instantly,” Louis wrote, before quoting a bunch of unhappy observers, like Bill de Blasio, Gabe Pressman and Fred Siegel.

Notably missing from the chorus of outrage, though, is the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is hardly one to keep silent on matters of racial justice. Especially when it involves Giuliani. The Giuliani-Sharpton relationship goes back a number of years.

Which is why I reached out to him earlier this week. Surprisingly, he hasn't had anything to say about the matter. On Monday I was told by his spokesperson that Sharpton has "been in back to back meetings” and not available to comment.

Reporter Erin Einhorn has reported that Liu’s initial claim of working alongside his mom at a sweatshop wasn’t supported by his mother’s own recollection.

The Daily News coverage basically says Liu is fabricating the story.

But Errol Loius, a columnist at the Daily News and member of their editorial board, says that the problem is less with John Liu than with his colleagues.

On his radio show this morning, Louis--who disclosed that his wife works for Liu’s campaign and that he, Louis, has recused himself from the editorial process as it applies to the comptroller's race--said it doesn’t matter if the work was taking place at home or in a factory.

Louis said, “Working at home, industrial work at home is illegal, it’s part of the sweatshop system. That’s the whole thing, that’s whole point. That’s the whole point. Sweatshops exists because they have tentacles in all kinds of hidden places.”

Louis went on to say that sweatshop work takes place in a lot places around the city (restaurants, car washes) and that the issue is mistakenly thought of as only happening in factories.

“We need to educate the media about some of this stuff. I got some colleagues who I think need to learn how to do their jobs maybe just a little bit better,” Louis said.

This morning, he went back on the show where he first aired the complaint to say he had been misunderstood. And after explaining his point, Paterson said he hoped this would be the end of it.

On the show, WRRL Morning Show with Errol Louis, Paterson said, “I was wrong to get into an assessment of how the media views me and I do not think that race has anything to do with my poll numbers, or anything to do with my political issues in this day. And shouldn’t have said it, straight out.”

Paterson said he was reacting to NY1 News anchor Dominic Carter’s earlier interview where he referred to the widely reported story of Paterson visiting a nightclub with his daughter, and staying out late. Paterson said it was a restaurant, not a club, and that he left by 9:30 p.m.

This morning, Paterson said, “In overacting to it, I probably lent to the suggestion that there is bias in the media. There’s bias everywhere but I don’t think there’s any particular bias towards me in the media or that the media is racist.”

Referring to his interview last week which touched off this firestorm, Paterson said, “And I don’t think that even that day I would have said the media was racist. But I was saying that there are instances where I feel there are negative stereotypes that get into situations.”

As Liz Benjamin notes, Louis had to step in at one point and save Paterson from himself.

"You know what? Let me cut you off here; you don’t have to explain what you think it was, because what I think you think it was is probably wrong."

Paterson's earlier criticism wasn't just reserved for the mainstream media, but rather, included a pointed dig at minority journalists.

“We don’t have the kind of forces in the community that we had before," Paterson told Louis last week. "In other words, our black media outlets, save your program and a few others, are the only ways that we have access. And even our reporters from our own community buy the public line, which is ‘we’re going to get rid of David Paterson.’"

The reporter singled out by the governor last week, Dominic Carter of NY1, said that criticism was tantamount to being called an “Uncle Tom.” Carter has publicly asked for an apology.

Judging from Paterson’s comments today, it’s not likely to come.

In an interview this morning on WWRL with Errol Louis, Paterson talked about the tone of news coverage toward him and Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick (on the leaders of the State Senate) as negative given the state's current fiscal woes, and told Louis "we're not in the post-racial period." (Louis, Patrick and Paterson are all African-American.)

Paterson went on to say "the next victim on the list and you see it coming is President Barack Obama," and then cited a column by Fred Dicker that other African-American lawmakers have suggested was racist.

In a statement issued this afternoon, Paterson said that "at no point did I claim that this media piling-on effect was due to race."

Here's the rest of it:

"During a radio interview this morning, I made some observations about the tone of some of the recent negative media coverage.

"At no point did I claim that this media piling-on effect was due to race - elected officials of all races get piled on by the media all the time; that is the nature of our business. What I did point out was that certain media outlets have engaged in coverage that exploits racial stereotypes.

"That's not only unfair - it's wrong - and it sends an objectionable message. I will not shy away from speaking honestly about prejudices, some subtle and some not, nor will I fail to point out that we have a long way to go to achieve a truly post-racial society."

An email from the organizers previewing the event asks, “Are the news media revising their views on Mayor Bloomberg in this election year?”

(Yes?)

Here are the details:

The Media and the Mayor:

Michael Bloomberg’s Transformation

Wednesday April 22, 2009, 8:30 to 10am

Theresa Lang Community & Student Center 55 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th avenues), 2nd floor

Once he was described as an antidote to the old urban politics. Today he’s become an institution whose work could define a generation in government much like two other three-term mayors, Ed Koch and Robert Wagner. Are the news media revising their views on Mayor Bloomberg in this election year? Can he hold on to the winning image of an independent, effective reformer three times in a row?

WITH:

Wayne Barrett, Senior Editor, The Village Voice

Robert George, Associate Editorial Page Editor, New York Post

Errol Louis, Columnist and Editorial Board Member, New York Daily News

Joyce Purnick, veteran political columnist and reporter, The New York Times

Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, Executive Editor, El Diario/La Prensa

MODERATOR:

Dominic Carter, Anchor, "Road to City Hall," NY1 News

Admission is free but you must RSVP. Call 212.229.5418 or email centernyc@newschool.edu.

UPDATE: Relatedly, Purnick's publisher has an excerpt of the book online now. In it, she describes a scene at a private event in Idaho in 2008 where Bloomberg goes to Rupert Murdoch to ask for help.

“So there’s going to be substantial change when it comes to redistricting,” Sampson said, speaking on 1600 WWRL with host Errol Louis.

For years, there was a gentleman's agreement in Albany when it came to redrawing legislative lines, which happens once a decade: Democrats draw the lines for lines for the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Republicans draw the lines for seats in the Republican State Senate. Congressional lines are carefully negotiated.

Now, Democrats control the Assembly, State Senate and the governor's mansion, so, Republicans won't have much of a say in the matter.

Long Island had been a stronghold for the Senate Republicans for decades, but that has steadily been eroded. Democrat Craig Johnson won a special election in 2006 and earlier this year, Democrat Brian Foley ousted long-time Republican Senator Casear Trunzo.

Electing more Senate Democrats could relieve that conference of relying on finicky members who, until last night, were still threatening to ruin the Democrats' chances of taking over that house for the first time in four decades.

Which is to say that even if the anti-democratic gentleman's agreement between the parties goes away, the process isn't like to get any less political. At least not without a major fight.

While reform-minded lawmakers like Michael Gianaris, have sought to take political consideration out of the redistricting process, others, like Representative Joe Crowley, have argued that this is the Democrats' chance to get back at Republicans who redrew congressional and state legislative districts in their states for years to eliminate Democrats.

]]> Democratic Senator John Sampson said the shape of the senate districts on Long Island will “change substantially” and predicted “there will be an African-American elected to the State Senate on Long Island.”

“So there’s going to be substantial change when it comes to redistricting,” Sampson said, speaking on 1600 WWRL with host Errol Louis.

For years, there was a gentleman's agreement in Albany when it came to redrawing legislative lines, which happens once a decade: Democrats draw the lines for lines for the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Republicans draw the lines for seats in the Republican State Senate. Congressional lines are carefully negotiated.

Now, Democrats control the Assembly, State Senate and the governor's mansion, so, Republicans won't have much of a say in the matter.

Long Island had been a stronghold for the Senate Republicans for decades, but that has steadily been eroded. Democrat Craig Johnson won a special election in 2006 and earlier this year, Democrat Brian Foley ousted long-time Republican Senator Casear Trunzo.

Electing more Senate Democrats could relieve that conference of relying on finicky members who, until last night, were still threatening to ruin the Democrats' chances of taking over that house for the first time in four decades.

Which is to say that even if the anti-democratic gentleman's agreement between the parties goes away, the process isn't like to get any less political. At least not without a major fight.

While reform-minded lawmakers like Michael Gianaris, have sought to take political consideration out of the redistricting process, others, like Representative Joe Crowley, have argued that this is the Democrats' chance to get back at Republicans who redrew congressional and state legislative districts in their states for years to eliminate Democrats.

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