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    Michael Calderone

    Michael Calderone

    Media Reporter

  • Limbaugh calls MSNBC ‘honest’ while ripping CNN ad

    Rush Limbaugh thinks that both CNN and MSNBC are "Commie libs." That's not a big surprise coming from the country's top conservative talker. However, Limbaugh made a distinction Wednesday between the two networks on his radio show, claiming that "the difference is that MSNBC is honest about it." (Limbaugh also described MSNBC as filled with [...]

  • Glenn Beck draws criticism over latest Holocaust comments

    Glenn Beck has railed many times against George Soros, a Hungarian-American financier and liberal philanthropist whom the conservative host dubs the "progressive puppet master." But Beck ramped up his criticism this week on Fox News and his radio show, making comments about how Soros survived in Nazi-occupied Hungary that have provoked denunciations from Jewish organizations. [...]

  • Media Matters CEO to lunch with Rupert Murdoch

    Media Matters has a lot to say about Fox News every day. And soon, the liberal watchdog can bring its gripes with the cable network straight to the source. David Brock, the chief executive of Media Matters, won an online charity auction today that gives him — and five guests — a "friendly lunch" with [...]

  • Newsweek-Daily Beast talks back on, says report

    Tina Brown was expected to be Newsweek's next editor. Then she wasn't. Now she might be yet again. The New York Post reports that partnership talks between the iconic print magazine and the Brown-helmed news and commentary site have resumed "after a three-week cooling off period." Brown, the former editor of the New Yorker and [...]

  • CNN calls out Fox News, MSNBC for political slants

    CNN executives often play up their network's down-the-middle approach to covering politics, even as Nielsen numbers show viewers increasingly tuning into partisan shows on the right-leaning Fox News, the cable ratings leader, and the left-leaning MSNBC. That said, CNN doesn't typically claim that Fox News and MSNBC are in the tank for Republicans and Democrats, [...]

  • Washington Post columnist fires back at Bill O’Reilly

    Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank fired back Wednesday at Bill O'Reilly after the Fox News host criticized Milbank three nights last week and joked about whether Sharia law would permit decapitating the writer. Milbank said that "O'Reilly has every right to quarrel with my opinion or question my accuracy." But the writer questioned why O'Reilly [...]

  • Carlson sent fake ‘Olbermann’ emails to Philly columnist

    Tucker Carlson boasted in July that his site, the Daily Caller, had bought the domain name for liberal MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. Carlson, a conservative journalist and pundit, even said he would start using the email address keith@keitholbermann.com as a gag. So it was interesting to see that Olbermann allegedly sent some angry emails to [...]

  • CIA director says ‘leaks cannot be tolerated’

    CIA Director Leon Panetta issued an agency-wide memo Monday calling attention to "a damaging spate of media leaks on a wide range of national security issues" over the past months. The agency head singled out WikiLeaks — which published hundreds of thousands of classified Iraq and Afghanistan war documents since July — as "one egregious [...]

  • MSNBC’s Olbermann learned of suspension through media

    The Keith Olbermann suspension saga should come to a close Tuesday night. But don't expect the outspoken liberal to apologize to the network when he returns to host "Countdown." Olbermann, suspended Friday for making three donations to Democratic candidates, a violation of the network policy, revealed some new details about his suspension in a Monday [...]

  • Will NYT’s new DealBook get pay-wall ‘reprieve’?

    The New York Times is rolling out a new website and print component this week for DealBook, the must-read financial newsletter started by Andrew Ross Sorkin that now boasts a 16-person staff. Sorkin, the Times' chief mergers-and-acquisitions reporter, who also chronicled the nation's financial collapse in last year's book, "Too Big Too Fail," spoke to [...]

  • Washington Post shakes up its White House, Congress teams

    Washington typically shakes up a bit after a major election—and that goes for the reporters covering campaigns, not just the political leaders who wage them. The Washington Post announced several moves Monday in a staff memo obtained by The Upshot. Post editors told staffers that the changes "will enhance our coverage of Congress and the [...]

  • Gibbs threatens to pull Obama from India talks after press dispute

    Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is  known for sparring with White House reporters, making for what often seems an antagonistic mood in the press briefing room. But during President Obama's trip to India, Gibbs assumed the role of press advocate and threatened to pull Obama out of bilateral talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh because [...]

  • Keith Olbermann returns to MSNBC on Tuesday

    Well that was fast! MSNBC president Phil Griffin announced Sunday night that "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann will return to the air on Tuesday. The announcement comes just two days after he was suspended "indefinitely" for contributing to three 2010 candidates without prior consent from the network. "After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have [...]

  • U.S. News to halt monthly print magazine, go digital-only

    Mort Zuckerman considers himself a "print junkie." But the billionaire real estate and media mogul told The Upshot that Friday's decision to make U.S. News & World Report a digital magazine with special print issues was the only way to ensure the magazine's "long-term viability." The magazine's staff were notified of the change in a [...]

  • MSNBC suspends Olbermann over political contributions

    MSNBC suspended "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann Friday after the news that he donated to three Democratic candidates. "I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night," MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement. "Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay." [Related: MSNBC's election night lineup criticized] [...]

  • George W. Bush calls Katrina photo a ‘huge mistake’

    Former President George W. Bush says it was a "huge mistake" to let himself be photographed looking from Air Force One down at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Bush reflected on the iconic photograph during an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer to promote his forthcoming memoir, "Decision Points." The photo was published widely and only [...]

  • MSNBC’s Olbermann donated to Democratic candidates

    MSNBC came under fire from critics this week for having liberal hosts and commentators like Keith Olbermann anchor the network's election coverage -- a role typically given to nonpartisan journalists. But it's not just Olbermann's views stirring controversy over MSNBC's political coverage; now it's his campaign giving. Politico revealed Friday that the "Countdown" host also [...]

  • MSNBC’s election night lineup draws criticism

    Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and conservative media critic Bernie Goldberg slammed MSNBC on Wednesday for having the network's top liberal hosts and commentators lead election night coverage. Goldberg praised CNN and Fox News for having nonpartisan anchors give results, with commentators on the right and left providing analysis. But he said  MSNBC "jumped the [...]

  • YouTube removes many of radical cleric’s videos

    YouTube took down numerous videos Wednesday featuring Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemen-based cleric whom the U.S. government has targeted for assassination. U.S. and British officials have recently been applying pressure on YouTube to remove al-Awlaki's videotaped calls for jihad against the West. The New York Times reports that the requests "took on greater urgency" after [...]

  • Fox News claims majority cable-news ratings as GOP claims House majority

    Republicans—and the cable network favored by Republicans—did well Tuesday. Fox News, the top-rated cable network, brought in more prime-time election night viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined. The Rupert Murdoch-owned network averaged 6.96 million viewers from 8 to 11 p.m., including 2.43 million in the  25-to-54 age demo, according to early Nielsen Media data. Since [...]