But who will troll the trolls? Piers Morgan and Alex Jones, somehow still trending
Drudge match: Piers Morgan and Alex Jones.
11:24 pm Jan. 8, 2013
The Lineup collects the media stories, big and small, that are on our radar each day.
Piers Morgan's Monday night encounter with the conspiracy-minded second-amendment activist Alex Jones, in a segment on Morgan's CNN prime-time talk show, is still lighting up our RSS and Twitter feeds.
“Now I get it, now I see what’s happening,” Jon Stewart said of Jones and his followers last night during an epic skewering of the gun control debate. “Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present.” The gun discussion is in limbo, Stewart added, because the right is too worried about the rise of "imaginary Hitler.”
Others, meanwhile, questioned Morgan's motivations for inviting a loose cannon onto his show.
"Whatever the reasons for booking Jones," wrote Time TV critic James Poniewozik, "it’s possible that a controversy can both raise your profile and raise an important debate. All that this interview raised, though, were questions about how many screws Jones has loose."
In fact, Morgan admits as much: "I can't think of a better advertisement for gun control than Alex Jones' interview last night," he told CNN yesterday.
On Capital...
Reuters gutting web infrastructure for 'Reuters Next,' its big online retooling
In other news...
Longtime Conde Nast communications guru Maurie Perl is leaving the company, which is now handing some of its P.R. duties over to Rubenstein and DKC. [Adweek; W.W.D.; New York Post]
Glenn Beck is repositioning The Blaze as a global libertarian news network. [BuzzFeed]
The New York Times' public editor defends Scott Shane's deep dive on intelligence leaks. [NYT/Public Editor's Journal]
Michael Calderone responds to criticism of his Politico coverage. [Fishbowl DC]
The neocon framing of the Chuck Hagel media debate. [The Huffington Post]
New Baghdad bureau chief at the Associated Press. [A.P.]
The scoop on MSNBC's new unscripted drama. [The New York Observer]
Music critic and Capital pal Maura Johnston is launching Maura Magazine. [C.J.R./Behind the News]
Quote of the day...
Maybe one of the New York Post’s [New Year's] resolutions should have been to stop confusing “sex” and “sexual assault,” because judging by their cover today, they’ve still got a bit of work to do. ... If we didn’t know any better, we’d say the Post was willfully distorting the facts in their headline to capitalize on the public’s excitement every time they read the word “SEX”/see a picture of a babe in a swimsuit.
On Twitter...
yes yes yes. RT @erik_maza Basically, Maurie Perl is Conde Nast's Sue Simmons wwd.com/media-news/fas… …
— John Koblin (@koblin) January 9, 2013
Last night was just the start. More innovations coming to @theblaze and #TheBlazeTV that I will announce tonight. Reinventing television WG
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) January 9, 2013
Current issue of @theatlantic is one brilliant article after another. And that's not even including all the excellent web stuff...boggled
— Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) January 9, 2013
On TV...
OK it's a big stretch to classify this as "media" but whatever! Here's Morrissey on "Letterman" last night:
