Katrina Aftermath coverage: Where's the Big Picture?

He was speaking over a cellular telephone connection, sizing up story ideas, juggling broadcast priorities and taping up a broken window all at the same time.

Still, NBC anchor Brian Williams found time to call me, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina and the flooding it brought had devastated New Orleans before a national audience, certain that the destruction and suffering we all had witnessed would bring important changes.

"We're going to be talking about this in someway for the rest of my lifetime and yours," he said, certain that the debacle of delayed relief and starving in the streets would kick off a new national dialogue on race, class and poverty in America. "I think my children will have children before this issue is over. I think this -- like it or not -- This will color our debates...color our coversations on these larger issues for a long time."

At the time, Williams expected to craft a prime time special, perhaps two hours long, to cover all the issues. He got a 30-minute documentary which aired on an NBC Universal-owned cable network, the Sundance Channel.

Indeed, the media world will turn its eyes to New Orleans this week, covering the twin events of the first post-Katrina Mardi Gras and the six-month anniversary of the storm which nearly destroyed the city. Every major TV network will anchor its evening newscasts from the Big Easy today and tomorrow; NPR's All Things Considered will be there all week; CNN's Anderson Cooper has already gone there to continue covering the story which helped make his national reputation. There will be lots of stories about individual suffering, government incompetence and the struggle to rebuild

But in all this coverage, that larger national dialogue -- the one where the nation re-examines issues of poverty, race and class in America, aided by strong journalism -- hasn't really happened.

I'll have a story in Wednesday's Times about why. But here's a few thoughts on the issue from people who should know.

Jim Amoss, editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper: "I think it hasn't happened on a national basis, mainly because its not a topic by and large people are
comfortable with. It has to be forced on them. Once the dire circumstances go away, so does most people's willinness to have the conversation. In New Orleans, it is or will be happening, in part, because the city has to be reinvented...and all those issues are wrapped up in race in New Orleans.''

Michele Norris, co-anchor, National Public Radio's All Things Considered: "There are reporters chipping away at these issues, but it hasn't sparked this big thematic debate that we saw around poverty in 1968. More than anything else, that came out of political leadership. Hearings on the issue. Bobby Kennedy taking a bipartisan group of senators into the South....Many reporters have talked about the epiphanies they've had. I think that story will live inside them. And may change the way they look at the politics of poverty and the conditions of poverty. You may see the coverage change in more subtle ways based on what reporters have seen.''

Andrew Tyndall, network news analyst: "You'd have to say the majority of the coverage....is still on the level of human interest and focusing on the evacuees themselves, rather than on the underlying issues. There's no evidence that there's any increase in (network news) coverage, even by NBC, on the other issues -- urban policy, poverty, race relations, coastal environmental policy, including wetlands preservation and global warming, and energy conservation...In the abscence of news, all of this coverage has to be at the level of feature coverage.''

Tom Rosenstiel, executive director, The Project for Excellence in Journalism: "I think for history to have taken on a meaning about race and class and probably economic policy, that would have required some eloquent and continuing arguments by opponents of the Bush administration, and opponents of the Republican party. The Democrats weren't up to that...(and) there was enough blame to go around here....The first task ofthe press after Katrina was to find out what went wrong and what's happening on the ground now. The issue of what's to be done from here, even now, is probably beyond the skill set of the press. What we're talking
about now, trying to figure out in a larger sense what does this mean -- What did it expose about us as a country? -- That's pretty high order work. In the end, that comes down to "What is the American public ready to believe?'''

Jonathan Alter, columnist, author and pundit, Newsweek magazine and NBC News: "In some ways, it's another missed opportunity of the bush presidency. In the same way that after 9/11 he had a way to rally and unify the country, after katrina, he had the same opportunity. And in both cases, he squandaered it. . I do think that's what newspapers, magazines and TV networks don't recognize: there's a great interest in this. It was one of those television moments; kind of like when the dogs and fire hydrants were turned on the civil rights demostrators...(But) the images alone don't bring change.''

Jane Knitzer, executive director, National Center for Children in Poverty: "You ask why (no national dialogue)...we puzzle over that a lot. Americans don't like to talk about poverty. And if they do talk about it, they like to see it as an individual problem, not a structural problem. It's kind of blaming the victim, and not looking at what happens when you make policy choices which priviledge the wealthy."

History Channel gves $10,000 to Help Florida Historians Looking for Angola

Ever since TV producer Vickie Oldham left her job at Sarasota ABC affiliate WWSB-TV -- she was one of five black women who challenged the station's license renewal on grounds of racial discrimination -- she had the story of Angola in the back of her mind.

For years, she worked to unearth the story of an all-black settlement founded somewhere along the Manatee River by runaway slaves in the early 1800's; the oldest known instance of a black community in Florida. She raised more than $100,000 to further her research and make a documentary, Looking for Angola, which debuted on public TV last week.

Now she's got another $10,000 from the History Channel, to fund archaelogical digs and get students involved with the site excavation while learning about the community -- a most excellent way to spend five figures, preserving and unearthing a little-known chapter in Florida's annals of black history.

Straight Talk on TV's New Love Affair with Interracial Relationships

You know you've been around a while when other critics start calling you for quotes.

The topic most recently was the new uptick in interracial relationships on prime time network TV shows. Given that I covered TV for eight years, have written about the issue before and are currently involved in an interracial marriage, I guess that made me the perfect expert for my friend Chuck Barney of the Contra Costa Times.

Chuck -- along with a TV critic pal in an interracial relationship, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Melanie McFarland -- noted a surge in such pairings on some high profile shows. Dean and Cassie from the WB's Supernatural. Joy and Darnell from NBC's My Name is Earl. Christina Yang and Preston Burke on ABC's Grey's Anatomy. Rose and Bernard on Lost (or Shanon and Sayid). Neela Rasgotra and Michael Gallant on ER. The list, these days, is long.

It's a wonderful turn, and an improvement from the days when the only interracial couples on TV were Lucy and Desi and The Jefferson's Tom and Helen Willis. I was disappointed, however, to see that Chuck only quoted part of my problem with the way current interracial relationships are portrayed on TV -- which is that race or culture is rarely a factor.

It's been my experience that race and culture differences come out in unexpected, subtle ways in modern-day interracial relationships. Rarely will you have racists say something to your face -- though two of my wife's brothers-in-law refused to sit in the same room with me when I attended my first Thanksgiving dinner at her mother's home a dozen years ago.

Instead, it's less obvious frictions: my wife encountering a woman at the grocery who refused to believe our caramel-skinned daughter could be her child by blood; the waiter who seemed to dote on the white couples around us but ignore our table for long periods; the black people in my life who would get a certain look on their face once they realized my wife is white (once had someone insist in an email discussion among black journalists that I couldn't possibly love my wife).

It's a truism that TV doesn't do subtle well. And TV especially doesn't do subtle and controversial too well. And so, most every interracial relationship on network TV unfolds as if the race and culture differences don't matter (on Lost, where producers paired a white, priviledged blonde American with a former member of the Iraqi Army, the dissonance was so great they wound up killing off her character).

There are some who see this as an advance -- a sign that we've gotten beyond the race politics which kept Star Trek from actually showing Capt. Kirk and Lt. Uhura's lips touching. Perhaps. But, as an ever-cynical observer of the media industry, I think it is more a sign of capitulation from television; an unwillingness by mostly-white TV writers to try navigating the tricky waters of America's race differences on such a visible platform.

(To see an interesting take on the black male/Asian woman coupling trend, check here. For Wikipedia's list of notable interracial couples, look here.)

The real edges of our frictions over these issues appear on some of the romantic/dating reality shows, which rarely feature interracial couples -- except on the trading spouses programs, where the ultimate message seems to be that stepping outside your culture only brings conflict. (ABC's creaky franchise The Bachelor has had one: Tampa's Mary Delgado with whatever blockhead was the bachelor that year).

Which is too bad. Because, even as many in the real world are testing the boundaries of convention while following their hearts, TV remains a step or two behind -- unwilling to walk in the deep water, for fear of getting too real for prime time.

Pundit Alert #1:

Looks like the good folks at CBS' Public Eye blog are really desperate for material: They actually published my take on their new Assignment America series and what it might mean for the new world of digital-influenced news coverage. Feel free to check it out, if only to snicker at the lousy head shot they used (not their fault; unfortunately, I only have lousy head shots available these days). Sigh.

Pundit Alert #2:

I'll also be inflicting my opinion on the notables at Rob Lorei's public affairs show for WEDU-Ch. 3, Florida This Week. So far, the issues at hand seem to be the United Arab Emirates connection to a deal at the Tampa Port Authority, polls showing Crist and Davis ahead in the Governor's race and legislation making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant. Check it out at 8:30 p.m. tonight, 12:30 p.m. Thursday or here.

Olympics Glass Half Full for Me

I could remember when I watched the Olympics full of anger.

Gimpy, nauseating athlete feature stories. Sitting through events about which I could care less. Enduring jaunty patter from a score of empty anchor suits.

Fast forward to 2006, and I'm a much happier camper. Want to know whether Shani Davis become the first African American to win a gold medal in skating in Turin? Call up NBCOLympics.com (or, even, Sptimes.com, to make a blatant plug) and watch the video well before the network gets around to broadcasting it.

Want an alert when the U.S. men's hockey team takes on Finland? A replay of the tense press conference where Davis and American rival Chad Hedrick sat at opposite ends of a long table and eventually dissed each other mercilessly? An opinion from Project Runway expert Tim Gunn on which figure skating outfits look good? (okay, probably not that)

This is why I'm digging the digital media universe. For folks like me, who just want to know enough to look smart around the watercooler, NBC's move to spread coverage all over cable-land and the Internet is way cool. I can see what i want when I want and bypass -- or enjoy -- all the nonsense.

Which is why I never really understood all the to-do this year about NBC's prime time Olympics broadcasts slumping in the ratings. In this new digital media universe, of course the Olympics ratings will fall in prime time: prime time TV viewership is down in general, the events have happened hours ago and are available online or on cable, and people have more on demand attitude than ever.

The other thing I don't get, however, is the Today show's seeming ratings boost from its deluge of Turin coverage. I'm been starting my day with Good Morning America for the past 12 days because it's nailed just the right amount of Olympics vs. real news coverage for me. It's not really news to me that pidgeons like to poop on Katie Couric or Al Roker looks awful in speed skating pants. Some of us would prefer to leave that to our imaginations.

I'm probably maladjusted, but I've always dreamed of a media universe where you could consume just as much (or as little) of a candy-coated hype fest like the Winter Olympics as you could stand. Now that its a reality, why are people complaining so much?

Did You Hear the One About the Vanishing Newscast?

Why won't anyone at Sinclair or WTTA-Ch. 38 talk about the station's newscast?

As I noted in a post a while ago, rumors have run rampant for weeks locally that Tampa's WB affiliate is about to drop its ill-fated 10 p.m. newscast. Originally cobbled together as part of Sinclair's wobbly attempt to clone Fox News Channel on its station group -- and to help WTTA sell ads to customers who don't advertise on stations without a newscast -- the local broadcast has always seemed a little starved for resources and visibility.

The latest rumor is that executives have notified the staff that the weekend broadcast is history in a week or so. But calls to the station's news director, general manager and Sinclar corporate types have yielded a big goose egg for weeks. Not even a "no comment." Just nothing.

It is always ironic when people who spend their workdays trying to get others to comment on the day's news refuse to speak up when they are in the crosshairs (reminds me of recent news on a certain local tabloid going five days weekly. But I digress).

Sure, you could probably count their viewers for that weekend newscast on Captain Hook's fingers, but doesn't the community deserve to know if one of its newscasts is going away?

PUNDIT Alert:

Looks like CBS' Public Eye blog has accepted a new idea I pitched them for one of their Outside Voices essays. If all goes as usual, I expect the essay to be published Friday. Between these guys and the Huffington Post, I may end up writing as much for other blogs as my own.

Toilet Water Hits the Big Time

I remain amazed at how far the story about Jasmine Roberts -- the Hillsborough 7th-grader who proved in a science fair experiment that toilet water was cleaner than tap water in many restaurants -- has spread.

Today the Columbia Journalism Review's CJR Daily website takes on CNN for covering her results instead of a science journal piece noting that Greenlands ice caps are melting at a faster rate that previously known.

The day before, she appeared on the Today show; a quick Google search indicates her story has appeared everywhere from Good Morning America to the Hindustan Times (see video from WTSP-Ch. 10 here)

It's testament to the power of a can't-miss concept, paired with a cute, articulate teen can go in today's media drenched news environment. As CJR noted, CNN even put its impressive news resources to work, collecting 23 samples to reproduce this 7th grader's science experiment on a national scale.

A sample of how cable and morning TV news shows are increasingly held to the same news standard as local TV outlets? For sure.

But its also an interesting example of the momentum of a persuasive idea. And that's a lesson worth learning in a world where knowledge brings increasing levels of power every day.

I expect to be working for young Jasmine before too long.

My Ambivalence About Myspace

As a father of four who is a bona-fide cyberjunkie, I've always been of two minds about MySpace.

Yeah, it's the cool new social networking space for young folks, and just about everybody seems to be on it these days. The cybersurfer in me loves the fact that you can dip into a new universe with every mouse click -- one moment you're commiserating with fans of a cool new band, the next minute you're checking out the hotties who have applied for Playboy's Girls of MySpace pictorial.

As a musician, finding a site with the ability to post some of my music has been gratifying. And entering into a network with others with similar interests is a powerful, addictive opportunity.

But the parent in me knows that passels of 14-year-olds (and younger) running around unchecked in a service where porn stars and skin mags keep prominent pages is an awful idea. (before you shrug that off, think about it: Would you let your 11 or 12-year-old sibling/child run around Times Square with no adult supervision and any time of night?)

That's why I tried to cover the waterfront a bit in my story on MySpace from today's paper; presenting a little of good, bad and ugly about the site. The fact remains: If those who run MySpace don't figure out a way to keep the younger users a bit more isolated and protected, some awful incident will send advertisers running and shut down the service.

It's good news that the News corp.-owned site plans to install a safety czar to develop plans for safeguarding children on the service. But it's hard to know how they will make this vibrant, ever-changing landscape safe for kids without killing the volatile energy that makes it so much fun in the first place.

What do you think?

The Cold War Between Tampa Bay's Newspapers Heats Up

I've heard people say we are lucky in the Tampa Bay area to have real newspaper competition.

But, as a colleague of mine noted, we don't have a direct newspaper competition so much as a journalism cold war -- where the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times fight each other directly for subscribers mostly in a few select communities, like, Pasco County.

Still, the Tribune owns Hillsborough County circulation-wise, and the Times owns its side of the Bay -- for the most part. But that competition may be heating up following news that the Times has decided to expand publication of its free tabloid tbt* to five days a week, with a special pull out section on Fridays. The news prompted a federal lawsuit by the Tampa Tribune, which has complained that the tbt* name -- which I always thought stood for Tampa Bay Times -- violates a copyright they hold for the name Tampa Times.

The news comes as Media General released profit figures this week noting that advertising revenue at the Tampa Tribune rose 13.9 percent from January 2005 levels, including an 18 percent rise in classified advertising. That's interesting news in the wake of competition from online services such as Craigslist and eBay.

The news about tbt* had been rumored in the Times newsroom for many days. Advertisers seem to love the scrappy tabloid, which has developed a snarky, unique voice in presenting splashy stories about a porn video filmed at The Pier and media coverage of the Debra LaFave case. Already, the tab has become a significant competitor for Tampa's alternative newspaper the Weekly Planet; news that tbt* will be stepping up production can't be good news for them, either.

Industry convention says such tabloids are a combination starter kit/laboratory for newspapers -- getting younger readers to consider a regular newspaper habit, while acting as an incubator for fresh approaches which can be imported to the mothership publication. Much as I love my friends who work at tbt*, I worry that such publications really encourage young readers to see newspapers as irrelevant to their lives outside of entertainment. That's not a perception which will help traditional newspapers improve their brand much.

Still, with tbt* expanded to five days, the writing is indeed on the wall. Readers who complained about our front page story on Chuck Norris jokes or the big spread on allegedly gay strip club owner Joe Redner should steel themselves; the importation of attitude and coverage style from our youth-focused sister publication has only begun.

N-Word Controversy Reveals Our Own Stilted Dialogue on Race

In an odd way, it is a sign of how far we have come: A white teacher in Louisville, Ky. has made national headlines following his use of the word nigger to refer to a black student.

Paul Dawson is appealing a 10-day suspension for admittedly telling the student "Well then, nigga, get away from my window." He also said the student used the term first, and that kids all over the school use the term in the same way others might say "dude" or "man."

But the student, 18-year-old Keysean Chavers, said he didn't use the word first; a claim backed by other students interviewed from the class. He has told journalists he felt Dawson's actions were unwarranted and offensive.

The main part of this controversy is easily understood. Dawson, a teacher with a history of using clumsily offensive teaching techniques to talk about social differences, made another boneheaded error here. Even when I was in high school, students used curse words all the time; that didn't mean it was appropriate for teachers to stoop to their language level.

But this case -- as so many of these incidents do -- reveals something deeper: our inability to talk about or reconcile our deep ambivalence about the n-word.

That ambivalence is rooted in black culture, where we use the word with each other, often in endearing terms, but recoil when someone outside the culture uses it.

Those who abhor the use of the word often seize on this contradiction. But there are plenty of women who call their friends bitches who wouldn't appreciate a man they didn't know employing similar languages some homosexual men also call each other the f-word in a way they would never tolerate from a straight male.

Complicating things is the way rap culture has taken the n-word to new levels of visibility. Suddenly, something that was an in-crowd behavior among black people has been plastered all over the globe, with adherents insisting there is some distinction between the classic "nigger" and rap-ified "nigga." I must confess, I've never believed such a thing -- the word is the word, and couching it in a slang version doesn't answer the core question.

Can a non-black person use the word in general company without being considered racist? And if not, isn't THAT racist?

In considering this, I am reminded of a great quote by -- of all people -- Dr. Phil: "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?"

I do think the double standard on the n-word makes little sense. But black folks have been talking that way since before I was born --finding power in a word originally used to demean them. So I don't think that behavior will change soon.

We can, however, change how we talk about these incidents in the wider public space when they happen. Hysterical anger serves no one; if someone who has a long record of good works makes a slip of the tongue, there should be room to conclude that a good person did a bad thing, without imposing a capital punishment. We have seen locally how the debate over teachers with good records who mistakenly use awful racial language can be hijacked by emotion and the drive to punish.

Dawson is seriously flawed teacher who probably shouldn't be working in a classroom -- not because he is a racist, but because he doesn't have the good sense to deal with difference constructively in a learning environment.

Learning how to make that distinction when we talk about such incidents, might turn Dawson's awful mistake into a powerful teaching tool for us all.

My Last Dick Cheney Media Post -- Maybe

One of the problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets."
--- Vice President Dick Cheney, to Brit Hume Wednesday on Fox News Channel.

I know you're tired of reading about it. I'm almost tired of writing about it.

But I can't let the vice president's recent comments on his shooting accident pass without noting the conduct of the source he chose to deliver his mea culpa -- Fox News Channel.

It is nice that the Veep decided to put the brakes on a spin strategy that involved blaming the 78-year-old victim for getting shot. And it wasn't news that Dick Cheney would defend his decision not to tell the national media of the incident for a day -- the purpose of this interview, after all, was to speak directly to those conservatives who were starting to question the V.P.'s secretive, non-sensical disclosure decisions. Throwing his supporters a few bones to help spin this issue, Cheney artfully blamed Elitist Eastern Media for the controversy, suggesting the New York Times is mostly upset over being scooped by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

But even given Fox News Channel's reputation as a conservative haven, I was a bit surprised by interviewer Brit Hume's spin in favor of preserving Cheney's reputation. Speaking with Shepard Smith soon after interviewing the vice president Wednesday, talking up clips of the interview which would play in full on his own 6 p.m. show, Hume began to sound a bit like the Mary Matalins and Fay Buchanans who have been trying for days to put the best face on this awful situation.

"One may not be as quick to blame him, as he is," noted Hume of Cheney's statement taking responsiblity for the shooting, not so willing to absolve Whittington of blame in the accident. "Obviously, he (Cheney) didn't do it on purpose."

Obviously. But tough questions remain. Why didn't he speak to police until the next day? Why haven't police filed an official report yet? Why hasn't Whittington's blood alcohol level been released or discussed? Why would he think that having the ranch owner speak to a local newspaper was the best venue to announce the vice president had accidentally shot someone?

These questions weren't directly asked. But viewers did get a dose of Hume's view of how the incident affected Cheney -- a humanizing effect that was also the likely intent of the interview. "My sense was that he is shaken...I've known him a long time, we're not close. He's not an outwardly emotional man...but he was, he's disturbed about this. He's troubled. This is a worried man."

Hume also made it clear that he wasn't asking about Cheney's delay in telling the press about the incident because he was interested in the issue: "If this is the only appearance he's going to make, I felt some obligation to ask as many questions as others might want asked. Responsible questions."

But of course. The whole sad display, which was repeated on John "Fighting the War on Christmas" Gibson's show an hour later, only highlighted what a sad political spectacle this event has become -- partisan to the point that even the guy who was shot has PR people from the hospital telling reporters this is "much ado about nothing."

But journalists' problem is that it isn't really "nothing." The vice president shot a man who later had a mild heart attack from his injuries. And the vice president apparently didn't disclose important information about the incident to the White House for many hours, didn't talk to the police for 14 hours and didn't make a public statement for four days.

As a metaphor for the Bush administration's other problems with imperiousness, secrecy and disclosure, it's irresistible. And it has consumed much of the White House press corps attention because Dick Cheney had to be forced by a tsunami of reaction into the most basic public disclosures about what happened -- including a brief admission that he did consume a beer at lunch on the day of the accident.

Unfortunately, Hume was too busy making a striking point -- a journalist in Washington defending Cheney's decision to keep the press in the dark for nearly a full day after the shooting -- to press on these other issues.

Hume's take: "It's fun to talk about the (American people as Cheney's) employers across the nation, and in sort of a broad constitutional sense that's true. If my email is any guide---I don't think much of the nation feels particularly deprived that they found out about this on Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening instead of Saturday night or Sunday morning...It's a question of timing...This is a private hunting accident."

I can only assume the next time a Washington politician makes a mistake in a private setting, Hume will be as accomodating in curbing his journalistic curiosity.

UPDATE - In between actually doing work, I stumbled upon a most excellent essay by NYU professor Jay Rosen on what he thinks is really going on here - Cheney and the Bush administration have refused to accept the mainstream press' longstanding role as surrogate for the public.

When they must make public statements, they will make them to friendly press organs - or create their own press organs, in the case of Armstrong Williams and the Video News Release scandals.

So when Cheney had a longtime pal call a friendly newspaper columnist, and he waited four days to speak with a supportive Brit Hume it wasn't a mistake. The Veep was openly disregarding the notion that he had any obligation to deal with the massive national press apparatus, which he and other conservatives view as just another partisan interest group.

Like Cheney himself, the essay is compelling and more than a little scary....

Public Relations 101: Silence Only Makes the Problem Worse

File this one under "Nice try, guys."

I got this email from the good folks at the conservative-leaning Media research Center yesterday: "Eric – In a conspiracy to tarnish the Vice President’s reputation, the liberal media is blowing this accident out of proportion. Some reporters are questioning whether the shooting was accidental, and the New York Times unearthed old, irrelevant incidents to further smear Cheney. The Media Research Center is tracking exactly how this bias is playing out as this story unfolds – more info at www.mrc.org."

Aside from revealing the astonishing manner in which partisans will serve as apologists for "their side," the MRC email also got the culprit wrong.

The ongoing controversy over Dick Cheney's hunting accident isn't hanging around because of a liberal-tilting media. It's because of the vice president himself, and his refusal to address the matter publicly.

Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer is among those who said as much in an interview with Editor and Publisher magazine, noting what others have been saying for days -- that the vice president's office should have announced the incident Saturday night or Sunday morning.

It has been a little disconcerting to see Washington reporters acting astonished that the news was leaked to a small paper first -- just as it was disappointing to see the editor of the Corpus Christi newspaper try to turn one columnist's personal connection with the ranch owner into a major reportorial triumph. (Yes, it was cool that the ranch owner thought enough of the local paper to give them the scoop; but taking a cellphone call from a friendly source is hardly investigative journalism at its finest.)

Attempts to shrug this off as a tempest in a teapot have withered following shooting victim Harry Whittington's heart attack yesterday due to a piece of buckshot lodged in his heart -- a development the White House also sat on for hours.

Unfortunately for Dick Cheney, this incident reinforces a multitude of negative observations about his approach: that he is too secretive; that he has too much autonomy; that he doesn't care about the public's right to know; that he is callous; that he cannot deviate from a mistaken approach, even when it is clearly wrong.

Cheney is expected to sit down with one of the most friendly national press outlets available, Fox News Channel, at 2 p.m. today, for an interview to be aired throughout the day and during Brit Hume's 6 p.m. newscast. Expect lots of tapdancing and obfuscation from a politician who has shown he has a tough time admitting the limitations of his power in the smallest instances.

CHAPPELLE's Point of view: It's Hollywood That is Crazy

Those lucky enough to see the two-hour Inside the Actors' Studio featuring comic Dave Chapelle got an earful of the lanky firebrand's take on race, stand up comedy, showbusiness and the appeal of controlled substances.

Chapelle made headlines last year when he walked away from a $50 million contract with Comedy Central while filming the third season of his wildly popular Chappelle's Show series. Rumors flew that he was on drugs or crazy -- two theories which showbiz veteran Chappelle inexplicably found insulting and nonsensical (only in show business would a guy who walks away from $50 million be surprised when people call him crazy).

I've always felt Chappelle was a huge talent with an equally huge capacity for self-destruction. But he did make an interesting point
on that score Sunday, referring to mentor Martin Lawrence's well-publicized public meltdown.

"Lemme ask you this: what is happening in Hollywood that a guy that that tough will be on the street waving a gun, screaming 'They are trying to kill me?' What's going on? Why is Dave Chappelle going to Africa? Why does Mariah Carey make a $100-million deal and take her clothes off on (MTV)? A weak person cannot get here to sit and talk to you. Ain't no weak people talking to you. so what is happening in Hollywood?...These people are not crazy; they're strong people. Maybe the environment, is a little sick."

Wise words, even if they are coming from a guy trying to justify walking away from the biggest deal of his life.

Dick Cheney Shoots a Hunting Buddy and Tells No One

These are the moments that make me love the rhythms of a free press.

As I write these words, White House spokesman Scott McClellan is getting handed his head over the administration's lapse in informing the press corps that the Vice President had shot a man during a hunting trip Saturday.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan's story -- which he stuck to, despite a heated grilling from assembled media -- was that Dick Cheney agreed to let the owner of the ranch where he was hunting notify the press about the accident, in which he sprayed 78-year-old Austin lawyer Harry Whittington with buckshot about the face and neck around 5:30 p.m Saturday.

NBC reporter David Gregory, displaying his increasingly deft ability to sum up the total idiocy of McClellan's lame-o excuses, asked incredulously: The vice president let a private citizen deliver this news to the world? And she chose, in her infinite wisdom, to tell the 60,000-circulation Corpus Christi Caller-Times only?

Amazingly, for those of us who enjoy seeing McClellan twist in the wind, this was not the best tidbit. The press secretary then said that neither he nor the White House even knew the Vice President was the shooter until about 6 a.m. Sunday, 12 hours later.

McClellan should have known there is no fury like a reporter scooped. And a roomful of national reporters scooped by a small local newspaper under fishy circumstances was bound to generate a tsunami of pointed questions.

It's hard to understand why McClellan gets so agitated during these exchanges. He's asking the White House press corps to believe he went to bed Saturday night not knowing whether Dick Cheney shot someone, totally at peace with the notion that the woman who owns the ranch would release details of the accident to a local newspaper with no involvement from his office.

Dan Froomkin, author of the controversial WashingtonPost.com column Washington Briefing, asks the best question we didn't hear during today's press scrum -- Where the heck is Dick Cheney, anyway? Shouldn't he be explaning to America what happened instead of the administration's professional press pinata?

Of course, Fox News Channel followed the press conference with a lame-brained segment featuring an official from a hunting advocacy group, explaining how such an accident could occur and why it doesn't mean that hunting is unsafe (despite lots of prompting from the anchors, however, she wouldn't let Cheney off the hook totally for shooting without warning).

The jokes are flying already: a list of people others wish would go hunting with Cheney next (Dubya and Pat Robertson top many lists); quips that Cheney used faulty intelligence; and a photoshopped image indicating Whittington was a code name for Cheney's indicted Chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

I can't wait to see the Daily Show tonight, either. But what I'm really hoping for is an explanation for why this White House can't tell the world about a hunting accident without looking like a bizarre mix of the Keystone Kops and the Watergate conspirators.

UPDATE: You're listing them anyways in the comment section, so let's hear more -- Your coolest Dick Cheney shoots somebody joke. Best one gets some awful promotional item I have received in the mail (yet to be named)!