At the Daily Show With Aasif Mandvi; A Tampa Guy at the Tip of a Cultural Phenomenon

Now, I can die happy: I have walked onto the set of the Daily Show.

Of course, Jon Stewart and his cast of faux-journalists weren't exactly there. Those guys were elsewhere in the shows sprawling, 44,000 square-foot office/studio space, kicking around ideas (for those of you who saw Stewart live in Tampa last year, wearing two t-shirt and khaki pants, he seemed to be wearing the exact same ensemble today!)

I visited Daily's digs along west 52nd st. earlier today, to hang out a bit with the show's Tampa-raised, British-born Mideast Correspondent Aasif Mandvi. also known as "that guy who fired Spider Man" in the superhero movie's sequel, Mandvi is a thoughtful actor who is relishing a regular job satirizing the nation's agita on race, culture, religion and politics at a time when all these subjects are on society's front burner.

I'm going to save the quotes for later, when I work our conversation into a full-on feature for the print newspaper. But we spent nearly two hours together, talking about everything from Hollywood's inability to deal well with race issues to the culture shock he experienced as a teen when his family moved from a working class neighborhood in Britain to 1980s-era Tampa.

Along the way, I got a tour of Daily's sprawling loft of an office, with the kind of casual air usually reserved for college dorm lounges. I traded a few quips with correspondent Jason Jones -- I talked so long with Mandvi, he accused me of writing a book on him -- and got a glimpse of John Hodgman (PC Guy from the Apple commercials), who appears in a bit tonight.

Unfortunately, I came a day late to see Aasif's latest gag, in which he "reported" from inside the graphics of the bloody new video game Grand Theft Auto IV, satirizing the nation's thirst for pixilated blood and Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia's lawyerly claim that torture isn't necessarily considered punishment (as in "cruel and unusual")

I've got to cut this post short, because I'm checking out the show taping at 6 p.m.; even though Aasif doesn't appear in the program tonight, I'm hoping to soak up some color and maybe meet ace researcher Adam Chodikoff, who was the subject of much buzz in the office today over a cool feature in the Washington Post on his work digging up the show's striking video clips. 

Deggans Hits New Yawk City and Muses on Law & Order's Coolest Cop Partners

I've just touched down in New York's JFK Airport, and my first thought is to crack open the laptop and get a fresh post on the blog. I'm awfully frightened about what that says about me.

I'm here for a conference hosted by Columbia University on how the media covers race -- they were dumb enough to put me on a panel about race and election coverage moderated by Ray Suarez -- but I've also got plans to hang out with Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi (who knew he grew up in Tampa?) and Rescue Me star Denis Leary. So the blog is going to take on a certain hard headed Gotham feel for the next few days, as I give you the early skinny on my exploits.

But since I'm back in The City That Never Sleeps, I figured I'd toss up a tribute to the coolest cop show ever to grace the streets of Manhattan: Law & Order

Yeah, it's cool these days to slag off NBC's creaky cop franchise, but the mothership has gotten more interesting than ever, with new additions Linus Roache and Jeremy Sisto. So, as Law and Order says goodbye to Jesse L. Martin's Ed Green -- read last week's tribute here -- we find NBC's 18-year-old cop drama preparing to welcome its 8th team of detectives in the show’s history.

So, before Anthony Anderson’s Kevin Bernard joins Jeremy Sisto’s Cyrus Lupo at 10 p.m. tonight, it’s worth remembering the series’ coolest cop team: Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan.

A classic TV duo, onscreen and off, Jerry Orbach’s Lennie Briscoe was the weary veteran -- a reformed alcoholic whose acerbic worldview gave each episode the best one-liners in crime TV (my fave: “I specifically asked for him to be put on suicide watch. Apparently, here at Riker’s, that means that they watch you commit suicide.”)

Chris Noth’s Mike Logan was all impetuous anger and passion, eventually ushered off when he clocked a city councilman getting away with murder — as the wealthy often did on early L&O.  On a show fanatically focused on story, they remain a percolating connection to personality — providing a street-level look at each week’s crime, and a laugh or two besides.

The Rest of Law & Order's Best Partnerships:
Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green (Orbach and Jesse L. Martin): Martin’s Ed Green brought an edgy energy as the junior detective with a gambling history and a grudge against authority. As Green grew to respect his Luddite partner with the ‘50s-era pompadour, we grew to respect him.

Max Greevey and Mike Logan (George Dzundza and Noth): L&O’s first police duo, this team was hobbled a bit by a testosterone-heavy cast – no females in the core lineup, which almost got them canceled by NBC – and an ambling storytelling style. Still, the beefy Dzundza had the most realistic physique of any Law & Order cop.

Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson (Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay): Anchoring hit spin off Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, this pair produced the franchise’s first magnetic female cop and a team compelling enough to anchor the first L&O series to focus as much on characters as story.

White House Dinner Teaches the World Something I Already Knew: Craig Ferguson Is God

Craig Ferguson is God.

I first wrote those words back in 2006, when I was transfixed by the stream of consciousness monologues CBS' Late Late Show host would spin every night. In the same way that David Letterman and Conan O'Brien were more interesting when the world wasn't paying attention, Ferguson was spell-binding back then, occasionally using the monologue for serious statements on his relationship with his dad or how he felt, as a recovering addict, the time had come to stop making fun of Britney Spears.

I wrote a story about Ferguson last year that seemed to be reprinted all over the place, based on spending a half hour with the unassuming Scotsman and hanging out for a show taping. He shared about his love for South Florida and let slip that he might walk away from the show when his five years contract expires.

Now, everyone loves Ferguson because he hit a home run over the weekend as the keynote speaker for the White House Correspondents Dinner, tweaking President Bush and Dick Cheney with the right mixture of deference and sass (on Cheney: "He's funny for an evil guy."), while paying tribute to his own new status as a recently-approved citizen and even dinging the New York Times for passing up the dinner after Jayson Blair and Judith Miller already ruined their journalistic reputation.

Watching Craig dissect the dinner last night, it's obvious he's not as freewheeling as he used to be. The set's nicer, the jokes a little more predictable and his ratings have risen above media darling O'Brien's for the first time in his tenure. See a take from Europe here.

I think America's finally about to discover what I've been preaching for years, and Ferguson may find leaving the late night gig as he's peaking tougher than he anticipates.

Check out his dinner speech here:

Newspaper Circulation Figures Bring Good News for The SP Times, Bad News for Many More

First, the good news: The St. Petersburg Times was one of just two newspapers in the nation's top 25 daily papers to see a circulation increase on Sundays, up .44 percent to to 432,779 from 430,893. (the other paper to rise, over 1 percent, was the St. Louis Post Dispatch).

Now, the bad news: Many more papers saw steep declines in the figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulation Monday for newspaper subscriptions in the period ending March 31. The New York Times, for example, was down 9.2 percent Sundays (to 1.4-million) and 3.8 percent daily to 1-million, according to the trade magazine Editor and Publisher.

The Washington Post, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe all lost circulation in daily and Sunday subscriptions. Among the top 25 newspapers, just two gained daily circulation, both at the top of the list: USA Today rose .27 percent to 2.28-million and Rupert Murdoch's evolving Wall Street Journal -- which covers business less than it used to, according one analysis -- rose .35 percent to 2.069-million, according to E&P.

In Florida, the Tampa Tribune is down nearly 15,000 on Sundays, to 283,784 and down 6,468 daily to 220,522. The SP Times is also down a bit daily, dipping 6,764 to 316,007. The Orlando Sentinel gained a bit daily, up 739 to 227,593, but fell Sundays by 3,660 to 332,030.

The Miami Herald once again saw some of the biggest declines, falling 31,000 to 311,245 on Sundays and down 31,969 to 240,223 subscriptions daily. Bad news for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune as well, which fell 8,457 on Sundays to 125,644 and 3,424 daily to 114,904.

While Florida's newspaper industry continues to struggle with cratering advertising revenues, it can't help to see subscriptions dipping like this in a state with so many older, traditional newspaper readers at hand.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Media Blitz Forces Barack Obama to Face the Angry Black Man Test -- Again

For so long, those of us who watch black folks and politics assumed this challenge would come from Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

We knew there would come a moment when the first black man with a realistic shot at becoming president would have to reconcile black anger and frustration with white fear and resentment. It's a critical test: acknowledging the righteous anger of people frustrated by continuing racial inequality without looking like the kind of Angry Black Man often rejected by more conservative white voters.

Our mistake: We assumed that, for Obama, this issue would come flying from the direction of someone like Sharpton or Jackson -- a traditional civil rights leader who would insist Obama prove his fealty to black issues by showing the kind of aggressive advocacy which often turns off traditional white voters.

Who knew that the race-based bullet wounding Obama's campaign would come from friendly fire -- his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright -- adding yet another unpredictable twist to the most unconventional electoral contest in history?

I've already pointed out how the initial stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons have distorted many of his points. So I'm not saying he shouldn't feel compelled to defend his church and his reputation by facing down the media he way he has by speaking to PBS' Bill Moyers, speaking to the Detroit NAACP Sunday and speaking to the National Press Club in Washington D.C. as I write this.

But by now it's obvious Obama is deep in a sound-bite-fed, image-waged war. By now, a man smart as Wright knows it doesn't really matter what he says. He's been reduced to an emotional image -- the Willie Horton of 2008 -- a boogeyman of black nationalism and aggression, used as a prop to make the professorial Obama look like a smooth talker hiding more radical inclinations.

Obama's people probably hoped they might flick him off the campaign's radar the way the candidate quoted Jay-Z in pretending to flick off criticisms from Hillary Clinton. Or the way Obama flicked off traditional black power brokers such as Sharpton and Tavis Smiley. Black folks surprised us pundits by accepting the notion that Obama didn't have to touch base with these traditional leaders to get black votes, and white voters seemed pretty ready to disregard complaints from these figures, given his success with black constituencies.

But Wright's recent appearances will continue to hurt the candidate, because the reverend is the radical Obama never was, and he's close enough to give skeptical white voters an excuse. Right now, Wright is holding court before the world's TV cameras and an admiring audience at the Press Club. His dismissive attitude toward the moderator's questions -- which basically articulate the concerns many white voters have about Wright's public statements and positions -- are playing well in the room, but will likely stoke anger among the assembled press and probably among some white viewers.

The Today show this morning featured a clip from Sunday's speech where Wright took aim at John F. Kennedy's accent (he was noting that people rarely criticize the way the Kennedys mangle English the way some black people do). But I think his more controversial comments came when he maintained the black people learn differently than white people because of the way their brains work -- something a lot of people, black and white, will find more objectionable.

Obama's problem is that Wright is genuinely controversial, though not in the way some pundits maintain. And he's now given Obama's critics a fresh raft of soundbites to wedge into news reports and campaign commercials.

What's obvious to me, is that a moderate like Obama is much better equipped to referee America's inevitable struggle to reconcile black anger with white resentment. But Wright's bombastic tactics will put his skills to the test, forcing the candidate to bridge one of the largest cultural chasms in America while running one of the tightest races for the Democratic nomination ever seen.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Obama's pro-black pastor was the one who kept Democrats from presenting their first black nominee for president?

Check out one spicy part from Wright's sermon below:

Did Wesley Snipes Really Get a Raw Deal?

It's become an interesting debate among some people: Does Wesley Snipes really deserve up to three years in jail for three tax evasion related misdemeanors?

Perhaps the questions come because Snipes' sentence hit papers as news dropped that three New York police officers were acquitted for a 50-shot killing of a man on his wedding day, who happened to be black. But there's a decided racial tint to some protests about Snipes, who the government says still owes about $20-million in fines and back taxes.

But when you look at who else has been in the IRS cross hairs, the picture gets muddier.

Willie Nelson got to hold auctions and charity concerts to pay off a $16-million IRS debt, which he had negotiated down from $32-million. He eventually only repaid about $12-million.

But Leona Helmsley spent 18 months in prison and got a $7-million fine for actively trying to avoid paying taxes in 1989. Pete Rose spent five months in jail in 1990 for filing false returns, but when the IRS concluded he owed more than $970,000 from 1997 to 2002, he didn't get jail time.

Chuck Berry served 120 in 1973 for failing to report $200,000 in income; in 1995, Darryl Strawberry was convicted of owing $450,000 in back taxes and singer Marc Anthony (Mr. Jennifer Lopez, to some of you) wound up owing $2.5-million after he was found guilty of failing to file tax returns for $15-million.

So it seems obvious that the IRS is both ruthless and unpredictable. Hope you filed your tax returns on time...

HBO's Preview of Recount: Casting Almost Good as I Imagined

HBO assured me I'll have a review DVD of their new movie about the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida, Recount, by Tuesday morning. The movie debuts at 9 p.m. May 25

But until then, looking at the preview now in circulation on YouTube, it seems their casting people came pretty close to the dream cast I assembled when news first leaked about the film last year.

They took my advice about casting an Englishman as the Velvet Hammer, Bush consigliere James Baker, except they went with ace Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson instead of Anthony Hopkins (maybe they saw Hopkins in the Human Stain and realized how painful it can be watching him try to sound like an American).

Alas, my hope that Eddie Izzard would get the Katherine Harris gig was for naught; Laura Dern looks better in a skirt, anyways.

Here's a preview of the film; I'm still hoping to get an interview with Denis Leary when I spend a few days in New York next week.

Dissident Investors Win Three Seats on Media General's Board

Harbinger Capital Partners, a hedge fund which has been critical of losses at Media General's Florida news outlets, have succeeded in getting three directors they supported elected to the family-owned company's board during a stockholders meeting held today.

A release from Harbinger indicates their directors received between 57 and 68 percent of the total votes. Media General's Florida companies include the Tampa Tribune, WFLA-Ch. 8, TBO.com, the Spanish-language newspaper CENTRO and a host of other, smaller newspapers.

This is a significant move, because the family-owned company advocated a different slate of directors, telling investors that Harbinger didn't understand the media business and didn't understand the company. Media General also sent letters to employees who receive stock through their 401K program asking them to vote for the family's slate and announced buyout offers at its Florida properties -- outlets Harbinger has accused of dragging down the company's stock price.

But holders of the company's Class A stock -- including the largest single holder, Mario Gabelli -- apparently responded more to Harbinger's contention that the current management team needed an outside perspective and pressure to improve the falling stock price. This result also suggests that the New York Times strategy in dealing with a challenge from Harbinger -- in which they negotiated a settlement whch placed one director supported by the hedge fund on their board -- may have been more effective than Media General's attempted freezeout.

Because the Bryan family controls the Class B stock which chooses six of the board's nine directors, there is little chance this new group can take control of the company. But they may be a significant voice in the organization's future direction, and may have a high-profile spot on committees which traditionally feature outside directors, such as compensation.

Media General owns several Tampa Bay area properties Harbinger accused of dragging down the company's stock price, including the Tampa Tribune, WFLA-Ch. 8 and TBO.com. It will be interesting to see what actions the new directors advocate in dealing with revenue challenges here.

The results are considered a preliminary outcome until an outside firm can verify the votes, which should take a couple of days, according to a Media General spokesman. A Media General release notes Harbinger Capital Partners nominated three individuals for election by the holders of the Class A shares:  Eugene I. Davis, J. Daniel Sullivan and F. Jack Liebau, Jr.

Media General spokesman Ray Kozakewicz just told me that the meeting held at Media General's newspaper plant in Virginia, drew about 275 people and lasted about 30 minutes. The results of the vote were announced and the directors -- including the three pushed by Harbinger AND the three selected by Media General -- went into a board meeting already scheduled for today.

More to come as my reporting expands....

Click the link below to see dueling press releases from Harbinger and Media General:

Deggans Among Three Times Finalists for Sunshine State Awards

Got some good news this week: I was named a finalist in the criticism category for the South Florida Society of Professional Journalists' Sunshine State Awards. The list of finalists released so far is here.

I join fellow Times colleagues Josh Korr (criticism) and Stephanie Hayes (humorous column writing) as finalists from the paper. Since the local SPJ chapter no longer presents awards, the Sunshine State Awards are the closest thing we have to a regional, general interest journalism awards contest.

I was surprised at how many Tampa-area outlets actually were featured among the finalists, including nods for Creative Loafing's Wayne Garcia and Brian Reis, the Tampa Tribune's Jeff Houck, Gretchen Parker, and Michelle Bearden and Florida Trend's Cynthia Barnett.

Doubt I'll make the May 31 awards ceremony, where winners are to be revealed. Since I'm up against Josh and the Miami Herald's ace TV critic Glenn Garvin, I'm not sure how good my chances are anyway. But it sure is nice to be nominated....   

American Idol Crowns Two New Sanjayas -- Jason Castro and Brooke White

You know American Idol is headed into new territory when the singers who gave the two best performances of the week land in the bottom of the voting.

It's not that I didn't expect Carly Smithson to eventually get bounced from the competition -- she suffered from Phil Stacey syndrome, where she never really figured out what kind of artist she wanted to be until it was too late. Still, her version of Jesus Christ Superstar was easily one of the best performances of Tuesday night -- highlighted as such by none other than the snippy Brit, Simon Cowell himself. She hardly deserved to leave the show tonight.

Instead, Cowell was left to make lame excuses for why viewers voted for Jason Castro, whose take on Memory he said reminded him of a child forced to sing at a wedding, and Brooke White, who screwed up her song onstage for the second time. (Ialso love how he made Carly's ejection about himself, noting that he complimented her on the week se was ejected).

Syesha Mercado gets my Hillary Clinton award for making more comebacks than any singer this season, landing in the bottom two or three multiple times, only to evade ejection in the last moments.

These results are a bit unfortunate, because American Idol is so clearly not a singing competition anymore. And unlike last year, when Sanjaya Malakar was squeaking ahead of singers only marginally better than he was, White and Castro are besting some people who could have gone the distance, particularly if voters were choosing contestants who could actually sing.

It will be interesting to see if this dynamic busts up the two Davids, Archuleta and Cook, now still heavily favored to land in the top two. Because, if Idol voters aren't really picking the best singers, then what do the contestants do to stay in the game?

Decide for yourself -- compare Carly's performance and Jason's below