Spokesman Grilled on VP Pick’s Qualifications
The John McCain campaign canceled an interview with the Republican presidential candidate scheduled for Tuesday on CNN’s "Larry King Live" after CNN’s Campbell Brown grilled a McCain spokesman over the qualifications of vice presidential pick Sarah Palin, the first-term governor of Alaska, CNN said. 
Wolf Blitzer told viewers during his "Situation Room," "The McCain campaign said it believed that exchange was over the line, and as a result the interview scheduled for ‘Larry King Live’ with Senator McCain was pulled.
"CNN does not believe that Campbell’s interview was over the line.
"We are committed to fair coverage of both sides in this historic election," Blitzer said. "You can see the entire interview, by the way, at CNN.com. We hope Senator McCain will join us here on CNN in the very, very near future."
During the interview, Brown asked McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, "Can you just tell me one decision that she made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, just one?"
When Bounds replied by citing the experience of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, Brown repeatedly brought the conversation back to Palin’s experience.
["McCain spokesman Maria Comella said the campaign canceled the interview because of ‘a relentless refusal by certain on-air reporters to come to terms with John McCain’s selection of Alaska’s sitting governor as our party’s nominee for vice president,’ Rebecca Dana reported Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal. ‘Ms. Comella said the decision wasn’t a reflection on Mr. King or his ‘sterling journalistic reputation.’"
[In Wednesday’s Washington Post, Howard Kurtz reported that "McCain’s top campaign strategist accused the news media Tuesday of being ‘on a mission to destroy’ Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by displaying ‘a level of viciousness and scurrilousness’ in pursuing questions about her personal life.
["In an extraordinary and emotional interview, Steve Schmidt said his campaign feels ‘under siege’ by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child’s parentage.
["Arguing that the media queries are being fueled by ‘every rumor and smear’ posted on left-wing Web sites, Schmidt said mainstream journalists are giving ‘closer scrutiny’ to McCain’s little-known running mate than to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama."]
The transcript of the Campbell Brown interview:
BOUNDS: Yes, she has made — any decision she has made as the commander of the National Guard, that’s deployed overseas, is more of a decision than Barack Obama has been making as he’s been running for president for the last —
BROWN: OK. So tell me — tell me what — give me an example of one of those decisions. I’m just curious. Just one decision she made in her capacity as commander in chief of the National Guard.
BOUNDS: Campbell, certainly you don’t mean to belittle every experience, every — every judgment that she makes as commander of the National Guard —
BROWN: I’m belittling nothing. I just want to know one judgment or one decision. I would love to know what one decision was. I’m not belittling anything, Tucker, I’m really not. I’m just curious.
BOUNDS: She makes a decision as to how to equip — how to command the National Guard in Alaska,. That is more experience and more of a judgment than Barack Obama has made on the campaign trail —
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: But Tucker, those are the Pentagon’s decision. That’s General Petraeus. That’s the White House.
BOUNDS: — That’s my only argument.
BROWN: No governor —
BOUNDS: Pardon me?
BROWN: — No governor makes decisions about how to equip or deploy the National Guard. When they go to Iraq, those decisions, as you well know, are made by the Pentagon.
BOUNDS: Campbell, on a factual basis, they certainly do. In Alaska, if you have any sort of emergency, as things are happening in your state, the National Guard is under the command of the governor. That is more of a command role than Barack Obama has ever had.
I would argue that on our ticket, John McCain and Gov. Palin, between the two of them, have far more command experience in the military than either of the candidates on the Democratic side.
And I do want to argue that this is about the top of the ticket.
Ultimately, when people go into the ballot box and decide between Barack Obama and John McCain, they’re going to decide between John McCain’s record of reforming Washington and Barack Obama’s rhetoric on the campaign trail. Doesn’t have a lot of experience, certainly has no military experience, no command military experience, which both of our candidates have.
That’s an important distinction. I think voters will make the right call in November.
BROWN: All right, Tucker — I’m going to just give it to you, baby. We’ll end it there. But —
BOUNDS: Thank you, Campbell. Appreciate it.
BROWN: I appreciate you coming on and taking the time to have this debate. I think it’s important. People don’t know a lot about her, and they want to understand her qualifications as much as possible. We’re not beating you up here. We’re not trying to. We’re just trying to educate ourselves and educate our viewers.
BOUNDS: Yes.
BROWN: So, I really do appreciate your time and thank you for coming on.
"McCain’s campaign has admitted that he only met with Palin a handful of times before she was placed on the ticket. Revelations about her membership in the Alaska Independence Party, her husband’s DUI arrest 20 years ago, and her daughter’s pregnancy at 17 have become distractions during the week of the Republican convention," as CBS News reported Tuesday.
On his ABC News blog, correspondent Jake Tapper asked, "What would the response be if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and his wife Michelle had a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter?"
"I can answer that," James Wolcott wrote on his Vanity Fair blog. "Mona Charen, Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin would sprout bat wings and fangs and start divebombing, Peggy Noonan would issue a pained sigh that would ruffle nun’s robes from here to Hoboken, Laura Ingraham and Bill Bennett would engage in a finger-wagging contest to condemn our loose licentious liberal culture, and Jennifer Rubin at Commentary’s Contentions would crash into the wall doing cartwheels."
- Lester Feder, Columbia Journalism Review: Privacy For Palin? GOP to media: hands off Bristol Palin
- Neil Foote, politicsincolor.com: I’m Confused: When Do Values Have Double Standards?
- Rick Klein with Hope Ditto, ABC News’ "The Note": Expecting Surprises
- Roland Martin, essence.com: Punk move of the week: McCain camp pulls CNN interview over tough questioning
- Michael Levine, MSNBC "First Read": The Palin Church Video
- Eric Schmeltzer, Huffington Post: McCain Runs Scared From Larry King
- Vaughn Ververs, CBS News: Details Of The Palin Vetting Process
- James Wolcott blog, Vanity Fair: The Bristol Stomp
September 3, 2008
Dwight Lewis Named Tennessean Editorial Page Editor
Dwight Lewis, longtime columnist, occasional editorial writer and a local news editor at the Nashville Tennessean — and its most prominent black journalist — has been named the paper’s editorial page editor, the newspaper announced on Wednesday.
"Lewis, a lifelong Nashvillian, is well known for his community activities, for his opinion columns and as a strong shirt-sleeves editor," the story said. He will be the first African American editorial page editor at a paper whose legacy includes a role in the early civil rights movement. The paper has been credited with influencing the sit-in movement of the early 1960s simply by covering it extensively, even as its editorial page opposed the demonstrations.
Lewis was hired by legendary Tennessean editor John Seigenthaler, former aide to Robert F. Kennedy, in 1971. He covered politics statewide, has been the Tennessean’s Washington correspondent and was in the inaugural class of the Multicultural Management Program for Journalists at the University of Missouri in 1986.
"For years, Dwight has staked out the high moral ground for the newspaper and for Nashville," editor Mark Silverman said in the story. "With Dwight at the helm, we look forward to building upon the progress that our opinion pages have made under John’s leadership."
Silverman was referring to John Gibson, editorial page editor for the past two years, who announced his retirement Tuesday, effective Sept. 12.
Lewis is also a onetime board member of the National Association of Black Journalists and a member of the Trotter Group of African American columnists. He has often served visiting journalists as an ambassador to the city and to its black community. He was on vacation as the announcement was made.
Other African Americans heading editorial boards include Harold Jackson at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Otis Sanford at the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Joe Oglesby at the Miami Herald, Cynthia Tucker at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Robin Washington at the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, Vanessa Gallman at the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, James F. Lawrence at the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., and Allen Johnson of the Greensboro (N.C) News & Record. Lovell Beaulieu, who headed the editorial board of the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, returned to his alma mater, St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, to teach.
Charles Leaves BET.com for Essence Multimedia Project
Nick Charles, vice president of content for BET Interactive and before that editor-in-chief of AOL Black Voices, is heading for Essence magazine, where he will be managing editor of a project combining the Web site with television production.
The goal is to convert the Essence site to a daily one that will produce stories and make use of video, Charles told Journal-isms.
Time Warner announced in April that the Warner Brothers Television Group would work with Essence, a Time Inc. publication, to redesign its Web site, share content with the syndicated TV show ‘Extra’ and develop new television programming tied to the magazine brand, as the New York Times reported at the time.
Charles joined BET.com only in September, succeeding Retha Hill, who left in June to join the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication as director of the New Media Innovation Lab at Arizona State University.
"I’m getting a reputation of a guy who can run dot-coms or help them them off the ground," he told Journal-isms. "No one’s going to be around for 20 years anymore," Charles said. "There are no more gold watches."
Diana Clark-Baty, vice president for Web Strategy at BET Digital, wrote staffers about Charles on Tuesday:
"Most notably, Nick has created a news culture among our team," she said. The passion he brings to news is infectious. I do hope that the spirit he brought to news continues to live on."
(More items: See "Too Liberal" Paper ‘Retires’ Black Columnist")
