mediabistro.com: FishbowlDC

NYT Welcomes Peter Baker

Below is a staff note obtained by FishbowlDC from Gerry Marzorati, editor of The New York Times Magazine, welcoming Peter Baker to the magazine:

Folks,

Our distinguished stable of contributing writers is about to getŠwell, more distinguished. Peter Baker, the Washington Post's senior White House correspondent, is joining the Magazine.

Over the past 20 years, Baker has had a number of important beats with the Post, and his name has been a regular feature of that paper's front-page.

He covered the Clinton White House, and wrote a best-selling book, "The Breach," about the Clinton-Lewinsky controversy and the impeachment of the President. He served as the Post's Moscow Bureau chief - and co-authored, with his wife Susan Glasser, a book on Vladimir Putin -- and has reported on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Along with covering the Bush White House, Baker has contributed to the Post's campaign coverage (including a column for their on-line election diary, The Trail); is a regular panelist on PBS's "Washington Week"; and is currently working on a book on the Bush presidency to be published by Doubleday.

He is worldly, aggressive, and ambitious about his reporting and his writing -- all things that will quickly make him a valued magazine journalist.

Expect to see his first cover story for us in the fall.

Gerry

Peter Baker Says Farewell

The Washington Post's Peter Baker sent this farewell note, obtained by FishbowlDC, to his colleagues today. Baker is joining the New York Times.

This Week's "Reliable Sources"

From CNN.com:

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST (voice over): End game. The media referees declare the Democratic race over and are trying to take the ball away from Hillary Clinton. Are journalists again tilting the outcome toward Barack Obama or just blowing the whistle on a contest that has run its course?

Dueling interviews on the anchors holding the likely nominees accountable.

Out of sight. Myanmar bars most journalists from covering the aftermath of a devastating cyclone. Is that affecting the world's sympathy?

Plus, wedding bell blues. A presidential daughter ties the knot. No journalists allowed.

Read the rest here.

Hats Off To NPR

NPR lets us know that they are the only news network in Chengdu right now (reporting on the earthquake) and other networks are calling them for interviews and live reporting. Robert Siegel and Melissa Block, co-hosts of All Things Considered, are there on the scene. The airports are shut down and they were near the scene and now driving to the epicenter.

In an interview this morning with host Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition, Block described the scene in Chengdu:

Everyone in all the buildings had flocked into the street as soon as they felt the earth start to shake. We were standing on the pavement and the earth was undulating -- you could feel it moving up and own under your feet. I was right next to a church, and bricks and tile had started falling off the roof of the church. The cross on top was waving wildly. ... Everybody was quite terrified, and had never been through this before. This is not something that happens in Chengdu."

Deb Heard Takes The Buyout

The WaPo's AME/Style, Deb Heard, has taken the paper's buyout package, FishbowlDC has learned.

UPDATE: Heard's note to staffers...

Good morning. I finally made a decision; yes, Im taking the buyout. The money was just too tempting. So was the idea of a new adventure. (One of the first things I did during my vacation was renewing my passport!) Ill be here until the end of the year so Ill make the magical "rule of 80" and can also help with a transition for the next person fortunate enough to have this amazing job.

UPDATE: Mike Shepard

Earlier, we reported that the home of the Washington Post's Mike Shepard tragically was lost to fire. Here's an update, posted on the Washington Post's internal message board:

Just talked to Mike Shepard. They just signed papers to rent a place in the Irene, an apartment building in Chevy Chase. They will be moving there tomorrow. The apartment is not furnished, but many of their things have been restored and will be delivered to the apartmen soon. He will know by early next week what kinds of things he still needs.

Mike says he and Sonia are overwhelmed by the generosity of the people here at the Post. He said that it's been a tough week and the support from so many people here really lifted their spirits. He will be out this week but expects to be back May 19.

Tofani Wins The Michael Kelly Award

From the release:

David Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media Company, announced Loretta Tofani the 2008 recipient of the Michael Kelly Award at a ceremony Thursday night in Washington. She was honored for her series on unsafe working conditions in China written for The Salt Lake Tribune.

The $25,000 award, which celebrates its 5th Anniversary this year, is given annually to a journalist whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly's own career: the fearless pursuit and expression of truth. Kelly, who was the editor of two Atlantic Media publications, The Atlantic and National Journal, was killed while covering the war in Iraq in 2003. ...

Five judges comprised this year’s Michael Kelly Award selection panel: Peter Beinart, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason.tv and Reason.com; Charles Green, editor of National Journal; Ruth Marcus, editorial writer and columnist of The Washington Post; and Cullen Murphy, editor-at-large of Vanity Fair.

In other award news, Washington Times photographer Mary F. Calvert has won the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for International Photojournalism.

Kurtz Calls Todd "The Campaign Season's Most Improbable TV Star"

From today's WaPo:

For political junkies, Todd has become all but inescapable. When he isn't shuttling between studios, he is being invoked as an authority by one anchor or another. After a career out of the limelight, the genial 36-year-old is the campaign season's most improbable TV star.

Every organization has someone like "Chuckie T," as his colleagues call him. He is the brainy guy poring over computer printouts, the number cruncher in the back office. But the voracious appetite of cable news has given him a huge megaphone and an outsize role in shaping coverage of the White House race.

Todd admits to worrying about overexposure, saying: "I don't like going on if I don't feel like I have new information or an interesting way to present the information." But he justifies his ubiquity by noting that audiences drift in and out all day.

When he started at NBC a year ago, Todd felt he was struggling. "The hardest part is to explain the minutiae clearly," he says. "Now I can take the minutiae and make it sound like English for laypeople who haven't been following the DNC delegate rules for 20 years." ...

On a cable channel packed with such opinionated personalities as Olbermann and Chris Matthews, Todd stands out by not being flamboyant. While others are getting punch-drunk on polls, New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley observed, Todd is "the designated driver of MSNBC's political coverage."

Also, who knew that a.) Todd plays the French horn? b.) He didn't graduate college? c.) He thinks he has too many chins?