Major media figures in minor markets

Sometimes, when major media figures (often called "journalists") appear in small media markets, they say remarkable things. Both of these Plame-related quotes were noted this week on Josh Marshall's first-rate blog:

First, Newsweek's chief political correspondent Howard Fineman was in northern New Jersey, speaking at Drew University. Basically, he declared war on Bob Woodward. The local Daily Record reported on December 13:

Howard Fineman, Newsweek's chief political correspondent, said Monday night in the first program of a Drew University lecture series, that Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward had become a "court stenographer" for the Bush administration.

Standing before a crowd of nearly 300, Fineman, said Woodward went from being an outsider "burning the beltway"with his investigative work in the 1970s Watergate scandal under President Nixon to being, " an official court stenographer of the Bush administration."

"He's a great reporter,"Fineman said of Woodward, "but he's become a great reporter of official history."

Wow! "The news about news is really bad," Fineman said.

Second, Plame-gate "star" Robert Novak was speaking at a luncheon at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina. Want to know who told Novak that Valerie Plame was CIA? Novak says to take the matter up with the President! From the local News Observer, December 14:

Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush.

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."

"So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.'"

Wow again! Novak attacked the left for making too much of the case, but also blamed "extremely bad management of the issue by the White House. Once you give an issue to a special prosecutor, you lose control of it."

Rumor has it, by the way, that Karl Rove may well be indicted "before the end of the year" because prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald plans to finish by then.

Be ready, as always, to turn to firedoglake for incisive analysis of every pertinent detail.