I never read this guy....

But Jay Mariotti sounds like a real douche.

Which brings me to today's links:

1) "Not once in the last eight years can I recall seeing Mariotti in the Cubs' or Sox' clubhouse. With a press credential that allowed him access to every major sporting event and every major figure, he hasn't broken a single story in that time. He says Chicago is a weak market, the competitive edge gone. He has only himself to blame." Click here.
2) "One of them is frantically trying to engineer a meeting between Captain Morgan and Ted Sorenson, the painfully dignified Democratic legend who is finishing an interview with Tavis Smiley just as Captain Morgan bursts into the tent, T-shirts and Morganettes in tow. That person is me, and, in this, I am a failure. But, then again, we are all sort of failures here." (Via Romenesko).
3) "The former New York Times correspondent, U.S. propaganda maven, and leader in the anti-Castro movement is one of the last of the hard-nosed newsmen from the World War II era. His story pits a combative watchdog against a deceitful politician in one of Miami-Dade's wealthiest burgs — a place that despite its high profile and 42,000 residents rarely receives much media scrutiny." (Via Romenesko).
4) "I'm talking about the press corps' irritating habit of remaining seated during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the start of each night's session." (Via Romenesko).

What I'm reading today...

"Left-leaning" or "non-partisan"?

"Why would a Times article call the American Enterprise Institute "conservative-leaning," but not refer in the same article to the politics of the Mike Mansfield Foundation? Why do stories refer to the Brookings Institution variously as "centrist," "conservative" and "nonpartisan"?"

Who Will Tell Us?

"The steady drip of buyouts and layoffs has consumed an estimated four thousand newsroom jobs in print alone since the turn of the century, according to the much-chewed-over annual State of the News Media report released in March by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. As to whether the Web is replenishing this reportorial firepower, the authors are blunt: “In print, broadcast and elsewhere, more effort is moving to packaging and repurposing material….But less is being devoted to original newsgathering, especially the bearing witness and monitoring of basic news.”'

Cablevision Chief: Deal will 'bolster' Newsday

"In the News12 interview, James Dolan promised a "renewed invigoration of the newspaper here on Long Island." He said cable executives feel "that we can make this paper at least what it was before," referring to circulation declines experienced under Tribune."