Monica, Monica, Monica. Plus Deadly Dust and Sparks: The Idol Kind and The View Kind
Filed under:
"Morning Meeting" is a recap of our daily editorial meeting. If we had a show today, these are some of the stories you would probably hear.
Coming up later today, a podcast interview with the authors of Chasing Cool: Standing Out In Today's Marketplace. These arbiters of style and trends have a little advice for our show as we try to create something new and different while retaining all the great aspects of NPR.
Now, our meeting: In attendance: Matt Martinez, Luke Burbank, Alison Stewart. Producer Dan Pashman split yesterday because he is getting married this weekend! Congrats Dan.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MONICA GOODLING -- It is interesting when someone who is unknown to the average person is revealed to have had such an impact on our judicial system. With the cloak of immunity, the 33-year old former Justice Department aide told a House panel she was wrong to use political criteria when deciding who might be hired . She also suggested that her boss, Alberto Gonzales, may have discussed facts of the case with her when he shouldn't have. We thought it would be best to reach out to an NPR reporter covering this story and debrief him or her. Hello, Ari Shapiro, we will find you! Why did she have so much power? How troubling was her testimony for Gonzales? Is this kind of scrutiny unusual?
DEADLY DUST --The chief medical examiner in New York added Felicia Dunn-Jones to the list of 9-11 victims even though she died five months after the attacks. The 42-year old lawyer breathed in so much toxic dust from the falling twin towers that her lungs were destroyed. It's one of the many lasting scars of that day. Our own Matt Martinez produced a report with All Things Considered's Michele Norris about this health hazard. We thought we would talk to Matt about the details of this story, play some of the report he produced and then do a follow up interview with the worker at Ground Zero who was featured in the piece.
SPARKS FLY-- The American Idol finale. Seventy-four million votes gave spunky 17-year old Jordin Sparks the win. The TV show was an extravaganza which featured multi-million dollar selling artists performing, music legends like Gladys Knight on stage, a call for aid to Darfur, Oscar winners in the audience and career makers like Clive Davis giving speeches. As I watched I thought to myself, Idol has supplanted MTV as the king of the pop culture hill. We considered talking to Andy Denhart who writes a smart blog about reality TV.
A POLITICAL VIEW -- Who didn't get forwarded the link of The View co-hosts Rosie O'Donnell and Elizabeth Hasselbeck locking political horns over the definition of terrorism, the power of political talking points as well as religion and homosexuality? It was an incredible mash-up of politics and personal attack. We debated if this was a story to cover and our decision was yes. This show has incredible influence. According to Variety, it is the number four most watched show on daytime television. It reaches millions of women between the age of 18-49. And if Hasselbeck appears on Fox News Network as a guest host and O'Donnell's blog links through to various political sites -- aren't these women shaping opinion? What do you think?
If you didn't get to see the video, here it is in all its glory:
EYE ON IRAN --There are two big stories coming out of Iran today. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief said he believes Iran can have a nuclear weapon within three to eight years and urged the U.S. and the U-N Security Council to tone down, in his word, "the rhetoric" when it comes to this issue. All this comes at a time when at least three Iranian-American scholars have been detained by Iranian security forces of some kind. As one headline called it, "The Quiet Hostage Crisis." I loved Mark Bowden's book Guests of the Ayatollah about the '79 crisis and suggested we could talk to him. Luke said he would talk to Mark Bowden about anything.
FIRED FOR GOSSIPING -- Four New Hampshire women claim they were fired for chatting about the relationship between a higher up and a woman who seemed to be getting preferential treatment. This case is a specific incident, but we wondered, is office gossip a bad thing? Isn't it normal? What about when it becomes what some folks call "triangulation" which, according to Wikipedia is "where reporting and communication relationships between two individuals are compromised when a subordinate bypasses a supervisor to share prejudicial information with others in a hierarchy without the supervisor's knowledge." Yikes. Some seem to think gossip serves a purpose.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
The Vice President and his wife released this picture with their brand new grandson Samuel David Cheney. Mary Cheney gave birth to the cute little guy yesterday morning. He is the first child for Cheney and her partner Heather Poe. Given what you know about the Cheney family and Grandpa's position on gay marriage, we wondered what you thought when you saw the picture and what caption you might give it?
STAR WARS' 30th ANNIVERSARY AND THE BPP HOST-- Luke Burbank said he could rant for 6 minutes about how people feel compelled to say to him, "Luke, I'm your father" or "Use the force Luke!" That would be one of the many ways people are commemorating this milestone. Others include a cool online offering: Lucas films will release a number of movie clips for fans to mash up as they please. We will keep our eyes open for good clips. Or you could just enjoy Chad Vader.
SITE OF THE DAY: ANCESTRY.COM -- We are considering a feature that highlights some great website that comes our way, or a site that is making news. Today's example would be ancestry.com which put more than 90 million war records online. The information can be accessed for free until June 6th -- the anniversary of D-Day. The founder of the site told the Associated Press that war has touched so many people's lives and "the history of our families is intertwined with the history of our country". We, of course, would do our own interview with him.
PHIL SPECTOR -- Luke is into the Phil Spector trial. Spector is accused of murdering an actress in his home. Apparently the judge ruled a forensic expert may have removed a key piece of evidence from the crime scene and hid it from prosecutors. To add to the scandal, this forensic expert is Henry Lee who was instrumental in .....wait for it....the O.J. Simpson murder case. This story is big on the West Coast. How could we make it more interesting to the rest of the country? Perhaps lay out who Phil Spector is and his huge contribution to modern music? Talk about his long troubled personal life? Look at the fine line between genius and madness?
WHAT TO DO WITH $2500? --There is a great piece in the Wall Street Journal about what you could do if you should come into a reasonably large amount of money. The sum is interesting because if you are employed and have some savings already, you might be inclined to just go on vacation or buy a flatscreen TV. Matt claimed he could rip through that amount at Burberry in one afternoon. The article's author, Emily Meehan, explains how to invest the money wisely. We are going to try to get an interview with her today.
9:52 AM ET | 05-24-2007 | permalink
