Obama tech dinner photos offer fodder for Silicon Valley Kremlinologists
It’s Kremlinology day in Silicon Valley as industry-watchers pore over the details of the two photographs released by the White House of President Obama’s big dinner with the lords of the tech world.
Who sat where, who was drinking what, and what does it all signify, were among the top questions under debate the morning after the commander-in-chief and fourteen guests broke bread at the house of venture capitalist John Doerr.
If proximity to the president is the key measure of clout, then Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Steve Jobs won top honors, with both executives flanking Obama at the dinner table, as can be seen in this picture.
The White House denied press photographers access to the event, so Reuters and several other media outlets are not publishing the photos. But you can find them here.
Whether the White House’s official dinner-table photo was deliberately shot from an angle to show only Jobs’ back was a subject of speculation, coming a day after the National Enquirer published photos which seemed to show Jobs — who is currently on medical leave from Apple — outside a cancer center looking particularly frail.
Also widely noted was the fact that 26-year old Facebook founder Zuckerberg, known for a firm attachment to sporting a “hoodie” sweatshirt at all times, saw fit to don a suit for the occasion.
And what to make of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was seated all the way at the end of the table? Schmidt of course serves on Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, so he may simply have thought it courteous to let others have some time with the prez.
Corning and Xerox bask in SOTU limelight
Forget Larry Page becoming the new chieftain at Google or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg being crowned Time’s Man of the Year — the only two U.S. business leaders who will be sitting in Michelle Obama’s private box tonight at the State of the Union address will be Xerox’s CEO Ursula Burns and Corning’s CEO Wendell Weeks.
The high profile honors for the decades-old U.S. tech giants just happen to have been conferred in the same week both report earnings.
Corning, the 159-company which produces specialty glass for flatscreen TVs and more recently, smartphones and tablets, saw its shares rise today by almost 7 percent. While the bump probably has more to do with the company’s earnings forecast than tonight’s appearance on Capitol Hill, we’ll just have to wait and see if the special invite has the same effect on Xerox, which reports earnings early tomorrow.
The burning questions on everyone’s minds are obviously: what the execs will be wearing and, should Corning’s Weeks really take out the gorilla suit?
Corning’s first ever consumer ad campaign for its glass
Just make sure Corning, always a glass act, encodes any new product so officers looking for knock off’s can easily recognize the good ones and take aggresive actions with the bad with the hopes that good works are properly rewarded and stay cheep and unlike free Microsoft products in our country and abroad that are subsidized by the purchasers. No free lunch box meals!
Google, Halliburton and an ‘oops’ moment
It was a rare “oops” moment at Google on Wednesday when Senior Competition Counsel Dana Wagner explained why he feels good about working at Google, even after working at the Justice Department.
A few hours earlier, Google confirmed that it had received a formal notice from Justice seeking information on Google’s deal with book publishers, which would make millions of books available on line. That’s on top of two other matters involving Google that are being looked at by U.S. antitrust authorities.
Google convened the press to show that it opens its products to competition instead of protecting them. Google has been giving similar briefings since February to reporters and congressional staffers.
Wagner had nothing new to add about the Justice Department, but he did take a moment to tell reporters that he felt good about working at Google because it takes the high road on competition.
It was the way he put it that required a little massaging.
“There are a lot of companies in which I wouldn’t do this job, right?” he told a dozen or so reporters at a Google office in San Francisco. “I spent seven years in the government. I very much believe in the message and the mission of the Justice Department. I would not be doing this at Halliburton, right?”
(Reminder:Critics call Halliburton, an oil field services company, a “war profiteer.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney was once chief executive of Halliburton. During Cheney’s tenure Halliburton did business with Iran. Before that, it paid fines in the 1990s for the business it did with Libya and Iraq. While Cheney was vice president, Halliburton won no-bid contracts from the U.S. government for the Iraq war.)
One must wonder why the leadership at G has not let this fellow go. Perhaps they’ve given him some time to find another position elsewhere, and he will quietly exit the stage in the next few months.
If they keep him, it will mainly be because they do not want to spend the money to hire a seasoned antitrust litigator from a private law firm. G would rather pay Wagner 180K (which is a lot of money for him) than actually hire a senior associate or junior partner from a reputable firm.
Obama fesses up in comic book: I’m a Spider-Man fan
The superhero finally gets to meet his humble fan thanks to the magic of Marvel Comics.
The comic book setting is inauguration day 2009. And it is the president-elect who is the superhero and none other than the irrepressible Spider-Man who’s the fan.
“…This is your day, after all, and I know it wouldn’t look good to be seen palling around with me,” Spider-Man says as he tries to leave Obama to the limelight.
“Hey, not so fast,” says the soon-to-be commander-in-chief.
Then comes the confession: I’ve been a big fan of yours. The conversation ends with a fist bump between the two men.
Obama, in turn, might get the services of Spider-Man as he deals with multiple problems that have landed on his plate: the recession, the Iraq war and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“The future president’s gonna need Spider-Man,” the narrator says.
Sanjay Gupta: He is a doctor AND he plays one on TV!
The Obama administration looks like it’s getting a 3-for-1 deal in CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta if it really turns out to be true that he will be tapped for the new U.S. surgeon general: He’s a celebrity, a journalist AND a doctor!
Here’s Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post with the scoop:
President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.
When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.
Not only that, the telegenic Gupta actually has been known to assemble well-crafted, real-life, heartwarming stories while in the field doing journalism.
Here’s an example, again from Kurtz:
from Summit Notebook:
Time Warner Cable and the Audacity of Hope
It's not every day that you have a top executive in big business talk about how nice it will be to see the back of the Bush administration. Republican presidencies typically tout their adherence to free markets, unbridled capitalism and, most importantly, a smaller pile of what corporations often consider burdensome regulations. That isn't what they usually expect from Democratic administrations, even ones led by Barack Obama.
That's why we thought it so interesting that Time Warner Cable's chief financial officer, Rob Marcus, is happy for some turnover at the Federal Communications Commission. It is the FCC, after all, that has to approve some key licenses for Time Warner Cable's split from its majority owner, Time Warner Inc. For some reason, the FCC can't seem to find room on its schedule to do that, and that seems to have irked Marcus. It is, after all, preventing the two companies from separating by the time Time Warner Cable said it would.
"There's nothing substantive that has currently arisen in connection with the FCC approval. They just haven't put it on the agenda," he told the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Monday.
The FCC has made no special demands, he said. Rather, it just hasn't seen fit. He did note that Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, seems to be the stick in the mud, but declined to talk more about why he thinks this.
So what is he looking for from a commission where three of its five members are selected by the upcoming Obama administration?
"We're looking forward to a little more rationality."
Obama: Good for newspapers — today
NEW YORK – In the same way that the Philadelphia Phillies’ World Series win boosted Inquirer and Daily News sales last week, U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama is jumping in to help papers across the country survive.
People across the country flocked to convenience stores and newsstands snatch up copies of their local papers, which ultimately will prove the most enduring mementos commemorating the election of the first black president of the United States. It’s not a long-term game changer, considering that you can’t hold an historic presidential election every day, but it’s a nice sweetener for a bitter industry story.
Here’s just one example of how the day is shaping up: The New York Times is printing an extra 50,000 copies of today’s paper for the local market after completely selling out, according to spokeswoman Catherine Mathis. (See the Romenesko journalism blog for more details about heavy press runs at other U.S. newspapers.)
Here’s more from Mathis:
We increased our print run for single copy by about 35% but know first hand that some vending machines and newsstands are selling out. … In 2004 we saw an increase in sales of around 50,000 copies the day after the election and based on what we’ve seen today, we expect to significantly surpass those sales. We also plan to increase our print run for single copy sales tomorrow, although not as much as today.
The Washington Post sent out a press release saying that it increased copies available for sale at retail locations and newsboxes by 30 percent, but sold within hours.
And here’s an UPDATE: When’s the last time you saw an afternoon edition of the New York Daily News? From CEO Marc Kramer: We are happy to report that in addition to extra printed copies of our regular morning edition, which flew off newsstands, we have also printed and are distributing an updated second edition of the Daily News which will be available as early as noon today.
I would like to purchase copies of various newspapers for Nov. 5th,2008. How can I do this?
McCain, Obama tackle Monday Night Football
On the slim chance that this year’s political television juggernaut has not penetrated the homes of devout sports fans, the campaign trail will lead Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama to ESPN’s Monday Night Football just hours before next week’s presidential election.
In pretaped interviews set to air during halftime of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Washington Redskins game, Obama and McCain will face probing questions from ESPN anchor Chris Berman about — sports.
“We are obviously primarily a sports network so the questions you are going to get here are going to be different than you would get with ABC News,” says ESPN spokesman Bill Hofheimer.
In 2006, Obama appeared in a Monday Night Football opening sequence ahead of the Chicago Bears-St. Louis Rams that played on speculation that he would announce his bid for president. The Democrat and pick-up basketball enthusiast has since appeared in other ESPN coverage.
McCain has appeared on ESPN talk radio show ”Mike & Mike in the Morning” and sat down for an interview with ESPN sportscaster Bob Ley about sports legislation. His wife Cindy revealed her passion for “drifting” on ESPN’s E:60 news magazine program.
ESPN, owned by the Walt Disney Co, will follow the McCain-Obama contest through election day by including election returns from sister network ABC in its “BottomLine” scores crawl along the bottom of TV screens.
Huffington Post top indy political blog for traffic
Political Web sites and blogs compete for scoops and eyeballs with an intensity rivaling the presidential candidates, so the Internet traffic figures released Wednesday by industry tracker comScore are likely to provide some bragging rights.
The winner is… HuffingtonPost.com – founded by commentator Arianna Huffington, the site led among stand-alone political blogs and news sites with 4.5 million visitors in September, comScore said. That was way above the site’s tally of 792,000 in the same month last year.
It was followed by Politico.com with 2.4 million visitors and DrudgeReport.com with 2.1 million. The biggest gainer among the top five was realclearpoltics.com, a clearinghouse for commentary and polls that has become a must-read for the politically inclined. Its traffic surged almost six-fold from last year to 1.1 million visitors.
One of the few sites to see its traffic decline was FreeRepublic.com, a conservative-leaning site, which was the fifth most-visited destination but saw its traffic dip slightly to 987,000 visitors. Do the traffic numbers offer a larger comment about the ardor or optimism of either Democrats or Republicans in this election cycle? That’s a debate that’s probably better left to the pundits.
(reporting by Gabriel Madway)
Obama won in Indiana by 0.9% — the first time for a Democratic Presidential candidate since 1964. Massive voter registration and early voting helped. So did the recession. But Obama would not have won had a network of grassroots Hoosier volunteers not decided to try to close the gap in heavy rural Republican parts of the state from the 70-30% margins of defeat for Gore and Kerry to roughly 55-45% margins of defeat and even to Obama victories in impoverished southwestern Indiana counties and Terra Haute. A salient issue is whether the strategy of heavy campaigning in strong rural Republican areas might be successful in other solid red states like Mississippi and South Dakota where McCain won. Lawrence J.Friedman, Bloomington, Indiana
Presidential candidates: Love ‘em and Lehman
Media coverage of the U.S. presidential race has not so much cast Democratic candidate Barack Obama in a favorable light as it has portrayed Republican opponent John McCain in a negative one.
That’ s the verbatim conclusion of a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism that analyzes the way the press has covered the campaign.
The report shows that negative stories about Arizona Sen. McCain has been decidedly unfavorable and has worsened over time, with negative stories about him outnumbering favorable Obama stories by more than three to one.
That and many more interesting details are available in the 35-page report, but what caught our attention, being a business-oriented news service, was a graph charting the tone of press coverage devoted to both candidates and how it changed after the bankruptcy filing of investment bank Lehman Brothers.
When Lehman collapsed, the percentage of negative stories about Obama plunged from 30 percent that week in September to just under 10 percent a week later. It scooted back up to 45 percent by early October and has been down again since then. Negative stories about McCain eased to 50 percent from… well, just a bit over 50 percent. Since then it’s surged to nearly 70 percent.
After Lehman collapsed, the reported noted that McCain tried to seize the initiative on the economic crisis.
According to the report:
While there is no doubt that media bias is a real factor out there, it really is also possible that negative stories rise about candidates who have more negative attributes, run a more negative campaign, and have generally made more mistakes or pursued bad policies.
Sometimes if it looks like a duck….
