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.)

Wagner tried again: “The reason I’m comfortable working at Google and, and, uh, I mean Halliburton’s a great company, I shouldn’t be, I’ve never worked there…”

At that point, one of the reporters chimed in with the hypothetical headline: “Google lawyer blasts Halliburton.”

Then Wagner backed off backing off.

“The sense that I get is that their corporate values may be a little different from Google’s, on some things.”

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.

Meanwhile, on the cover page, Spidey is seen trying to broker a deal with Obama: “Hey, if you get to be on my cover, can I be on the dollar bill?”

The issue will hit the stands on Jan. 14 as Marvel joins the long list of newspaper publishers, news stations and gold coin makers hoping to cash in on the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

(Picture: Marvel Comics)

Keep an eye on:

• US Supreme Court asks for governement’s view of an appeal by film studios and TV networks of ruling allowing a new digital video recorder service by Cablevision (Reuters)
• CBS expands carriage deals with Verizon (Reuters) and adds new programs on TV.com (WSJ)
• Time Warner’s AOL Web services arm will expand and centralize is digital publishing operations (Reuters)

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:

His role as journalist and physician have sometimes overlapped. During the 2003 Iraq invasion, Gupta was embedded with a Navy unit called Devil Docs and, while covering its mission, performed brain surgery five times, the first of which was on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy.

What’s next? Defense Secretary Rupert Murdoch? Then the administration would be fair and balanced.

(Photo: Reuters)

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."

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.

Here’s what else we’re hearing from colleagues, relatives and friends:

New York City: Friends saying it’s impossible to find the Times. Who says print is dead?

New York City: My wife just called after failing to buy the NYT in Park Slope, then Grand Central Station, and news booths in Midtown. Desperate to get one.

Chicago: I train into Chicago’s Union Station and I saw long lines at the newsstand there with a number of people buying five or more Chicago Tribunes or Sun-Times.

Westchester County, New York: The New York Daily News and Post were down to the last two or three copies at the waning moments of rush hour at 9a.m. Same with USA Today. The New York Times was sold out. I got a request from my brother-in-law in Georgia to grab copies of every local paper for him. I tried.

Washington, DC: The Washington Post had sold out at Friendship Heights metro cafe by 8:30 and was also sold out of all the little blue boxes around Foggy Bottom Metro stop.

Los Angeles: [At a 7-Eleven in Burbank,] they had eight Los Angeles Times left.  The clerk said someone came in and bought 13 papers. The Starbucks in Burbank sold out of papers.

Meanwhile, a cursory examination of eBay reveals a copy of today’s Times with a “buy-it-now” price of $19.99.

What are you seeing out there around the country? Are you having trouble finding your paper today?

(Photo: David Cook, an agent in the entertainment industry, looks at empty newspaper racks as he attempts to buy copies of the Los Angeles Times newspaper at the World Book & News newsstand in Hollywod, California, November 5, 2008. Cook has been to six locations attempting to buy newspapers with election day results. This newsstand sold out most of its papers one hour after they arrived in the early morning hours. REUTERS/Fred Prouser )

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.

(Photos: Reuters)

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)

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:

In doing so, he became a dominant actor in the campaign drama, generating more coverage than any other presidential or vice presidential candidate for the first time in the general election season.

But as McCain did so, the media narrative about him grew increasingly negative.

There’s no doubt numerous factors could have affected the tone of the media’s campaign coverage, but it looks like Lehman’s collapse had at least some effect, at least according to the PEJ’s data. What do you think?

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (McCain and Obama at the 2008 Alfred E. Smith dinner)

The big three networks — and their big three evening news anchors — are all over Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East. Extensive coverage is planned, interviews will be touted, and ABC, NBC and CBS are sure to document his every more.

So is this attention on his trip just more evidence that the media plays favorites with Obama, as some have argued? (Who can forget the SNL skit?)

One evening news anchor, CBS’ Katie Couric,  made her feelings on the subject quite clear in a talk with TV critics. She believes there are “a number of really critical questions” Obama needs to answer about foreign policy.

“It’s not as if it’s going to be,  you know, ‘How do you like the weather in Jordan, Senator?’”

Here’s more on her take:

I think we’ve made a very conscious effort to be fair about how much attention we pay to each campaign and in the primary process as well.  I know there’s been a lot of discussion about Barack Obama’s upcoming trip and how much media attention it will receive, but I think editorially if you look at the fact that there have been questions about his foreign policy expertise and about his national security experience, prompted largely, quite 
frankly, by his Republican critics, and the fact that Iraq remains front and center in terms of how the United States may or may not extricate itself from that theater, then this is a really important trip newswise and editorially in terms of really being able to pin down Barack Obama on his foreign policy vision, if you will.

So much for the weather question.

 (Photo: Reuters)

Sort of like Walter Mondale’s 1984 political slogan, “Where’s the Beef?,” the 2008 political campaign is all about pork- pork barrelling, that is.

John McCain’s campaign last week launched a video game on Facebook called “Pork Invaders,” a spoof on the 1978 arcade favorite “Space Invaders” that takes aim at pork barrelling, or government spending that aims to satisfy a group of voters in exchange for their political support. 

In the game, players use arrow keys to shift a McCain logo across the screen to shoot red “vetoes” at a herd of pigs looming above.  But watch out, the pigs are ready to aim at and, well, soil, the Arizona Senator’s logo.  The more pigs players “veto,” the larger the amount of dollars saved in the budget. 

The low-tech game is a “unique way to get the Senator’s message out there about pork barrelling and earmarks,” according to Rick Gorka, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.  

Facebook users can add the video game application to their profiles.  This is one of the first online strategies McCain’s campaign has used on Facebook, a social online network popular with the young voters who have flocked to support McCain’s rival, Democrat Barack Obama.

“Folks on Facebook tend to get news in non-traditional means, whereas our grandparents would sit down and watch the news with Tom Brokaw,” said Gorka.  “Facebook is yet one avenue we can use to target voters in this election.”  

But will the game really be popular with young voters?  The majority of high school and college-aged Facebook users weren’t even born back when “Space Invaders” was popular and could miss the humor of the campaign’s spoof. 

McCain’s campaign describes the game as “very popular” with users, yet it’s only drawn 433 daily active users out of the 80 million on Facebook.  Obama doesn’t have his own video game (for now), but he still overwhelmingly leads McCain in terms of pledged Facebook supporters.  Over a million Facebook users list themselves as Obama fans, easily trumping McCain’s tally of 152, 619 supporters. 

– Posted by Jennifer Martinez