Tuned In+News Media | May 31, 2012

Fox News Produces Greatest Fox News Parody Video Ever

By James Poniewozik

It's hard to imagine a more over-the-top parody of Fox raw-meat-hurling, fear-stoking, base-pleasing agitprop if the network replaced Roger Ailes with Stephen Colbert. Here's the Fox & Friends' four-minute Obama-attack video, annotated in real time.

+Q&A | May 4, 2012

Auma Obama on Her Famous Brother, Their Instant Connection and Her New Memoir

By Andrea Sachs
Timur Emek / dapd / AP

Growing up in Kenya, Auma Obama heard stories about her half-brother, but didn’t meet him until they were both in their twenties. Now she talks to TIME about their father, their first meeting and their shared interest in doing good.

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Tuned In+News Media | April 27, 2012

Dead Tree Alert: The Year of the Nontroversy

By James Poniewozik

Who’s nicer to dogs? Whose idiot supporters said more obnoxious things than the other guy’s idiot supporters? Who didn’t eat a cookie that it would have been more advisable for him to eat? These are some of the burning issues that have faced America as the general election of 2012 has gotten under way. And [...]

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Tuned In+Television | April 25, 2012

The General Election Kicks Off, With a Slow Jam and a Quick Pivot

By James Poniewozik

One of them spoke on cable news and one on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. One reminded America of its entrepreneurial roots and one jammed on stage with The Roots. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both took the spotlight last night, the former to launch his general-election message in a primary-victory speech and the latter [...]

+Movies | February 26, 2012

Navy SEALs' Act of Valor Takes Oscar Weekend

By Richard Corliss
Relativity Media / Courtesy Everett Collection

The Pentagon-approved action film locks down the No. 1 slot, as the Oscar-favorite silent film “The Artist” manages only a whisper

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Tuned In+Music | February 16, 2012

Dead Tree Alert: The DJ in Chief; or, Running for Office, One Pop Song at a Time

By James Poniewozik

Campaign music doesn’t win elections, but it’s part of that positive feedback loop that’s created when a campaign’s message and its messaging are working well together.

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Tuned In+News Media | January 25, 2012

State of the Union: A Call for Unity, in a Political Package

By James Poniewozik

A lengthy, listy speech appealed to Americans’ common goals, but was always conscious of political opponents in the room—and at least one Presidential rival outside the room.

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 26, 2011

Operators Are Standing By*: Obama, Boehner Duel in Primetime

By James Poniewozik

Speaking on primetime TV from the I Killed Osama Bin Laden Memorial Hallway, President Barack Obama attempted to swing people power to his side in the debt-ceiling debate, using the trappings of the office and an appeal to America’s sense of compromise. Assuming it still has one. Obama’s address was an unusually directly political speech [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | May 10, 2011

While I Was Out: The Old Man and the TV

By James Poniewozik

I’m back from a long weekend in Dallas with Tuned In Jr. at the National Elementary Chess Championships. If you ever want to see something truly terrifying, sit in on a room full of hundreds of children at chessboards, staring in murderous silence at something that is not a handheld game system. I’ve got a [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | May 2, 2011

Bin Laden's Death, Reported By a Media His Attacks Shaped

By James Poniewozik

When Osama bin Laden sponsored the attacks against America in 2001, there was no YouTube, blogs were just rising as a medium, and TV was shaped by the aftermath of the mass killings. But the news of his death was broken last night on Twitter, a medium that didn’t exist on 9/11. Keith Urbahn, chief [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | April 27, 2011

Congratulations, America, Donald Trump Is the Boss of You

By James Poniewozik

Today, with a precarious economy, rising gas prices and three wars under way, the President of the United States of America held a press conference to announce the release of his original birth certificate, to prove that he is eligible to hold his office and quell a controversy fomented by a reality-show judge who by [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 26, 2011

Donald Trump Would Like You To Just Take His Word About the Missing Birth Certificate

By James Poniewozik

Donald Trump, the reality-show judge who is not running for President but would very much like you to believe that he is—see my colleague Alex Altman’s explanation as to why—went on Anderson Cooper 360 last night to enable America to pay attention to him on TV. The show had done a yet-again debunking of the [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | January 26, 2011

SOTU Roundup; or, What Is Michele Bachmann Looking At?

By James Poniewozik

When CNN announced that it would air not only the official GOP response to the State of the Union address but a live Tea Party response, given by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), I was skeptical. On the one hand, it gave the GOP two responses—a courtesy not afforded to opposition party factions, third parties or [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | October 28, 2010

Obama and Stewart: What Fake News Can Do

By James Poniewozik

“I don’t want to lump you in with a lot of other pundits,” President Barack Obama told Jon Stewart in his interview on last night’s Daily Show. In saying that, Obama brought up a question that Stewart’s rising prominence, and this weekend’s Rally to Restore Sanity, have underscored: should we lump in Stewart with other [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | October 20, 2010

Obama to Visit Daily Show Pre-Midterms

By James Poniewozik

President Barack Obama, who had some positive things to say about the Rally to Restore Sanity—or actually, the “rally for Americans in favor of a return to sanity or something like that”—is going to appear on The Daily Show Oct. 27, the Wednesday before midterms, during the week the show will tape in Washington, D.C. [...]

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Tuned In+October 18, 2010

Obama to Appear on Mythbusters, Bolster America's Giant-Mirror Capability

By James Poniewozik

President Obama and Discovery Channel announced today that the chief executive will appear on the Dec. 8 episode of Mythbusters. And surprisingly, the myth being busted has nothing to do with either Islam or Kenyan birth certificates. On the episode, Obama will ask Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman to test whether it was possible for [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | July 29, 2010

The View Chats Up Obama on Race, the Economy, Snooki

By James Poniewozik

When The View announced that Barack Obama would be the first sitting President to visit the show, there was some grumbling that appearing on a “fluff” show—among them, former View co-host Rosie O’Donnell. And yes, if you’re of the mind that a President should not do any television appearances beyond nightly-news and Sunday talk shows, [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | July 26, 2010

Obama to Appear on The View

By James Poniewozik

This Thursday, Barack Obama will appear on The View for the first time since becoming President. (The episode will tape on Wednesday while Obama visits New York City.) Brian Stelter at the New York Times has more on the decision, noting it as an example of the White House’s longtime strategy of courting “nontraditional” media. [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 16, 2010

Obama's Oil Speech: The Choir Vs. the Preacher

By James Poniewozik

People who follow the news and politics closely come to a Presidential Oval Office speech with a list of expectations: policy aims, specific targets, forceful rhetoric, political positioning, expressions of leadership, definitions of problems, proposals of solutions, framing of issues and concrete calls to action. For the broad audience, a Presidential TV speech needs to [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | May 3, 2010

Do You Care If Daily Show Staffers Wrote Jokes for Obama?

By James Poniewozik

That, anyway, is the word from The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, who reports that David Axelrod told him the Prez received jokes for his White House Correspondents’ Dinner standup from writers for The Daily Show. (For a review of Obama’s, and Jay Leno’s, performances, see this post from my colleague and history-of-comedy authority Richard Zoglin.) [...]