13WHAM: We're Not Going To Pimp Cuomo's Book

Governor Cuomo canceled a four minute interview he was scheduled to give with 13WHAM in Rochester when they refused to abide by the guidelines he wanted for the interview and only ask questions about his just released book.

Here's how Brian Houseman, the assignment manager at 13WHAM, defended the station:

"We were not going to sit there and pimp his book … This is someone when he comes to town, which is rarely, he gives us very limited time to ask questions."

Cuomo trying to stage manage the interviews, most of the sheep played along, but not 13WHAM.

Cuomo avoided venues where he knew they wouldn't play along, however:

In the past, Mr. Cuomo has steered clear of the national news media, arguing that granting high-profile interviews would lead to speculation that he wanted to run for president. He has defied his own rule in order to promote his book, delivering the Top 10 List on David Letterman’s show on Tuesday and granting some television interviews.

But his promotional efforts have been limited, even cautious, compared with other politicians promoting books.

“The Daily Show” invited Mr. Cuomo to be a guest, but he declined, and he also turned down MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” according to people familiar with the matter.

Reading the Top Ten List on Letterman is safe, but going on The Daily Show is not - so Cuomo wouldn't do it.

Ditto for the Morning Joe Show, where they savaged him over the Moreland Commission controversy back in the summer.

Same for NY1 - notice Errol Louis wasn't on the media tour.

Cuomo's people term his press strategy of just doing friendly or stage-managed interviews "cautious."

I would term it "cowardly" - and not just on Cuomo's part.

The members of the press who agreed to abide by Cuomo's agreement for the interview became nothing more than unpaid extensions of his PR operation.

Not 13WHAM, though.

Good for them for sticking to their guns on the ground rules and then going public with the defense.

Enough playing pimp to Cuomo's agenda.

Cuomo Getting Beaten Up By National Press

Laura Nahmias on Cuomo's press strategy around the Moreland mess:

The way the Moreland story took hold nationally following the bombshell Times piece may be of particular concern to Cuomo because the bad press fills something of a vacuum—while the governor is unusually energetic in his attempts to manage local press coverage, he has rarely engaged the national media since taking office, citing a desire to stay out of presidential speculation.

He’s given a handful of interviews on major news networks, mostly in the immediate aftermath of the New York area’s two recent major storms, Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy, and he gave select interviews to a few favored publications after he presided over a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in 2011. (In January 2013, he gave an exclusive interview to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow for Gotham magazine, a glossy publication where his sister-in-law Cristina Cuomo was once the editor in chief.) But those few instances have all been situations in which Cuomo was almost assured of uncritical, if not gushing, coverage.

Facing this potentially governorship-defining scandal, Cuomo has so far stuck to the strategy, holding a press conference in Buffalo with late notice to the press, and otherwise preferring to try and influence the coverage from behind the scenes.

Mocked on The Daily Show, mocked on The Morning Joe Clown Show - not exactly the re-election rollout Cuomo wanted.

And what does Cuomo do to try and change the trajectory of the coverage?

Why, make a phonecall and attempt to influence the story behind the scenes:

After a particularly brutal ten-minute segment on "Morning Joe" on Monday, in which Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough cited the details of a dead-to-rights Times investigation to compare Cuomo unfavorably to scandal-damaged New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Cuomo called Brzezinski privately to explain his side of the story, according to the co-host.

"I spoke to Governor Cuomo—most of it was off the record—last night about this, cause he saw our conversation—our heated conversation here on the show," said Brzezinski on Tuesday morning.

She said she was not swayed by the governor's rationale for not addressing the issue more publicly.

"I'd love for him to come on," she said. "It's one thing to do a press conference really far away, and I understand, and we talked about the different reasons why he doesn't really want to do a lot of interviews right now. But I'm wondering if he should, and if it would help a lot because it does seem incredibly defensive. I even was sort of pushing back, saying don't you understand what this looks like?"

This strategy of stage-managing coverage has worked well for Cuomo in New York so far - but it surely isn't going to work well on a national stage.

Mark Halperin told his fellow clowns on The Morning Joe Clown Show on Monday that the worst part about the coverage of this story for Cuomo is that it seems the national press doesn't take him very seriously as a 2016 candidate.

Halperin's point was, if this had been Christie, the national press would have been all over it.

But Cuomo?

Pretty much chuckles and a little mockery and that's about it.

I think Halperin makes a good point there and I think there's even a bigger point to make here.

Cuomo's press strategy post-NY Times/Moreland story suggests he shouldn't be taken seriously as a White House contender.

Does Cuomo really think he's going to be able to bully a national press corps on the phone/behind the scenes the way he does with some in New York?

Didn't seem to work well with Mika Brzezinski.

She went public with it instead.

Hard to see going forward how that strategy works nationally.

Have to wonder, did Cuomo call Jon Stewart to "explain" his side of the story as well?

And if so, will Stewart mock him for that too?

Andrew Cuomo Says Public Schools Are Failing

After de Blasio went on the Morning Joe clown show and got pounded by the neo-liberals over there over the charter issue, Andrew Cuomo went on the kinder, gentler Brian Lehrer Show to expound upon how much he loves charters and how much he thinks public schools suck:

Not only are charter schools not a threat, Mr. Cuomo said, but they are part of the solution to failing public schools, which he called “the civil rights issue of our day.”

“The problem with the public education system is that it is failing too many students. And failing schools have now failed generations of students. And we need to be focusing on that issue. You want to talk about civil rights issues of our day? A failing public education system, I think, is the civil rights issue of our day,” he said, borrowing a phrase the mayor has used to describe his competing fight to raise taxes on the rich to fund universal pre-K.

“What charter schools say is, ‘Maybe we should try something new. Maybe a little creativity, maybe a little innovation,’” Mr. Cuomo continued.

The civil rights issue of our time talking point is so out of date.

Eva Moskowitz wants to throw autistic kids out of their school so she can take over the space their school occupies.

That's a civil rights issue too, governor.

And when public schools get underfunded year after year after year even as politicians like yourself throw more and more mandates onto them, some of them may struggle.

But that doesn't mean public schools are "failing" or charter schools are the solution to the problems public education faces.

Especially when charters like the ones Eva runs are stealing so much space even as their attrition rates skyrocket year after year.

Looks like all that money the reformers and hedge fundies are paying Cuomo to run with their issues is paying off.

Arne Duncan's Bad, Bad Week

Really bad week for @usedgov betw @arneduncan insulting moms, tepid results of SIG program & twitter fight betw press flack & Ed reporters
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) November 23, 2013

He can take heart that no matter how bad his week gets, he'll always be welcomed on the Morning Joe set on Monday.

Finally, A Contemporary Hollywood Film About Education That Doesn't Scapegoat Teachers

Usually whenever the clown show that is Morning Joe takes on the education issue, it's a teacher bash festival.

But Adrien Brody, the lead in Tony Kaye's new film about a substitute teacher in NYC called Detachment, brought some reality to the Morning Joe set by explaining teachers do not have the sole responsibility for educating and bringing up children - parents and communities have the responsibility for that too.

I haven't seen this film yet, but I'd like to.

I particularly identified with the teacher character healing his own emotional pain by helping others to heal theirs.

How do you measure that with a value-added score, Governor Cuomo?

How do you assess that with a standardized test, Mayor Bloomberg?

Do you realize that millions of children are coming to school each day heart-sick and hurt from the awful things they see and experience daily in their homes and neighborhoods, President Obama?

Do you think adding dozens of standardized tests to the curriculum from K-12 is going to solve these socio-emotional problems children are facing?

Will these tests help relieve the fear and anger so many children carry around in them?

Do you think holding teachers accountable for scores and taking counselors away from counseling and making them bean counters for graduation is going to help, Chancellor Walcott?

Does replacing a human teacher with a computer help this, Mr. Gates?

The truth is, Bloomberg, Cuomo, Gates, Obama, Rhee, Klein, Walcott, et al. - these are all emotionally-stunted and detached people themselves, so of course they do not value socio-emotional education or learning.

They must be emotionally stunted and detached to promote the heartless, mindless education policies they are pushing on the nation.

But I will tell you, until this society and culture comes to the realization that so many of our problems are spiritual and emotional, not financial, academic or intellectual, we will continue to go down the road to destruction.

We are a nation without a heart and without a soul and all the technological innovation in the world isn't going to solve that.