Tuesday tidbits

A few short items for your Tuesday...

Obama press conference has interesting additions

In contrast to the Bush Administration, which packed their press conferences with various right-wing 'news sources' (who could forget Jeff Gannon?), the press room of President Obama has brought in some interesting news sources from our side.

According to CBS News, some of the parties with White House press room access include 538.com, Air America, radio host Ed Schultz, Al Jazeera, Essence, the Saudi Press Agency, Scoop44.com and America Blog. In addition, Obama fielded a question from a writer for Huffington Post.

Of course, the tighty-righties over at NewsBusters are quite pissy about it, especially about Schultz' presence. As if male prostitutes posing as phony reporters to throw out blatant kiss-ass questions are any better.

Whassup, Boston?

Quite a few people have queried me via email about what's going on at WWZN in Boston. Jeff Santos and the syndicated Peter B. Collins have been off the station since last week, and the station is running Sporting News Radio instead.

As typically seems to be the case, nobody officially is saying anything about it. Station staffers are not returning emails or phone calls. But some sources chalk it up to 'negotiation issues'. Once ironed out, both shows should return to the air.

'Clout' to air final Whitmore interview

Tonight, what is being called the final interview with the recently deceased actor James Whitmore will air tonight on Air America's Clout.

Program host Richard Greene spoke to the 87-year-old Whitmore on the eve of last year's election at the Century Plaza Hotel, where the actor had joined more than 200 volunteers to phone-bank for Barack Obama.

You can listen to an excerpt on the Clout page and LA Weekly hints that a downloadable podcast from KTLK Los Angeles will be made available.