Media-Whore D'Oevres

"Jimmy Kimmel ('disguised' as a journalist) made a surprise appearance today at ABC's Beverly Hills TV critics association gathering in Beverly Hills, prompting entertainment president Steve McPherson to address the biggest question facing late night TV since Johnny Carson abdicated his post: will Jay Leno ditch NBC in 2010 and replace Ted Koppel at 11:30 p.m. on ABC? From under a baseball cap that cast a shadow across his face, Kimmel asked whether ABC is actively courting Leno for a new late-night show that would replace the network's aging Nightline. 'To me, the question should be for NBC. I can’t believe they’d let the guy go at the top of his game,' McPherson told reporters. 'If it happens, I’ll guess we’ll look at it at the time, and Jimmy will be involved in those discussions.'" (Popwatch)

"Yesterday, a friend was telling me about a well known woman who is getting a divorce (not Madonna). The woman’s stated case is not, not surprisingly, the same as her estranged husband. She claims that he more or less left her emotionally. He claims she left him. This is not her first marriage. Maybe her fourth; I’m not sure. But they’ve all been rich in experience and in some cases, in possessions." (NYSocialDiary)

"Senator John McCain's trip to Iraq last spring was a low-key affair: With his ordinary retinue of reporters following him abroad, the NBC News anchor Brian Williams reported on his arrival in Baghdad from New York, with just two sentences tacked onto the 'in other political news' portion of his newscast. But when Obama heads for Iraq and other locations overseas this summer, Williams is planning to catch up with him in person, as are the other two evening news anchors, Charles Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, who, like Williams, are far along in discussions to interview Obama on successive nights. And while the anchors are jockeying for interviews with Obama at stops along his route, the regulars on the Obama campaign plane will have new seat mates: star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines who are flocking to catch Obama's first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive nominee of his party." (IHT via DrudgiePoo)

"Dan Rather and his lawyers were back in a lower Manhattan courthouse yesterday for yet another round in Mr. Rather's ongoing $70 million civil lawsuit against his former employers. Over the course of a 45-minute hearing in front of Justice Ira Gammerman, tempers occasionally flared as the lawyers for both sides argued over a number of issues, ranging from the scheduling of depositions to the transparency of the discovery process." (Observer)

"(Mark Ronson) and his girlfriend, model Daisy Lowe, recently enjoyed a double date with the couple - and they couldn't be happier about the unlikely pairing. We caught up with stunning Daisy, 19, at the BT Homehub party in London's In & Out club, and she told us: 'I met Lindsay and Sam for the first time during the weekend before the Coachella festival. 'Sam is an amazing girl. The four of us had a brilliant time - a real laugh.' And it seems that Daisy is also really taken with legendary party girl, (Lindsay Lohan), 22. 'Lindsay is really down to earth. Her and Sam make a lovely couple - they seem really happy.'" (3AMGirls)

"Senator Chuck Schumer loves to hold press conferences on Sundays, whereby he gets decent coverage in near all local newspapers the next day; it has been an effective media strategy. It sure helped him get to the US Senate. The question however is this: after the press leaves are the issues raised eventually resolved? What about the follow-up? Maybe a media outlet would apply some of its resources into researching Schumer’s success rate." (R8NY)