About the Show
Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
On the Next Episode of The Lead
We've moved! Come join us at our new show page.
world lead
Former aide: Margaret Thatcher was concerned about 'U.S. decline'
While the world knows Margaret Thatcher for her public persona, many are left wondering what she was like in private life. Nile Gardiner, director of The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, served as an aide to Thatcher from 2000 to 2002, and helped with her 2003 book "Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World." He last visited Thatcher in December in London, where even from afar, and in declining health, the former prime minister was keeping watch on the U.S.
"She certainly had a concern about U.S. decline," said Gardiner. "In her view, the United States must lead on the world stage, without American leadership, the world is a far more dangerous place."
FULL POST
pop lead
Web exclusive: Why 'Mad Men' frustrates viewers with those vague promos
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner is cautious about spoilers, so much so that the show has the most infuriating promotions for the next episode.
"The network has been very cooperative, and slowly letting me weed anything out that I think is a spoiler. And honestly I didn’t know they were going to become a joke," said Weiner.
If it were up to Weiner, there would be no promos, no deep voice intoning "On the next episode of Mad Men" whatsoever.
"I don’t even want those scenes from next week," said Weiner. "I want people to sit there like they did at the end of "The Sopranos," and they could put a promotion for some other AMC show in there if they wanted to."
For "The Sopranos" series finale, viewers were literally left in the dark as to the show's ending. But "Mad Men" viewers need something to fuel their addiction.
"It could be ending an episode," protests Weiner. "I sit there. I paid so much money for that song at the end. I want you to sit there and let it wash over you and think about the experience you just had. Let it resonate a little bit, and not say, 'Hey, don’t go away.' I am a firm believer that the last 30 seconds of the show is when people decide to come back."
buried lead
Journalist could be imprisoned for protecting source
Journalism 101: Don't give up a source. But Jana Winter, an investigative journalist for Fox News, is facing hard time for refusing to do just that.
A friend of Winter's told CNN, "She does not want to go to jail but is prepared to. She will not ever give up her sources and this whole ordeal has been very stressful."
In July 2012, anonymous law enforcement sources told Winter that before he went on a shooting spree, Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes gave his psychiatrist a notebook detailing how he planned to "kill people."
This was a huge scoop, and clearly of public interest. It raised key questions: did the system fail the victims of the Aurora shooting? What exactly happened? Winter's scoop helped provide a check on those in power who do not always like to talk about ways in which the system - and they - failed.
In fact, last Thursday, court documents revealed that more than a month before the attack, the same psychiatrist had told campus police that Holmes was homicidal. Yet instead of a focus on how the system failed, we're talking about whether Winter should go to jail for reporting on Holmes's journal, which was found in a mail room after the attack.
Holmes's lawyers say whoever leaked the information to Winter violated a gag order, and they want her to say who it was. This has nothing to do with whether or not Holmes should go to jail, or be sentenced to death, or whether he is insane, or anything having to do with the sick and evil mind that wreaked havoc on the 12 people killed in the shooting.
A Colorado judge has said that he could rule this Wednesday whether Winter has to reveal her source, or go to jail.
So why should you care about this? Because Winter was doing her job, the public can judge how well the judicial, and mental health, and other systems are working.
Matthew Cooper from the National Journal knows a lot about this. He faced similar pressure to reveal his source during the Valerie Plame Wilson scandal.
Cooper was working at Time Magazine, and refused to give up his source, Karl Rove, after Rove led Cooper to believe that Plame Wilson was a covert agent for the CIA.
"The problem is that if people are going to find out stuff - they're going to know what their politicians are doing, what their other institutions are doing - a lot of that depends on journalists using confidential sources," says Cooper.
"If they can't protect those sources, they can't do their job," added Cooper.
FULL POST
pop lead
What is 'Mad Men' about? Actors of the show weigh in
On Sunday, viewers of the hit show "Mad Men" learned it was taking some dark turns, hopefully shedding some light on why and what the show is really all about. On Friday we introduced you to the show's creator Matt Weiner, and today we want you to meet the cast.
Actors Aaron Staton, Ben Feldman, and Jay Ferguson play Ken Cosgrove, Michael Ginsburg, and Stan Rizzo on "Mad Men," characters that are hustling at an ad agency set in the 1960's in the middle of social upheaval.
Reporting to work at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce "is surreal," says Feldman.
Up until Sunday night, the hit show has been off the air for 10 months. Plot twists and spoilers were guarded like state secrets on our visit. Photos leaked online ahead of the season six premiere document new looks - part of the new direction of the show, and a deeper dive into the 1960's drug culture.
FULL POST
world lead
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan: The odd couple
She was known as England's "Iron Lady," a nickname she earned through her indomitable will, and her uncompromising style. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is dead at the age of 87, suffering a stroke after years of ailing health.
Thatcher's policies came to define life in Great Britain in the 1980's. She found a kindred spirit in former President Ronald Reagan. Together, they became the architects of a golden age of conservatism.
He called her the "best man in England." She called him "the second-most important man in my life." The former movie star and the grocer's daughter were the odd couple who formed one of the most important political marriages of the 20th century.
FULL POST
Recent Comments