Alec Baldwin

Armchair critics respond to news that actor will host interview show

Mona Lisa experts crack a smile and Alec Baldwin plays himself

The week in review

NEW YORK: Actor Alec Baldwin has had another unfortunate run-in with the media.

After the incident on Monday involving both a New York Post photographer and reporter, the photographer and Baldwin, 54, went to the police to file harassment charges against the other.

The subsequent New York Post article, called ‘Alec fast & slur-ious’, reports that Baldwin “called a black Post photographer a racial epithet, a “crackhead” and a “drug dealer” during a confrontation on an East Village street yesterday morning, prompting police to intervene.”

The Post reporter, Tara Palmeri, had approached the actor at as he was walking his dog near his home. After she asked him “to comment on a lawsuit against his wife, Hilaria, involving her work as a yoga instructor,” he grabbed her by the arm and said, “I want you to choke to death,” Palmeri told police, for whom she played an audiotape of the conversation.

The Post photographer, 56-year-old G.N. Miller — “a decorated retired detective with the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau and a staff photographer for The Post” –snapped a photo of the 30 Rock star grabbing his colleague’s arm, providing the impetus for Baldwin’s verbal unpleasantries, including calling Miller “a coon” and “a drug dealer”, according to Miller’s police statement.

“At one point,” reports the Post, “Miller showed Baldwin ID to prove he’s a retired NYPD cop, which Baldwin dismissed as ‘fake.’”

Both Miller and Baldwin filed harassment suits.

A representative for Baldwin told CNN and other news agencies on Monday that “The accusations are completely false,” and the specific claim of Baldwin using racially charged language as being “one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard in my life.”

According to The Post Baldwin tweeted the following minutes after the run-in:

“Thank u 2 NYPD officers who came to my home 2day so that I could file a formal complaint against NY Post “photographer’’ who assaulted me,’’ he tweeted.

Tripping from the drug war to la dolce vita with Oliver Stone and Woody Allen

The neurotic New Yorker travels out of his time zone and enjoys new-found success

Animated features take so long, “we actually started recording our voice-overs 11 years ago.”

Michelle Obama visits Soweto, the world’s richest divorcée goes broke, and tennis’s grunting gals get called out

Brian D. Johnson on the highs and lows of the night

Brian D. Johnson predicts the Academy Award winners—and liveblogs tonight’s show

The year’s winners

And you Oscar hosts are . . . Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin