Felix Gillette

Arianna, Tina, Liz ... and Greta?

On GretaWire today, Greta Van Susteren, the Fox News anchor and profilic blogger, invited readers to write in about their dream jobs. Ms. Van Susteren kicked things off by admitting that she sometimes dreams of running an online news site.

From the post:

I love my job but from time to time think about the future (I can be a dreamer)….what is next? what would be fun for me? Every day I have a different idea of what is next (and let me repeat, I do love my job), but if I had to pick today I would love to run an internet news site.  read more »

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On the heels of yesterday's announcement that Roger Ailes has signed a five-year contract extension with News Corp., Matea Gold of The Los Angeles Times caught up with Mr. Ailes.

In the interview, Ms. Gold asked Mr. Ailes about a number of challenges facing News Corp., including the fate of My Network TV—a network that News Corp. started in 2006 primarily made up of stations which were former WB and UPN affiliates.

From the article:

Its original lineup of English-language telenovelas fell flat. "They weren't dirty enough," quipped Ailes.

The network currently airs a mix of action movies and reality shows, but executives were in meetings this week to discuss a new approach.

"We're considering every strategy," Ailes said. "Let's put it that way."

Rupert Murdoch announced today that Roger Ailes has signed a five-year contract extension to stay at News Corporation, where, in part, he oversees Fox News and the Fox Business Network.

"It is one of the ironies of his extreme success over the 10 years of the Fox News Channel that Roger Ailes hates journalists, manages them, and counts himself among their ranks," wrote Rebecca Dana in The Observer two years ago in a profile of Mr. Ailes.

"I'm going to put it on my mantle," said Christopher Andersen.

It was the night of Tuesday, Nov. 18, and Mr. Andersen was standing on the top deck of a multi-plateau ballroom in the Time Warner Center. Below him, hundreds of guests were strolling about sipping cocktails and inhaling mini-hamburgers.

Mr. Andersen was cradling in his hands a large bronze award statue. "Feel how heavy it is," said Mr. Andersen, pushing the award into a reporter's hands.

Ooof!

Moments earlier, Mr. Andersen (no relation to Wired's similarly named editor) had received the award, known as a Joanie. It was given to him for his book, Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve.

"It's a love story," he said. "I like universal themes."

The partygoers had gathered there at an annual benefit for Joan's Legacy, a New York based charity that raises money to fight against lung cancer, which was created in honor of Joan Scarangello, a successful, beloved, nonsmoking television producer who died of the disease in 2001. She was 47 years old.  read more »

Today, Katie Couric is sitting down with Joe Lieberman for the first on-air interview with the Senator since the Democrats voted on Tuesday in favor of allowing him to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.

The interview will take place in Washington and appear on tonight's CBS Evening News.

TVNewser reports that afterwards Ms. Couric will return to New York where she will be making her first appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman since her famous candid camera moment on the show, during one of the craziest days of her life back in September.

Cindy Adams woke up on Election Day knowing exactly where to spend her evening. There were parties all over town. Lefty celebrities would be out in force. But the longtime gossip columnist for the New York Post wanted to be at the place she felt would be “the heartbeat of the world”—namely, the CNN Grill.

Like many of her pals in the media, Ms. Adams had first frequented the CNN Grill during its original iteration at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. There, the cable news network had sequestered a centrally located sports bar, plastered the walls with flat-screen televisions tuned to CNN, concocted some thematic drinks (the caucus cooler!) and threw open the doors.  read more »

Last night, Bill O'Reilly of Fox News appeared on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. There, Jon Stewart admitted that on the heels of President-elect Barack Obama's victory, he was worried for Mr. O'Reilly.

"I'm an anarchist," said Mr. O'Reilly.

To soothe him, Mr. Stewart gave the anchor a teddy bear and some hot cocoa.

In The New York Times today, Bill Carter reports that a Fox station and a NBC station in Philadelphia are teaming up to share video operations in a bid to save money.

According to Mr. Carter, the move is a part of a broader plan which the stations' parent companies, News Corporation and NBC Universal, hope to roll out in cities across the country, including here in New York.

As we've previously noted, WNBC is New York is currently undergoing some major changes, which have already resulted in a downsizing of the station's roster of cameramen and camera crews.

More from today's article:

Al Primo, a news director in the early days of Eyewitness News at WABC in New York and who now consults on local television issues, said, "I think this is inevitable.  read more »

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CBS executives announced today that correspondent Steve Kroft has landed the first post-election interview with President-elect Barack Obama. The interview will take place tomorrow in Chicago, air on Sunday's 60 Minutes, and will also include First Lady-elect Michelle Obama.

More from the press release:

60 MINUTES has covered the campaign and the election closely. Most recently, Kroft and 60 MINUTES cameras were with Obama's top aides on election night for a segment broadcast on last Sunday's 60 MINUTES that drew 18.5 million viewers, ranking it America's number-one program for the week.

Obama and Republican presidential candidate John McCain both appeared on 60 MINUTES in separate exclusive interviews for a special one-hour broadcast of 60 MINUTES on September 21.  read more »

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On the heels of the Election, the Pew Research Center for People & the Press recently conducted a survey in which they asked Americans to name their favorite and least favorite TV journalists and anchors during the campaign.

Shockingly, the survey found that Republicans and Democrats differ in their taste for punditry. Republicans in the survey, for instance, made Fox News' Bill O'Reilly their top favorite (winning 9 percent of vote). Democrats made Mr. O'Reilly their top least favorite (winning 10 percent of their ire).  read more »

On Jan. 10, 2005, CBS President Leslie Moonves sent his employees a novella-length memo with the subject line “The Independent Panel Issues its report.”

CBS had formed said independent panel months earlier, in the fall of 2004, in order to investigate the development, preparation and aftermath of Dan Rather and company’s flawed report on President Bush’s military service. The report had aired on 60 Minutes Wednesday on Sept. 8, 2004, a few months before the presidential election, and had subsequently embroiled the network in a scandal that came to be known as “Memogate.”

In his memo to the staff, Mr.  read more »

In recent months, bad news in the financial world has translated into big news for CNBC, and big news is good news for a 24-hour cable news network. With national interest in financial news at a fever pitch, the business news network has been posting its highest ratings in its 19-year history.

And now, owner GE is rewarding them with … budget cuts!

Bosses at CNBC, The Observer has learned, are now preparing to scale back budgets. Sources inside CNBC have heard that the figure could approach a 10 percent overall budget cut.

“We’re committed to having the best team in business news worldwide,” said CNBC spokesman Kevin Goldman.  read more »

Executives at the Fox Business Network announced today that Eric Bolling will be joining Cody Willard and Rebecca Diamond as the co-host of Happy Hour—FBN's breezy, after work business-lite show, set in the Bull & Bear bar at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

"Happy Hour is a dynamic show that takes the headlines and market reactions and turns them into useful and intelligent information," said Mr. Bolling in a press release. "I am excited to take on this new role as co-host."   read more »

MSNBC President Phil Griffin announced today that the cable news channel has extended Keith Olbermann's contract through 2012.

In February of last year, MSNBC and Mr. Olbermann reached an agreement that would keep the Countdown host under contract through 2011.

The new agreement would seem to extend Mr. Olbermann's commitment to MSNBC through the 2012 presidential election.

"Keith Olbermann is at the core of MSNBC's current success," said Mr. Griffin in a press release today. "'Countdown' is our signature program and I'm thrilled that we're going to be able to bring it to Keith's loyal viewers for another four year term."

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CBS News executives today named Chip Reid as the network's new chief white house correspondent. Mr. Reid, a veteran of NBC News, joined CBS is 2007. He previously served as the network's Capitol Hill correspondent, and hit the campaign trail extensively over the past year.

CBS also announced today that the network's erstwhile chief White House correspondent, Jim Axelrod, will become a national correspondent based in New York.

Matt Drudge is reporting that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is giving her first extensive post-election interview to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, who back in September scored the first post-convention interview with First Dude Todd Palin. That extensive walk-and-talk interview took place at the couple’s scenic house in Wasilla.

"The sniping at Gov. Palin after the election by 'anonymous' sources is rotten,” Ms. Van Susteren wrote on her blog this morning. "I have said over and over and over again, it is our job in journalism to be aggressive in challenging politicians…but it is not right to gratuitously trash someone."

More from the Rather v. CBS docs.

On Tuesday, December 7, 2004, former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh sent an e-mail to Dan Bartlett, then the White House communications director.

At the time, Mr. Thornburgh was heading up an independent panel, established by CBS, to investigate the flawed 60 Minutes Wednesday story about President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, which aired on September 8, 2004.

"As I mentioned on the phone, we are in the homestretch of our assignment and would find it very helpful if we could secure written responses from the President to the following questions so that we can tie up a couple of loose ends," wrote Mr. Thornburgh.

Mr. Thornburgh then posed eight questions, after the jump:  read more »

On Thursday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow appeared on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, where she discussed such things as the new king of Bhutan and her lack of Peabody Awards.

"Just for the record, how many Peabody's do you have?" Mr. Colbert asked her at the outset. "I don't have any Peabodys," Ms. Maddow answered.

"I've got a couple," Mr. Colbert boasted before suggesting that she, like Bill O'Reilly, just claim she has some. "Nobody checks," he assured her.

This week, Dan Rather's legal team submitted a memorandum to the judge overseeing Mr. Rather's $70 million civil lawsuit against his former employers, which for the first time made public some of the thousands of documents that CBS has already turned over in the ongoing discovery process.

The Media Mob is still making its way through the thick stack of e-mails, internal memos and transcripts included in this stash. But we were kind of amazed by one document.  read more »

On Tuesday night, some 71.5 million viewers tuned in across 14 television networks to watch Senator Barack Obama's victory over Senator John McCain, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Overall it was the highest rated election night since 1980.

On broadcast television, ABC News was big winner. On cable, CNN dominated.

The Nielsen numbers for total viewers via THR:

ABC: 13,135,000

NBC: 12,018,000

CBS: 7,829,000

Fox: 5,137,000

CNN: 12,304,000

Fox News: 9,044,000

MSNBC: 5,889,000

Today, ABC News named prolific reporter Jake Tapper as the network's new Chief White House Correspondent.

In addition to his on air duties, Mr. Tapper also writes Polical Punch, which is arguably the best political blog by anyone in TV News. Presumably, he'll keep writing the blog after shifting over to the White House beat.

ABC News President David Westin also announced two other changes today. Martha Raddatz will become the network's new Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent, and Jonathan Karl will become ABC's Senior Congressional Correspondent.

"As we begin the transition to a new administration, we are fortunate to have in Jake, Martha and Jon three of the best beat reporters in journalism covering the White House, the foreign policy establishment, and Congress," said Mr.  read more »

It was Tuesday afternoon around 2:30 p.m., and Chris Matthews had been up since early in the morning, working the phones, jotting down notes, marveling at American democracy and the turnout in North Carolina, thinking about Roosevelt, and Truman, and J.F.K. In a few short hours, he would be on the air at MSNBC, guiding viewers through the returns.

Already, his mind was racing.

"If Obama wins it will be a time when the world once again looks at us with wonder," Mr. Matthews told The Observer.

"The great thing about America is that people have always looked at this country and said, How do they do it?" said Mr.  read more »

On the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 31, Katie Couric sat down in the Olympic Flame diner at the corner of 60th Street and Amsterdam, and ordered a cup of coffee. Outside, the weather was mild. Beams of sunlight streamed through the window. A woman dressed in some sort of elfin costume strolled down the sidewalk.

Ms. Couric said that as a kid, her mother liked to dress her up on Halloween as a drunken doctor. The coffee arrived.

O.K., Ms. Couric, it’s trick or treat time: What would you want from CBS, the network that paid you a reported $15 million a year to lure you from your perch at NBC’s Today?

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On Monday, October 27th, Bill Wolff, the executive producer of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, got an email from the show's booker Andy Dallos. Mr. Dallos had some good news: Senator Barack Obama wanted to sit down with Ms. Maddow for an interview on Thursday afternoon in Florida.

"I was like, woooh-hooo!" said Mr. Wolff.  read more »

Today, Salon's Rebecca Traister has a terrific essay analyzing the success of CBS's Katie Couric, CNN's Campbell Brown, and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow during this year's presidential campaign.

From the piece:

While pondering the meaning of this year's 18 million cracks in the White House ceiling, we might easily have missed the shower of shards falling from other glass domes, like those atop television newsrooms. In the final weeks of October, days before what many consider the most crucial election of our lifetimes, the probing interviews, fine-boned analysis and buzzy commentary showing up on television screens and Internet browsers all over the country are often delivered not in the deep rumble of a wizened Uncle Walt but in a higher register belonging to one of several female newscasters to have kicked ass, taken names and otherwise owned the coverage of the 2008 election.

 read more »

Today, Julia Ioffe of The New Republic writes about the personal pitfalls facing political reporters and bloggers limping to the finish line after two years on the trail.

Here's a bit from the article about CNN's Candy Crowley:

At campaign rallies, Crowley, a self-described loner, is mobbed by 'CNN junkies,' all of them clamoring for a picture or an autograph. ('That's why I love my iPod,' she says.) Crowley was with Barack Obama when he declared his candidacy in February 2007, and has been going nearly non-stop ever since. She has heard all the speeches, covered all the campaign ads. She can't remember her last furlough and her "strategic nice reserve" ran out two months ago. Now in the final lap, Crowley just wants to go home.

Today, Michael Calderone of Politico writes about Brit Hume's swan song at Fox News. After the election, Mr. Hume, who joined the cable news network during its fledgling days back in 1996, will be significantly cutting back his duties, which currently include anchoring Special Report at 6 p.m., anchoring big political night coverage, and serving as the managing editor of the news division.

One fun moment from the piece: ABC News' Sam Donaldson, who is 74, questions why Mr. Hume, who is 65, would be winding things down.

From the article:

'What are these young kids like Brit Hume stepping down for?' asked veteran anchor Sam Donaldson, a former colleague at ABC (and nine years his senior). 'I think Brit's at the height of his power.'

On the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 23, around 1 p.m., Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.

Mr. Griffin was sitting at a table at the Sea Grill restaurant, overlooking the ice rink at Rockefeller Plaza, the nerve center of NBC. From the wallet, he pulled out a tattered CNN work ID from the early ’80s, a memento, he said, from his first job in TV. He always kept the CNN badge on him. “Not sure why,” he said.

He cast a sideways glance at the photo of his 20-something-year-old self, smiling from beneath a mop of brown hair, which has since mostly disappeared with age.  read more »

Today ABC News executives announced their network's plans for election night. Coverage will begin at 7 p.m. and continue until at least 2:00 a.m. Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer, and George Stephanopoulos will anchor the live coverage from Times Square.

According to the press release, ABC News will be constructing on outdoor set in Times Square for the occasion, complete with "real time election results on three iconic screens--ABC's Super Sign, the enormous digital facade of Nasdaq and the 23-story high Reuters sign." 

Full release after the jump:  read more »

On Friday afternoon, Jeff Zucker, president and C.E.O. of NBC Universal, stood on stage in the ballroom on the third floor of the New York Hilton Hotel on 53rd Street and gestured at the afternoon's guest of honor Matt Lauer, who was seated nearby.

"I'm sure this isn't the first Hilton that Matt has been inside," said Mr. Zucker.

Zing!

Later, he asked the longtime host of The Today Show what it was like waking up every morning knowing "that Lester Holt is waiting for you to die."

The crowd chuckled. They had paid $400-a-seat to eat chicken à la something and watch a conga line of NBC employees and celebrities (Tom Cruise! Mario Lopez! Donald Trump! Clay Aiken!) make fun of Mr.  read more »

Earlier this week, we wrote about all the changes going on at WNBC. On Thursday afternoon, station general manager Tom O'Brien sent out an email to staffers, elaborating on the "evolution" of the station’s newsroom into a so-called "content center."

The text of the email:

I wanted to thank you for your participation in Tuesday's Town Hall. I hope you felt it was a productive discussion and helped put in context the changes in the industry and at WNBC. It’s clear that many of you are interested in more information about our soon to launch news and information channel, so I’d like to take this opportunity to give you a better sense of both our current and future plans.  read more »

This morning David Westin, president of ABC News, sent out an e-mail to staffers warning that ABC News is not "immune from the downturn," and that the division (along with the rest of Disney's Media Networks Group) will be implementing new "guidelines" to "reduce administrative costs."

As part of the cost-cutting measures, ABC News will be canceling all of its magazine and newspaper subscriptions, will not be throwing any holiday parties, and will be scaling back on travel accommodations for executives.

Here's the depressing text of the e-mail:

We report every day on the economic climate and the effects being felt throughout the country.

 read more »

On Thursday, during the first taping of CNN's new comedy show (which is set to debut this coming weekend), former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told host D.L. Hughley he will be voting for Barack Obama in November.

No word yet from the McCain campaign about how many former White House press secretaries are supporting him.

Last night on the CBS Evening News, as part of the excellent ongoing series, "Presidential Questions," CBS News' Katie Couric asked both presidential candidates about the last time they had cried and why.

Their responses:

OBAMA: This one is pretty easy. It was Malia, my 10-year-old daughter's birthday party. We were in Montana. And you know, she's a Fourth of July baby. So often times, during this campaign, we'd be traveling during birthdays. And so we were in this small hotel, I think a Holiday Inn. And we had this big public thing. The staff organized for a smaller family party.  read more »

On the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 21, John Wallace, the president of NBC Universal’s local media division, stood in a television studio on the sixth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and spoke to a room full of employees about the future of local news.

The space, which decades ago served as the studio for The Tonight Show (that is, until Johnny Carson decamped for the West Coast), now serves as the broadcasting home of Sue Simmons, Chuck Scarborough, Len Berman and the rest of the WNBC News Channel 4 team.

Shortly after 2 p.m., WNBC staffers convened in the studio in part to hear management’s latest take on their future livelihood at 30 Rock.  read more »

Today, Drew Griffin landed CNN's first interview with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The fifteen minute interview, which took place in Reno, Nevada, is currently being replayed on each hour of CNN's Situation Room.

Not long ago, we interviewed Mr. Griffin about his trip to Wasilla, Alaska, where he had travelled to work on the CNN documentary Sarah Palin Revealed.

“There was no shortage of color,” Mr. Griffin told us at the time.

Back in August, when we were riding around Denver in the back of a stretch Escalade with Rachel Maddow (and Pat Buchanan!), we wondered how long it would take for cable news audiences to warm up to Ms. Maddow's show, which, at the time, was set to debut on MSNBC in a few short weeks.

Today, in The New York Times, Brian Stelter provides the answer. As it turns out: not long!

From the article:

Rachel Maddow, a woman who does not own a television set, has done something that is virtually unheard of: she has doubled the audience for a cable news channel's 9 p.

 read more »

Last week, Margot Friedman, a public relations professional in Washington, D.C., launched a Web site encouraging NBC News executives to rethink their strategy for picking the next moderator of Meet the Press.

"The New York Times has reported that NBC will name a new moderator for 'Meet the Press' between Election Day and early December," reads the Web site http://dontletnbcdiswomen.org/. "Chuck Todd and David Gregory are in the running. Both men are fine journalists, but they do not represent the racial or gender diversity that their viewers deserve. It is important for viewers to be exposed to a broad range of perspectives and not exclusively those of Caucasian males.  read more »

In The Washington Post today, Howard Kurtz reports that former New York Times national security correspondent Judith Miller (who once famously referred to herself as "Miss Run Amok") is joining Fox News as an on-air analyst and writer for the cable news channel's Web site.

Update, 12:25 PM: Ms. Miller spoke to Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp, telling him, "I get to spout my views, I will NOT be joining the news team... I care about First Amendment issues and free speech and I will talk about that and foreign policy if and when we ever stop talking about the economy, which is going to be going on for a while."

She also tells Politico's Michael Calderone, "I was a Hillary supporter who has gone over to the Obama side... Lots of people think they know what I believe, but don’t."

Not long ago, the New York Times rolled out its new consolidated format, in which the former Metro Section is now regularly folded into the back of the A-section under the heading "New York" and the sports coverage regularly appears at the rear of the business section, rather than in a stand-alone section.

As The Observer previously reported, the changes will likely save The Times millions of dollars a year. But the changes are not without a cost to readers. So says one of New York's top authorities on newspaper readability--namely, Pat Kiernan.

Every weekday morning, Mr. Kiernan--the popular morning anchor on Time Warner's 24-hour local news channel NY1--does an eight-minute segment, called "In the Papers," in which he laconically summarizes a handful of articles from the day's stack of newspapers.  read more »

On Thursday afternoon, during a taping of CBS's Late Show at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, Senator John McCain apologized to David Letterman for skipping out on an interview with the late night comedian at the last minute some three weeks earlier.

"What exactly happened?" asked Mr. Letterman.

"I screwed up," said Senator McCain.  read more »