Outside Cable News

Via CSRwire
Lt. Colonel Oliver North Address Audience at USA Cares 5th Anniversary Gala
USA Cares first ever gala celebrates five years of service to US Military Families

(CSRwire) LOUISVILLE, KY – March 31, 2008 - The historic Seelbach Hotel was the scene of USA Cares first ever gala in celebration of five years of service to US Military Families on Saturday, March 29th. Over 225 dignitaries and guests were on hand to share the event and to hear the keynote address by Lt. Colonel Oliver North, United States Marine Corps (Retired).

“The evening was a success on every level” said William H. “Bill” Nelson, the new Executive Director of USA Cares. He added “It started with a proclamation from Governor Steven L. Beshear signifying March 29th as USA Cares Day in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We were also recognized by the National Commander of the nation’s largest veterans association, Martin F. Conatser of The American Legion.” He went on “And as if we were not already elated enough, the founder of USA Cares, Command Sergeant Major Roger Stradley, US Army (Retired) received the Secretary of the Army Public Service Award signed by Pete Geren. We were pleasantly amazed by this outpouring of support.”
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Via Jossip
Working at Newsweek Has Its Cable News Perks
Why some people didn’t want to say goodbye

Why did Jonathan Alter and Howard Fineman refuse the Newsweek buyout deals that 111 other people accepted, even when they were among the sweetest offers made in recent history?

Perhaps it’s because both of them are earning into the six figures at MSNBC with on-air analyst gigs, we understand.

Had they chose to leave Newsweek, they may have received their news magazine salary for up to two years, but they also would’ve become much less desirable commodities at MSNBC, and risked losing those lucrative contracts.

Via Ithaca
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour And Former Asst. Sec. Of State James Rubin Will Give Free Public Lecture At Ithaca College

ITHACA, NY—The Park Distinguished Visitor Series at Ithaca College will host a talk by CNN international correspondent Christiane Amanpour and former Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Rubin on Wednesday, April 9. The free public presentation will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Ben Light Gymnasium.
One of the most eminent journalists of our time, Amanpour is equally at home conducting exclusive interviews with world leaders and reporting from the heart of war zones. She has received wide acclaim and numerous awards for her work, particularly for her extensive coverage of conflicts in the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East. Rubin is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and serves as a member of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign team. Amanpour and Rubin have been married since 1998.
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Via Washington University
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to deliver Washington University’s Commencement address May 16

March 31, 2008 — Chris Matthews — host of “Hardball with Chris Matthews” on MSNBC and of “The Chris Matthews Show,” a syndicated weekly news program produced by NBC News, and regular commentator on NBC’s “Today” show — has been selected to give Washington University in St. Louis’ 2008 Commencement address, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

The university’s 147th Commencement will begin at 8:30 a.m. May 16 in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus.

“It is a privilege to have Chris Matthews deliver the Commencement address to our graduates this spring,” Wrighton said. “Chris Matthews continues to be an important figure in the national news media with respect to the American political process. He is familiar with both Washington University and the pressing challenges that face our society today — challenges that our new graduates will be working to overcome and address.”
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Via NyMag
Lou Dobbs Wishes These Cotton-Pickin’ Politicians Would Stop Saying Americans Are Racist

“Most Americans don’t have a problem talking about race,” Lou Dobbs said the other night, when discussing comments made by Condoleezza Rice about race still being an issue in America. Except for, apparently, Lou Dobbs. As the CNN anchor got increasingly fired up about how, contrary to what Rice and Barack Obama have been saying lately, America is actually really enlightened, he accidentally let loose with a rather controversial expression.

“Not a single one of these cotton-pickmwhwhyah — these just ridiculous politicians should be the moderator on the issue of race.” Right, Lou. Because you’re doing a fine job.

Video available at NyMag.

Related: AOL News

Via LocalNews8
By: Megan Boatwright
Glenn Beck Speaks at D.A.R.E Graduations in Rexburg

Why would a well known radio celebrity for CNN like Glenn Beck, fly from New York City to Rexburg, Idaho just to attend a couple of D.A.R.E. graduations? The answer is easy, passion.

“They almost killed me,” Beck said while referring to drugs and alcohol. “I am really one of the lucky ones to be alive, and make it out of the drug seen.”

His passion was evident tonight at Madison High School, as the Beck explained his children were the reason he finally sobered up.

As soon as he took the stage he turned his back to the parents, and spoke directly to students applauding them for their commitment.

“The D.A.R.E program is set up to let kids know you can trust the cops,” said Beck. “The sheriff is a friend of yours; you just have to have that support from the community.”
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Via B&C
By Marisa Guthrie

TAKE FIVE: Toe to Toe With CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino

CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino doesn’t pull punches. A former amateur pugilist, Gasparino’s outsize on-air persona has gotten him in multiple verbal kerfuffles of late. He’s tangled with guests—notably former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey Ross—and even sent an uncalled-for haymaker at colleague and Squawk Box contributor Dennis Kneale. CNBC anchor Erin Burnett has invoked his name as a noun. “Pulling a Gasparino” is to shout down an opponent.

But Gasparino says it’s all part of the theater of live television. Even with an occasional bad call—such as Black Rock executive Larry Fink taking over at Merrill Lynch—he hasn’t exactly been discouraged. Says network spokesperson Brian Steel, “Charlie always has an interesting perspective, and he is not shy about expressing it.”

Gasparino may not be the most elegant take-down pundit, but the former print reporter (Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal), who came to CNBC in 2005, gets the job done and makes noise doing it. He also just sealed a deal for his third book—The Sellout, about the collapse of Bear Stearns—with a handsome advance from HarperCollins. Gasparino talks to B&C’s Marisa Guthrie about his attitude, Wall Street greed and L’Affaire Spitzer.

So what’s with all the verbal scuffles? Dennis Kneale seemed genuinely offended when you joked that he was also a client of a high-priced prostitution ring. Should you tone it down a notch?
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Via Observer
by Felix Gillette

Majority Report: Meet the Friendly Little Pixels That Have Taken Over Election Night
Pixel-Tweaking Pundits Look Like Newsmen of the Future, But the Price Is High

On the night of the Super Tuesday presidential primaries, John King and Wolf Blitzer stood in front of a camera in a studio at CNN’s headquarters at the Time Warner Center and provided some live analysis of the night’s upcoming contests. Behind them was a device that looked like a widescreen television, showing a map of the United States.
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Via Newsday
By DAVID BAUDER
Campbell Brown quietly begins tenure on CNN nightly news show

NEW YORK - There are entrances, and there are ENTRANCES.

Campbell Brown has made a lower-caps bow at CNN, anchoring the week-night series “Election Center” for the past few weeks.

When she left NBC last summer, where she was host of “Weekend Today” and Brian Williams’ primary sub on “Nightly News,” Brown said she was taking time offscreen to have a baby and develop a format for the new 8 p.m. show she would anchor on CNN.

The first mission was accomplished (Eli, born Dec. 18), but events conspired to change the second. CNN cooked up “Election Center” in January to capitalize on the intense political interest and serve as a spaceholder for Brown. Instead, when she was ready to come back, Brown simply moved into the anchor chair at the all-politics program.

It’s the ultimate soft launch, and saved Brown from hours of mind-numbing meetings.

“The things that go into putting a new show together _ the staff, the graphics, whatever else _ that’s not my focus,” she told The Associated Press. “That’s not the sort of stuff that interested me anyway. What interested me was the story, and this landed in our laps. I couldn’t have been happier.”
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Via Northwest Herald
By Chris Krug
Krug: Democrats’ battle must-miss cable TV

Gotta hand it to the cable TV “news” networks for perpetuating this myth that Hillary Rodham Clinton can catch Barack Obama in the primaries.

It seems as if the CNNs and the Fox Newses and the MSNBCs and the rest of that lot will do anything to keep Clinton and Obama bumping along through the news cycle.

But the minute-by-minute updates are rooted in fantasy.

OK, so Clinton isn’t mathematically eliminated from winning. But the woeful Bulls adding another banner to the rafters of the United Center this spring is far more likely than the nomination of Clinton.
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Via San Antonio Express-News
By Robert Seltzer
Cable TV bloviators thrive in the finger-pointing of silly season

It was 1972, an era dramatically different from our own.

Issues, you see, seemed to matter.

George McGovern, who won the Democratic presidential nomination, considered Walter Cronkite as his running mate, according to a recent Newsweek column by George Will.

Cronkite, the anchorman for the CBS Evening News, was known as “the most trusted man in America,” his integrity and gravitas a dramatic reminder that television was not always the land of the three Bs — blather, bloviation and b.s.

Flash forward a few decades: If the current Democratic contenders, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, scoured the television landscape for a running mate, they would find several candidates up and down the cable dial, each with his own set of pluses and minuses.

Billy O’Reilly, host of “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox. O’Reilly looks human, sounds human and sometimes acts human. But he is an ego encased in skin. Plus, he is so defensive that he would make the Nixon “enemies list” look like the welcome wagon.
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Via Cleveland Indians/MLB
By Jon Cooper
CNN personality impresses during BP
Headline News anchor Robin Meade shines against Willis

ATLANTA — At 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, Indians pitching coach Carl Willis is an imposing figure. It’s difficult to imagine anything throwing him off his game.

Then again, beauty has been known to tame the savage beast. On Saturday afternoon at Turner Field, that’s exactly what happened.

Robin Meade, a CNN Headline News anchor and star of “Morning Express with Robin Meade,” was the beauty who threw the veteran pitching coach for a loop during a batting-practice session that will be featured in a future segment of her show.

“[Willis] apologized. because he was so tired at the end,” said Meade, an Ohio native and a former Miss Ohio. “He said I was intimidating.”

“It was kind of like trying to hit the bat and throwing to your kids, so to speak,” said Willis with a laugh. “But after throwing to all the guys to try to let off a little bit, I lost it. She’s an intimidating figure at the plate.”
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Via Seattlepi
By STEPHEN BATTAGLIO
TV GUIDE
CNN’s John Roberts Touts a Very Good Morning

Former CBS News veteran John Roberts is coming up on his first year as co-anchor of CNN’s American Morning. While it’s not getting the same ratings boom that the cable network is experiencing the rest of the day, AM’s first-quarter audience is up 11 percent from a year ago as Roberts and co-anchor Kiran Chetry offer a more straight-ahead alternative to the entertainment/news hybrids that the broadcast networks and Fox News offer in the morning. But Roberts tells The Biz the program will be getting some adjustments when a new executive producer comes on board.

TVGuide.com: Your anniversary on American Morning is the same day as the one of the biggest domestic stories of last year, the Virginia Tech shooting.
John Roberts: On April 16 Kiran and I did our very first show together. I was in Washington, she was in New York. Literally at the end of the show the Virginia Tech shooting broke and we found ourselves on the road. It’s a shame that was such a tragedy that threw us right into the thick of things. It was a good way to bond with her on the air and the bond has grown since then.
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Anyone know who this is filling in for Nancy Grace?

Via Financial Post
By Barbara Shecter
Foreign broadcasters may have to pitch in to Canadian TV: CRTC

TORONTO — As the federal broadcast regulator prepares to overhaul cable rules for the first time in more than a decade next month, it is pondering whether U.S. networks broadcast in Canada such as NBC, Fox and CNN should have to pay for the creation of Canadian programs.

The question of what is the “appropriate contribution, if any” to Canadian content by foreign broadcasters is contained in a document circulated to Canadian broadcasters and cable and satellite television operators by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in advance of hearings scheduled to begin April 8 in Ottawa.
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Via Tampabay.com
By Eric Deggans

Why Did It Take Sinbad to Expose Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia “Misstatement”?

As I’ve been watching coverage of Hillary Clinton’s attempt to explain why she characterized a visit to Bosnia years ago as much more dangerous than it actually was, I’ve been struck by network reporters’ attempts to insert themselves into the story.

Both CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson and NBC’s Andrea Mitchell have pointed out during their reports that they were actually with Clinton on that Bosnia trip and recalled no sniper fire, rushing crowds or exaggerated danger. Since headlines have been filled with the news, other journalists who took that trip 12 years ago — including former MTV News reporter Tabitha Soren — have weighed in.

So why did it take comic Sinbad to blow the lid on the whole deal?

Read the rest at Tampabay.com

>The last couple days I noticed a new feature on AC360’s website.. its called the Erica (Hill) CAM and is behind-the-scenes action. IMO, CNN has a pretty good website, but the inability to embed video is lame. Now of course I could just rip the video and then upload it to YouTube or FileFront.. However, that’s a little more work than I had in mind right now.

Check out the video here.

Via MSNBC/Your Business

Enter to win a makeover for your small business
Put the ‘Your Business’ team to work to help grow your enterprise

“Your Business,” hosted by JJ Ramberg, airs Sundays at 7:30 a.m. Eastern. The program focuses on the world of America’s small business entrepreneurs, featuring profiles, news, advice and tips.

Looking to grow your small business? Put the “Your Business” team to work with a personal biz makeover! Enter now for a chance to have our team come to your business and help you reach your goals while capturing every moment for an upcoming episode of “Your Business” on MSNBC cable. Add an image or video if you like.

Visit MSNBC to enter.

Via Newslab/The Ithacan Online
By Jamie Saine Accent Editor

Morales speaks about balancing personal and professional life

It was 2002 when Natalie Morales got her first break in the big league — as an anchor for MSNBC. The first afternoon she was set to go on air, a story about peace talks broke in the Middle East. Her producer told her to throw away the script, and Morales spent the next hour reporting breaking news.

Morales, now an anchor on NBC’s Today Show and this year’s Jessica Savitch distinguished journalism speaker, said a big part of what got her through that first day was a good support system — including her producer.

“Find the people who will prop you up when you’re beaten down,” she said. “Find those people who are going to put their arms around you when everybody else is criticizing you and say, ‘You’re doing just great.’”
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>Presser after the jump.

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Via BusinessJournalism
By Arun Khosla

Fox Business Network: A Leap of Faith

In September, in a newsroom overlooking Midtown Manhattan, Fox News Executive Vice President Kevin Magee pressed a button that started the countdown clock over his shoulder. Like a NASA shuttle launch, the digital display began to tick down to the debut of one of the most anticipated launches in television history. At the helm were some of the most-recognized names in business news including Senior Vice President and Managing Editor Neil Cavuto and Vice President of Business News Alexis Glick. Mr. Magee reminded the remaining new faces that they were to embark on a rare opportunity – being an original member of a new television network.
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Via Dispatch Politics
By Joe Hallett

Kasich gets set to run in 2010
Ohio’s in ‘death spiral,’ Fox News pundit says

Former U.S. Rep. John R. Kasich says he’s prepared to leave a lucrative private-sector career and run for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010.

Kasich, 55, said yesterday he will make a final decision early in 2009, but he is paving the way now for a gubernatorial bid.

“The important thing for people to know is that the success I’ve had in the private sector is not going to keep me from doing this,” said the former congressman from Westerville.

Since launching a short-lived presidential campaign in 2000 and then leaving the House in 2001 after 18 years, Kasich has made a handsome living as a television personality for the Fox News Channel, managing director for the Columbus office of Lehman Brothers, and speaker.
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Via Earned Media

Grove City College to Host Fox News’ Beltway Boys, Barnes & Kondracke, at ‘Church & State 2008′

Contact: Deborah Hamilton, Hamilton Strategies, 610-454-1538

GROVE CITY, Penn., March 27 /Christian Newswire/ — What can churches tell their congregants about values voting, the issues of the day, and how church and state can work together – and should they work together? Where does the nexus of religion and politics lie?

Pennsylvania and its April 22nd primary are the focus of the political world. In a presidential election year, church-state issues receive heightened scrutiny and on April 10 & 11 Pennsylvania’s Grove City College will host one of the most important conferences of the year - “Church & State 2008″ - featuring some of the nation’s leading commentators and scholars. The conference will take a look at presidential candidates, where values voters will turn in 2008 and will wrestle with contemporary and historical church-state issues.
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Betty Nguyen just said Heidi Collins is on maternity leave. So, as of today, the old Saturday Morning combo of Betty & Tony has been rekindled. No idea if she’ll be filling in (regularly) during Heidi’s absence, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

Update: So, my eyes aren’t deceiving me after all. According to TVNewser, Heidi Collins used a surrogate this time and now has another son as of Tuesday night.

Update: Heidi Collins video from last Friday at All Things CNN.

I don’t know if I’m roof bound or not today.. But, by the look of things posted yesterday.. I guess that doesn’t really matter after all. Anyway, I see nothing to post so far. (Well, with the exception of possible buyers for The Weather Channel, and will admit, it’d be interesting if Time Warner, News Corp., or NBCUNI bought them.) So, head on over to TVNewser and read that KO exclusive.

Via BloggingStocks
By Sarah Gilbert
Money Honeys: Why business TV is sexy

CNBC star Maria Bartiromo and I share a birthday, and I love a good scandal, so I follow her religiously. Maria is fun because she’s both gorgeous and cute, smart and sexy. And then there’s the strange case of Todd Thomson (the Citigroup exec who fell so in love with Maria that he flagrantly violated ethics, and common sense, just to spend time with her). She’s also fun because her nickname is “Money Honey,” and what’s more: she’s applied for a trademark for the phrase! Delicious.

Well, she might have to move fast to use the phrase before she loses the IP to a new generation of money honeys (money honeyettes?). New Corp. (NYSE: NWS)’s Fox Business News has a bevy of beauties dishing up the news on the stock market and the economy: Liz Claman, Dagen McDowell, Jenna Lee, Alexis Glick. Ben Stein wants to know, where did they all come from? His analysis, that finance is both boring and inscrutable, and that men would rather get this boring, inscrutable and (largely) completely irrelevant news from beautiful women, is certainly sensible.

Read the rest at BloggingStocks.

Via Newslab/Philly.com
By Jonathan Storm

Jonathan Storm: The week in cable babble
Political coverage on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, currently starring Pennsylvania, is speculative, partisan, often uninformed and uninformative.

The Pennsylvania of political pundits on TV seems to exist almost entirely of 55-year-old white male steelworkers who live in Scranton - and a few pretty scenes of Philadelphia.

And while locals are reveling in the unusual significance of a crucial late-season Democratic presidential primary a month away, many TV talking heads have already tallied the results and moved on to North Carolina and Indiana.

A survey of coverage by everyone from Tim Russert to Sean Hannity last week, the kickoff of campaigning in Pennsylvania, turned up mind-numbingly predictable opinions, incessant redundancy, and an astonishingly narrow perspective. A diligent viewer could gain small understandings, but the results did not justify the intense effort.

Bill O’Reilly thinks progressive Democrats are “loons.” Keith Olbermann thinks Bill O’Reilly is a loon. Larry King lobs softballs that at least give his interviewees a chance to talk, and a-rambling off they go. Do people really watch this stuff regularly?
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