Outside Cable News

Via TV Barn
By Aaron Barnhart
Good lord! Read your Bible, Major Garrett
>EXCERPT

Anyway, this is leading into a video clip that the leftie watchdog group Media Matters just posted of Fox News Channel’s Major Garrett, trying to give Sen. Barack Obama a Scripture lesson.

The Golden Rule is “not exactly rooted in Scripture but in the ballpark,” Garrett asserts. Actually, it’s more rooted in Scripture than a lot of things that so-called “values voters” hold dear. Perhaps Garrett is confusing this with the old Ben Franklin aphorism, “God helps those who help themselves,” which is not in the Good Word but often gets cited as though it is.

What carries over Garrett’s error from Unfortunate Goof to Appalling Misstatement is the fact that Obama’s response is exactly the one I would make if I had an embarrassing mentor or brother (Roger Clinton, Neil Bush) whose exploits were in the news.

Plus, what the heck church was Major Garrett brought up in that didn’t teach that the Golden Rule were the words of Jesus?

>Check out the video at TV Barn.

Via B&C
Fox News Channel to Take HD Leap
Time Warner Cable to Begin Carrying Fox News HD in Select Markets Thursday
By Glen Dickson

Fox News Channel will become the latest cable network to launch an HD service when it begins broadcasting in the 720-line progressive HD format Thursday.

Fox News HD, which will be a simulcast of Fox News’ standard-definition service, will initially be carried by Time Warner Cable in “select regions,” Fox News vice president of affiliate sales Tim Carry said.

Fox News HD will launch on Time Warner Cable in various parts of New York including Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island (channel 744) and Hudson Valley (channel 762). Time Warner also agreed to carry the new HD channel in San Antonio on channel 152.

Video from the Fox News studios and stand-up locations at the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ Exchange will originate in true HD for the new service, with additional field footage in HD planned for later this year. Fox News HD will also provide the HD pool feed for coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer.

The new HD service will include added content on the screen in the form of an “HD wing” graphic, which will display national and world headlines, financial-market news, weather updates and sports scores. Fox Business Channel, which launched in HD last fall on DirecTV, also uses graphics to display additional content on the HD picture screen.

Via Jossip
David Gregory is Supposed to Be Phil Griffin’s Key to Removing Chris Matthews
The plan that’s not working out so well
JOSSIP REPORTS

There’s a big reason why MSNBC would like to quiet any knowledge of David Gregory’s off-camera behavior and sluggish ratings. David Gregory, you see, is supposed to be the next Chris Matthews.

Oh, did we say next?

We meant he’s supposed to replace Chris Matthews.

Promise not to tell?

MSNBC head Phil Griffin has been pushing for Matthews’ exit for months, if not longer, we’re hearing. Though Matthews remains a large part of MSNBC’s brand, he hasn’t been delivering the ratings; Hardball regularly comes in third in its timeslot. And the rise of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown proves MSNBC can remain competitive, and perhaps Matthews isn’t the one for the job.

Which is why Gregory’s installation as a 6pm talking head is so crucial to Griffin’s strategy. By ramping up Gregory’s image now, before the election, he’s better suited to take over Matthews’ slot when his $5 million-per-year contract is up next year.

>Read the rest at Jossip.

Via AOL News
Rachel Maddow: Number 50 With a Bullet!
By Tommy Christopher
>EXCERPT

I contacted Rachel about landing on the list, and she was generous enough to indulge me.

Update: This is for you, Rachel. Thanks.

Here is our exchange, over the course of 2 emails: .

Tommy Christopher: Rachel, you were named to the UK Telegraph’s Top 50 Most Influential Political Pundits list. What’s your reaction?

Rachel Maddow: My reaction can be roughly summed up by the phrase “Woohoo!”. Nice to be noticed. I was particularly thrilled to see myself described as “cute” — before I reread it and realized that what they actually said was that I was “acute” — I’ll take it anyway.
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Via NYT
Clinton to Appear on O’Reilly Factor
By Brian Stelter

Hillary Rodham Clinton will be interviewed by the Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly for the first time on Wednesday.

The interview will be shown on “The O’Reilly Factor” in two parts on Wednesday and Thursday. Expect plenty of media references to Mrs. Clinton’s entrance into “The No-Spin Zone,” a moniker for Mr. O’Reilly’s broadcast. “The O’Reilly Factor” is the most popular program on cable news, averaging 2.58 million viewers in March.

Mr. O’Reilly and his producers have been pursuing interviews with the Democratic presidential candidates for months. (Dennis Kucinich is the only Democratic contender that has appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor” during the primary season.)

Mr. O’Reilly’s interview of Mrs. Clinton will come days after Barack Obama appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” a weekly political program hosted by Chris Wallace.

Via NY Sun
A ‘Hardball’ Senator?
By SETH GITELL

The possibility of the host of MSNBC’s “Hardball” Christopher Matthews, running against Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, a Republican, for Mr. Specter’s senate seat in Pennsylvania is intensifying.

Although Mr. Matthews said to Bill Maher of HBO that he’s “not getting involved in it” when asked about whether he would seek the position in 2010, it is odd to employ his television program in a way that would make him a favorable candidate to run for senator of Pennsylvania as a Democrat.

Mr. Matthews, who is from the Philadelphia area, broadcasted his show from Philadelphia during the week of the Pennsylvania primary. Political figures that appeared on his national show were the mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, and an African-American congressman of Philadelphia, Chaka Fattah. In addition, Mr. Matthews interviewed on “Hardball” the chairmen of the Democratic committees of Allegheny, Montgomery, and Lackawanna counties, James Burn Jr., Marcel Groen, and Harry McGrath, local figures vital to any statewide candidacy.
(more…)

Via Telegraph
The most influential US political pundits: 40-31
Telegraph.co.uk unveils the second installment of its list of the 50 most influential political pundits in America.

>Check out 40-31 at Telegraph.

>Earlier: 50-41

Via Newslab/Guardian
Hispanic congressmen demand corporate action against CNN host
By Elana Schor

The anti-immigration views of CNN host Lou Dobbs have made him a darling in the ratings but a nemesis among US Latinos, whose frustration has risen to the Washington corridors of power.

After their requests for a meeting with the chief executive of CNN’s parent company were rebuffed, Latino members of Congress condemned the TV network for failing to recognise the “potentially dangerous” consequences of Dobbs’s “divisive commentary”.

Dobbs has become a sensation thanks to his populist outbursts against undocumented immigrants, whom he calls “aliens” and accuses of “invading” America to steal jobs.

The TV host also has targeted the Democratic presidential candidates, naming one segment “Hillary’s hypocrisy” and describing Barack Obama’s endorsement by Latino governor and former Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson as “pandering to ethnocentric special interests”.
(more…)