Outside Cable News

Via Time Warner Newsroom
CNN Mobile Wins Webby People’s Voice Award

CNN Mobile has won a Webby People’s Voice Award for Best Mobile News Site of 2008, it was announced this week by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The academy presents the Webby Awards, a leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Web sites, interactive advertising, online film and video and mobile Web sites.

For the 12th Annual Webby Awards, the academy received nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 states and more than 60 countries worldwide. Winners will be honored at a star-studded gala in New York City on June 10. While academy members select the winners of the Webby Awards, the Webby People’s Voice Awards are determined by the online community itself.

“Our focus is on delivering a great mobile experience – from making CNN.com easy to read on a handset to streaming live breaking news video,” said Mitch Gelman, senior vice president and senior executive producer of CNN.com. “It is a tremendous honor that Internet users across the globe believe we are doing that well enough to recognize CNN Mobile with a Webby.”
(more…)

Via Newsday
Ryan Seacrest for Larry King?
By Verne Gay

Here’s some very, very (very) intriguing gossip, that may well be of the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” variety:

MSNBC is reporting as we speak that Ryan Seacrest is “in negotiations” to take over Larry King’s role at CNN by year’s end. Courtney Hazlett of “The Scoop” has this, without the usual round of denials, but suggests that he’d be “adding” to his hosting duties. That’s absurd — there’s no way Seacrest would or could do both CNN at 9 and “Idol” — unless, of course, he’s like some sort of Cylon from “Battlestar Gallactica” and has a body double out there (hmmmmm).

No, he’d leave “Idol.” There has been bounteous speculation on this very subject — Ry to LK’s slot — in the past, but always pooh-poohed. Hazlett pulled up an old quote from the Times, which cites LK’s tacit approval of such a move: “He’s the classic generalist. The only thing I don’t know, and I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, is how versed he is in politics, world affairs. Does he read the paper? Is he interested in Iraq? Because if he is, he’s going to be very good.”

(Not to be a snotty twit — because of course, I’m not — but how well do YOU know those things, LK?)

Seacrest, I imagine, would be fine, assuming he knows how to ask questions and how to listen; he’s certainly no dummy and is quick on his feet, and he’s done the show before. Can’t imagine how he couldn’t handle this — but let me think a little while and I am sure I’ll come up with several ways he couldn’t. Would viewers of this show with an ancient demographic embrace this relative child? That’s another matter altogether.
(more…)

Via CJR
Toobin Got It Right
But rest of TV news perpetuated a fiction in the service of suspense
By Zachary Roth

As we all waited for those final results to come in from northwest Indiana last night, everyone on TV seemed to collude in deceiving viewers—by propagating the fiction that the question of which candidate got more votes in Indiana was of any direct importance.

I was watching with my Mom, who’s visiting from overseas. From the breathless way that Russert, Matthews, Blitzer, Cooper, et al stoked the suspense over who would come out ahead in Indiana, she assumed, understandably, that the contest was winner-take-all, and therefore that whomever got the most votes would get all the states’ delegates.

That’s not how it works, of course. In the Democratic nomination contest (unlike the Republican one), delegates are awarded on a proportional basis. The difference between a two-point win for Clinton and a one-point win for Obama is at most, one delegate.

But as far as I saw, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin was the only person to point that out all night, and no one seemed to pay him any attention.
(more…)

Via National Journal
Hotline After Dark — Anchors Say The Darndest Things!
By KATHERINE LEHR

Last night we provided continuous coverage of Barack Obama’s double-digit victory in NC and Hillary Clinton’s narrow win in IN. Here are some of the more humorous highlights:

Dem strategist Donna Brazile, to CNN’s Dobbs: “You’re my boo tonight. Lou’s my boo tonight. You’ve been promoted.”

Dobbs: “Can you excuse us for a minute? We need some privacy” (CNN).

“Do you think Hillary Clinton has the soul of a vice president?” — MSNBC’s Matthews to Harold Ford Jr., who apparently knows HRC’s soul.

FNC’s Hume: “There’s this magic map that we have here at Fox News, and nobody knows how to operate it here but Bill Hemmer. We go to Bill Hemmer from time to time, not just because he has things to say but because he knows how to open the damn map.”

Hemmer: “Now it’s the damn map, huh?”

Hume: “Well, it’s close to ten o’clock. It’s past family time, so we can say that” (FNC).

See today’s Hotline for the most recent coverage from the a.m. shows (KATHERINE LEHR).