Outside Cable News

Via Baptist Press
‘Fox on Faith’ podcast available
By Staff

NEW YORK (BP)–A new podcast from Fox News Radio provides in-depth coverage of religious stories that have not necessarily been addressed by the network’s mainstream reporting.

“Fox on Faith,” hosted by former Baptist Press assistant editor Todd Starnes, launched in April and is updated every other week at foxnewsradio.com. The goal of the podcast, which offers a free subscription, is to explore how faith intersects the public arena.

Starnes is a news anchor and reporter for Fox News Radio, and the Fox on Faith podcast is one of about a dozen free podcasts the network offers.

The segments, ranging from five to 10 minutes, move along quickly from topic to topic, and they also include extended interviews with people like Grammy winner Steven Curtis Chapman, who spoke to Starnes just weeks before his youngest daughter was killed in a tragic accident.

>Read the rest at Baptist Press News.

Via OJR/Poynter
What journalism students hate about local and cable news
Online Journalism Review

Robert Niles writes: “My students complained about the titillation — fear-mongering crime reports, salacious coverage of the entertainment industries, reporters and anchor people glammed up to look like models. And when TV reports covered more serious issues, including politics, they result as little more than propaganda — talking points served up from two sides, with no analysis testing the claims, beyond petty insults.”

>Read the rest at OJR.

Via TVDecoder
Season Finale: CNN’s Ratings During Obama Speech Are a Milestone
By Brian Stelter

It is extremely rare for a cable news channel to draw higher ratings than the broadcast networks, but CNN apparently managed to pull it off on Tuesday night, when its telecast of Barack Obama’s victory speech attracted 4.73 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Only one broadcaster, ABC, interrupted its entertainment programming for the speech. While ratings for the special report are not yet available, ABC never topped four million for all of prime time on Tuesday, according to Nielsen. Another 3.45 million viewers watched the speech on MSNBC.
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Via AP
Judge tosses school official’s lawsuit against Fox News

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a school superintendent’s lawsuit against Fox News, saying the cable news channel acted unprofessionally but without malice when anchors on “Fox and Friends” reported a parody story about ham as fact last year.

The case was an outgrowth of an April 2007 prank in which a middle school student tossed a slab of leftover Easter ham onto a table surrounded by Somali Muslim youngsters, knowing the Muslims would be offended. Muslims consider pork unclean.

A few days later, a parody story spoofing the ham controversy was posted online. The story attributed numerous made-up quotes to Superintendent Leon Levesque, including the need to teach kids that “ham is not a toy” and references to developing an “anti-ham response plan.” The joke story, written by freelancer Nicholas Plagman, falsely listed the Associated Press as the source of the information.

The spoof was reported as fact on “Fox and Friends” on April 23. After Levesque contacted Fox, the network aired a retraction.
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Via MarketWatch
I don’t understand Anderson Cooper’s appeal
By Jon Friedman

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Yes, CNN’s Anderson Cooper has heart. He oozes empathy. He’s clearly a good-hearted fellow and, by all accounts, as likeable as all get-out.

And yet I have this Cooper-related conundrum.

Can you please explain to me how the host of “Anderson Cooper 360″ seems to have become the most trusted name in news at Time Warner’s CNN?

I may have just answered my own question. I suspect that people tune in to Cooper because they like him, and that’s no small feat for a television personality. If more people liked Katie Couric, she probably wouldn’t be in danger of getting shoved out of the “CBS Evening News” anchor chair.

>Read the rest at MarketWatch.

Via Baltimore Sun
Getting the story first, or getting it right
By David Zurawik

The most-watched presidential primary season in TV history ended yesterday with a wild roller-coaster ride of conflicting news reports, updates, “knockdowns” and delegate countdowns that left even veteran media executives scratching their heads.

“It was exactly one year ago that we televised our first debate, and it’s been an incredible ride straight through to today,” CNN political director Sam Feist said last night. “And what a last day for the primary season! We had one development after another - and more breaking news banners today on CNN than during any other day in recent memory.”

Typical of the topsy-turvy times, 24/7 cable TV news channels like CNN and upstart Web sites like Politico.com served as the media of record yesterday, while the Associated Press, one of the nation’s most respected sources of news, was the institution needing clarification - if not correction.
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