Outside Cable News

Via LAT
CNN hopes to capitalize on its primary numbers
By Matea Gold

NEW YORK — Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama aren’t the only ones courting swing voters as the 2008 campaign shifts into its next phase. The ferocious battle for cable news viewers is moving into its own general election mode — and CNN is striving mightily to keep its primary winning streak going.

The cable news network was the biggest beneficiary of the drawn-out Democratic primary, averaging 1.11 million prime-time viewers this year, a 50% boost over the same period last year. It’s the best performance by the channel since the invasion of Iraq in early 2003.

In all, CNN gained an average of 368,000 prime-time viewers through June 1, compared with Fox News’ 190,000 and MSNBC’s 224,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.

But even as its ratings swell, the network faces a rising challenge from MSNBC, which is riding high on the sharp-edged opinions of hosts such as Keith Olbermann, an outspoken Bush critic. And it still has not caught up with dominant Fox News and its popular right-leaning commentators.

To maintain its momentum, CNN is trying to seize the middle ground and distinguish itself from its rivals’ opinion-laden programming, even with the outspoken Lou Dobbs on its schedule.
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Via NBCUNI Media Village
CNBC TO BROADCAST LIVE SPECIAL “YOUR MONEY, YOUR VOTE: MCCAIN VS. OBAMA,” TUESDAY, JUNE 10th AT 8PM ET

Anchored by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and CNBC’s Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood, Features Interviews With Presidential Candidates Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama on Economic Policies

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., June 9, 2008—With the two major Presidential candidates chosen, CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, will help you decide which candidate is best for the number one issue facing the country: the uncertain economy.

Tomorrow, June 10th at 8PM ET, CNBC will broadcast a live primetime special, “Your Money, Your Vote: McCain vs. Obama,” anchored by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and CNBC’s Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood.

For the first time, you’ll hear from Presidential candidates Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama as they offer in-depth outlines of their plans to fix the economy, America’s oil crisis and the housing market as well as their positions on taxes, social security and Wall Street.
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>Thanks to an emailer.
>Via USA Today
Anderson Cooper says subbing for Regis is fun
By Lorrie Lynch

Like many of my readers, I think Anderson Cooper (at right) is an outstanding reporter. That’s why I chose to feature him in this weekend’s print Who’s News column. Unfortunately, we didn’t have room for all the interesting answers he wrote to our e-mailed questions (it was the one way we could get him quickly), so I’m sharing here.

Q. We’ve seen you subbing for Regis Philbin on Live with Regis and Kelly. How do you like that? Could you see yourself doing a talk show in your future?

Sitting next to Kelly Ripa is one of the funnest jobs I’ve ever had. She and Gelman, the whole team over there are a joy to work with. My favorite part of the show is the fifteen minutes of chat in the beginning. It’s all unscripted, but Kelly is so smart and funny she makes it seem easy. She is a major talent. As for doing something like that in my future? I should be so lucky.

>Read the rest at USA Today.

Via CJR
How Are You Feeling?
Healthy candidates, tired reporters
By Marc Siegel

Two weeks ago, Fox News asked me to fly out to Phoenix and join a group of nineteen journalists to review more than 1,100 pages of Senator John McCain’s medical records, stretching back over the past fifteen years.

It was supposed to be a tightly controlled process, with the pool of reporters given only three hours to make notes on the documents without Xeroxing or removing any of them. Yet by the time we arrived in Phoenix, they had already been leaked, and I knew that there were would be no major secrets. But after a night spent looking out over the miner-red hills, thriving cacti, and deep purple mountains in the Arizona distance, I joined the others at a long oval table in a room, just off the Copperwynd Resort restaurant at 7:30 a.m. the following morning.

>Read the rest at CJR.

>No mention of said injury to Ainsley Earhart! So, would that qualify as keeping herself out of the story? Or a little hype from Hannity?

>If the video box is blank, try this link.

>Part two after the jump.
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Via NYT
Wearing CNN’s Quirkiest Headlines
By BRIAN STELTER

As if it’s not hard enough to summarize a story in six or seven words, CNN.com has a new test for editors: is the headline witty enough to be worn on a T-shirt?

CNN.com’s T-shirt store, opened in April, offered two last week. After Barack Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday, “Obama Makes History” became the site’s top-selling T-shirt.

“It was a moment that people wanted to celebrate,” Andy Mitchell, the vice president of interactive marketing for CNN, surmised.

Maybe the T-shirts, part of a promotional campaign for the Web site’s videos, are a 21st-century way to save headlines, the same way people save the front pages of newspapers.

More likely, they’re a way to get a laugh. Some CNN.com headlines have long been ripe for self-parody. The site’s second-top-selling T-shirt is “Anderson Cooper, ‘you’re not my boo.’ ”

That headline also emerged on Tuesday as Mr. Cooper, the CNN anchor, pressed the Democratic superdelegate Donna Brazile for details of her recent conversation with Mr. Obama.
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Via TriCities.com
J. TODD FOSTER: Thank You, Andrea Mitchell, For The Ready-Made Column
By J. Todd Foster

I learned something about myself Thursday that I did not know: I’m a redneck. But then again, so is every one of you reading this column. Or so says Andrea Mitchell of NBC News.
Mitchell, the wife of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, actually went on MSNBC on Thursday as Barack Obama was leaving the stage in Bristol and quipped live: “Interesting images today. Barack Obama, Mark Warner, in Southwest Virginia. This is real [chuckle] redneck … sort of … uhm … bordering on Appalachia … country. This is not the Northern Virginia … uh … you know … high-tech corridor. And these are voters that he would not logically … be … you know, gravitating to. This is the beginning of a pivot.”
You know, uhm, I’ve been wondering where all these urges of late have been coming from – namely the desire to trade my Toyota Camry for a pickup, complete with rubber bull testicles (product name: bumper nuts) dangling from the trailer hitch. I’m inexplicably craving chew tobacco. I passed a road-kill possum Friday and thought it looked tasty. And I nearly wore a wife-beater T-shirt to Wal-Mart yesterday, until my wife intervened with “that’s not a good look for you.”

>Read the rest at TriCities.

>Update: Mitchell Apologizes For “Redneck” Comment (TVNewser)