MSNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News and Fox News all broke in with news that Jennifer Wilbanks is alive. FNC went back to taped programming about 30 minutes after coming on the air, CNN Headline News is simulcasting CNN, and MSNBC’s Cheryl Cassone is anchoring coverage with analyst Clint Van Zandt.

CNN’s booking department seems to be in its element - blowing away the “guest list” of MSNBC. All I see on FOX right now is an O’Reilly repeat. Always live.

Update:FNC is back live — with live interviews with Greta from the scene.

Update2: Now MSNBC is on tape. Having Greta live at the home is giving them a clear win.

Update3: The picture: John Mason and his mother — with a large Fox News Exlcusive banner below.

Update4: Quote of the night: Greta: “Have we been fair to you John? The Press?” John Mason: “I’m so happy right now, I can’t me mad at anyone. Fair to me? No… probably not. To the situation? Yeah, probably”

Update5: Who is this 10-year-old yutz “anchoring” Fox’s coverage? Keep him off the air. FNC just went back to Bill O’ again.

4:54am: CNN has Jennifer’s father live on the phone. He’s very emotional. Is Fox the only with a sat truck in sight? What IS the deal?

4:55am: Gotta love automation. Comcast in Seattle just abruptly cut to CNN HN “local edition.”

4:59am: Side note: Bill O’Reily just said that Marconi invted the telephone. Umm, that was Bell or Meucci. Marconi may have invented the radio — but even that isn’t proven. Watcha thinkin’ Bill?

5:00am: A new hour dawns — FNC & MSNBC are running Your World & H&L… CNN is live. Well, as live as a stillstore and some phoners can be.

Harry Jaffe at The Washingtonian has a brief update on CNN’s Jonathan Klein and makes the observation that CNN’s numbers are on the rise. Read it here…

CNNFan noticed today that the last airing of Next at CNN will be this weekend.

This will be a semi-regular feature where three rhetorical questions get posed…

1. Is Rudi Bakhtiar going from a three hour prime time gig on HLN to a 2 minute contributing segment, and occasional fill in on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, a promotion?

2. Is Bill O’Reilly ever going to get around to suing Al Franken in England?

3. How much longer will Rick Kaplan put up with Don Imus’ antics?

UPDATE: You can hear the incident here.

The LA Times has a good wrap up on Judy Woodruff leaving CNN and some insight into John Klein’s take on political coverage on CNN.

That’s the charge Nick Lewis makes here. Read this entry in its entirety. Then read his follow up here. (hat tip: FTV Live)

TVNewser’s ratings again do not include any data for Headline News.

TVNewser’s ratings do not include any data for Headline News.

The FOX & Friends crew responded to comments Aaron Brown made about the #1 cable network.

Our friend Johnny Dollar has the video.

Ahhh how the media likes to poke at FNC at even the smallest crack.

But, Variety makes a good point: Fox dropped 6% in total audience; CNN gained 11% and MSNBC jumped 7%. Pope bump? Sure. But why did Fox drop with two big stories right in it’s target: Schiavo and the papal transition?

Also this:

Headline News appears to have ceded third place to MSNBC after a strong start and plenty of marketing power behind its revamped “Headline Prime” lineup.

In prime, FNC is up 1% — driven by amazing growth of “On the Record” — which jumped 25%. CNN is up 6% in primetime — again, fuled by one strong preformer: Anderson Cooper — with a 36% increase.

USA Today’s Peter Johnson’s TV column zeroes in on the anchor transition — and looks at the wider cable news picture

Lou Dobbs of the big 3: “[they are] wonderful journalists and terrific talents, they are held captive by a 30-minute broadcast, a constrained budget and a commitment to ratings. It’s lamentably true: They are drifting toward irrelevancy.”

Roger Alies: “[the network news model] itself could disappear suddenly, as the dinosaurs did with one meteorite. You could argue that a large meteorite hit this year when it took out all three anchors and (Nightline’s) Ted Koppel at the same time.”

But, counters David Westin: “If you take all of our programs — from Good Morning America through World News Tonight and the newsmagazines to Nightline— and put it together with ABC News Radio, we reach over 215 million Americans every month. That’s several times what any non-broadcast news outlet reaches.” And: “”Even if you look only at the evening news, the three broadcast networks have almost 30 million viewers tuning in every night. Again, no other media comes close.” Plus: “Add up circulation of the top 10 newspapers in the country, including [USA Today], and it’s still less than the number of viewers who tune into World News each night.”

Andrew Tyndall on all the attention paid to FNC, CNN & MSNBC [cough cough, this blog, cough cough]: “Hype works that way. When something is in style, it gets much more publicity than it deserves, and when something is out of style, it is trashed.”

Oh, and Brian Williams on John Roberts decision not to wear a tie for 23 seconds earlier this month: “As long as I am alive or employed by this network, I will dress to anchor an evening broadcast as if I am being invited into someone’s home for the first time.”

I’m going to boil down the Atlanta Jorunal Constitution’s 1200 word article to just a few:

Scott Peterson? “Guilty as charged.”
Robert Blake? “Guilty as sin”
Michael Schiavo? “A philandering scuzz”
BTK killer: “a lowlife coward”
An Idaho girl convicted of killing her parents: “the devil’s seed.”

“I’ve never pretended to be objective.”

“We’re very pleased,” said Kenneth Jautz, executive vice president of CNN News Group. “(She’s) unique and compelling to watch.”

Bonnie M Anderson, former CNN recruiter and current author: “Once news was the star. Now the stars are the stars. And what’s worse, the stars are often the news.”

Kelly McBride of Poynter: “I think that when you do allow your opinions and emotions to enter your work, you have to do so very carefully,” she says. “Otherwise you cloud the information. I think a half century-plus of broadcast journalism has shown that the best broadcasters are the most professional.”

Grace on criticism: “”Once in a while I do read something, and it hurts my feelings,” she admits. “But believe me: sticks and stones . . .”

If you are registered, read the full article here.

The month may not be over just yet, but TVNewser has ratings for 3/28 - 4/24.

Highlights:

• O’Reilly is the #1 cable news show — with a household rating of 1.9. That’s a full .4 ahead of the next program — Hannity & Colmes at a 1.5
• CNN’s top program is Larry King Live, ranking fourth with a 1.2 HH rating
• Of the top 10 programs, FNC owns eight of them — all but LKL & NewsNight
• MSNBC’s top daily program is Scarborough Country - with a .4 HH rating. Countdown, Hardball and Imus all grab a .3.
• Headline News’ Nancy Grace beat all MSNBC programming for the month in HH — but was behind all CNN programming except Crossfire and CNN Daybreak
• But: Showbiz Tonight is getting beat by every FNC, MSNBC, CNN and HLN program on the air (and most of CNBC’s lineup too). Even Dennis Miller beats the show in the demo.
• Connected: Coast to Coast is hurting MSNBC’s NewsForce programming. MSNBC Live’s average is 203,000 in people 2+, and 71,000 in the demo. C:CC scores 157,000 P2+ and 49,000 in the demo.
• CNN is crowing about it’s vast improvement in the 25/54 demo. Quoting CNN’s release: “In total day P25-54, FNC’s lead was also cut in half (98% lead in April 2004, 49% in April 2005). This marks the 6th consecutive month where FNC declined versus prior
  month in M-F, primetime P25-54 (every month since Nov ‘04).”
• Oh, and about the above — FNC is still beating CNN in every single timeslot. From its release: “While all major cable news networks experienced viewer increases during the news of the death of Terri Schiavo and the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, FOX News Channel (FNC) remained the cable news leader during both Prime Time and Total Day for April,”

Last week’s notes on FNW were just two steno pages. This week — 4 and a half.

(more…)

We’re told that MarketWrap with Ron Insana will run all five days this week on MSNBC. It sounds like the Dietl & Daniels situation is fluid. The folks in Secaucus like the show — but it sounds like it will be back on hiatus again.

The San Francisco Chronicle asked readers “Would you be sad if TV news disappeared?”.

One answer: Sad? As a disabled stay-at-home cable news junkie, I would be at my wit’s end. I’d actually have to talk to my wife and read more newspapers. It would be devastating.

And they’re off…

(more…)

CNN’s Aaron Brown gave the keynote address at the Dart Center for Journalism’s sponsored “Journalism and the Tsunami” conference. Dart’s website has the details… (hat tip: Romenesko)

MSNBC will air an hour long special tonight on Pope Benedict XVI and the future of the Church under him at 7 pm EST with Chris Jansing hosting from Rome.

The inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI will commence at 4 am EST Sunday. All three networks will be carrying it live. So far it’s known that Christiane Amanpour will anchor CNN’s coverage and Jansing will do the same for MSNBC (we haven’t heard who FOX will be using to anchor their coverage yet). Ironically, Amanpour has drawn criticism from the Vatican over some of her reporting as CNN Fan has noted.

Joho the Blog (aka David Weinberger) won’t be making any further appearances on MSNBC’s Connected. MSNBC didn’t like some of his link suggestions — so he ended his blogger-on-TV career. In all fairness — he only made a very few appearances. (See one of his hits) (Thanks to JohnnyDollar)

The show is attempting to be innovative - but it’s not working. The hosts step all over each other, the segments aren’t laid out well (after a long piece on whether the story behind the Amityville Horror is real, Lisa finally said “frankly, I don’t even know why we are doing this segment.” She’s not the only one).

The TVSpy kids aren’t big fans either.

Broadcasting & Cable’s BCBeat reports that NBC’s Matt Lauer will host a series of specials looking at the 100 Greatest Americans. NBCU Entertainment is producing the summer series for the Discovery Channel.

It sounds like a cross between American Idol and Biography.

JohnnyDollar shares a nice video clip with a classic Shepard Smith moment.

“FoxFans gotta’ have this… Fox around the clock. That’s what the haters need.”

MSNBC’s Ron Reagan is pissed that Ryan Seacrest has a star on the Hollywod Walk of Fame, while Howard Hughes, Francis Ford Coppola, John Denver and Lon Chaney Jr. do not.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno ran a clip of Bob Kur — preparing for a live shot on MSNBC earlier this week. He was clearing his voice and making somewhat odd movements with his lips. I’ve seen dozens of reporters prepare for live shots, and this wasn’t at all unusual. Jay thought it was funny, and broadcast it on Tonight.

The clip ran during MSNBC News Force programming today, and Alison Stewart even said it had been “making the rounds” at MSNBC’s NJ HQ.

A cut-down version ran again during Countdown’s top three sound bites segment Thursday. In the in-break promotion cluster, Keith apologized to Kur, and said it should not have been on Tonight — and it certainly shouldn’t have been on Countdown. He said he didn’t know it was coming, and seemed quite upset that it was on the show.

Graham Webster in Editor and Publisher takes a counter view to blogging’s usefulness in Journalism and argues that portals are the way to go. While the article is rooted in the world of print journalism there are takeaways for the cable news outlets who are tinkering in that area to consider. (hat tip: Romenesko)

Today Media Matters for America answered Rupert Murdoch’s challenge to show “bias” at FOX News. Why do I want to file this incident under the category of “who cares?” Well setting aside the not at all insignificant fact that Media Matters is about as unbiased as the Media Research Council in the way it cherry picks what stories to higlight and what stories to not higlight (does Media Matter highlight “liberal bias” stories on a regular basis? And does the MRC highlight “conservative bias” stories on a regular basis? The answer is a decided no to both), there is the fundamental problem these days that bias, as a term to describe the media, is so hopelessly grounded in the beliefs of the person using the term as to render it impotent as a point of argument.

What is bias? Is it a story that is set out to achieve a certain spin which implies a direct intent by the story’s propogator? Or is it really just a way to complain that someone didn’t like the way the story read because they don’t agree with it? Too often I think the latter is the case.

Is FOX News really biased? I mean really? Or is FOX’s supposed bias really a result of the fact that some people don’t like the way FOX chooses to cover certain stories but not cover others as a matter of policy. FOX has decided to focus and highlight stories that are of import to the Heartland. That is an editorial decsion, not necessarily an indication of out and out bias. Certainly FOX has pundits on who have biases and FOX News encourages some of its hosts to express their opinions which themselves are based on biases. But in terms of pure news coverage, FOX doesn’t attack liberal positions per se or highlight conservative positions as pure as the driven snow. You’d be very hard pressed to find a story where FOX took an opinion that deliberately trashed the liberal line. Most claims of FOX bias in reporting center around the concept that the people doing the criticizing of said reporting don’t like the way story played out or didn’t like the issues that the story highlighted. That is a difference in opinion not inherent bias. For an example of real conservative bias one has to look at something like NewsMax where stories are slanted to achieve a desired result and many stories are little more than hit pieces or advocacy issues and make no attempts at any sort of impartiality. Clearly FOX does not meet that standard. That FOX has hosts that express opinions which may be rooted in bias is not an acceptable substitute. That Alan Colmes may not be as liberal or as vehement in his arguments as Eric Alterman is not an acceptable substitute. For FOX to have bias in its coverage there has to be implied intent that can’t be explained by any other way. The problem that people that hurl the bias label at FOX have is that most of their arguments are indeed open to other possible explanations other than bias. FOX broadcasts lots of sensational stories; car chases being probably the most egregious example. Does that mean that FOX is biased towards car chases? Or does it mean that FOX made an editorial decision to show exciting coverage and car chases, though tedious in that they can sometimes take hours of FOX’s time, are exciting? Whether it’s the Oil For Food program, the Klamath Basin water war, or even the Schiavo case, those are editorial decisions. Some people will argue that FOX has conservative bias in the guests it selects. But again the argument isn’t that FOX doesn’t have liberals on but that FOX doesn’t have “real liberals” on. Again the bias charge is based upon the political leanings of the person making the charge. That FOX has liberals on isn’t in dispute. That FOX doesn’t have the “right” liberals on, to make the case the way the person making the bias charge wants it to be made, is. And that’s not bias. That’s a difference in expectations in what the viewer expects/wants to see versus what they see FOX do.

Before I get deluded in “you’re a FOX shill” comments, the same thing applies to CNN. CNN is known as the big conservative whipping boy, chock full of liberal bias. But is it really? That CNN covers world events more than FOX and those world stories include material which decries the Bush administration is not bias. For bias to exist, CNN would have to do a story that covered people who are anti-Bush and then say that those people are right. That’s real bias. Conservatives too often complain about CNN bias without considering this important point just like Liberals too often complain about FOX bias without considering that point.

Consider this the next time you hear someone complaining about either conservative or liberal bias in the news. Is it really bias or just a case of the person not liking the story because it wasn’t told the way they thought it should to be told or doesn’t agree with their pre-conceived notions of the world as they see it?

Jeff Zucker says he “wonders why Brian Williams isn’t blogging right now.”

Good question — will BW join the MSNBC anchors on the blog-wagon?

NBC named Jim Bell (right) as new executive producer of the Today show, starting now. MSNBC’s Phil Griffin is now senior VP of NBC News and executive-in-charge of Today.

“This is a homecoming of sorts for me,” said Griffin of his new post. “I’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat as ‘Today’ has evolved ? both in my early days at the show and more recently as an executive at NBC News, and I’m thrilled to bring all of my experience to this new position.”

No word on a replacement at MSNBC.

LostRemote.com’s Steve Safran sat down with CNN chief John Klein for a one-on-one interview. He focuses on Internet/TV convergence — but hits on a number of other interesting points as well. And yes, he touches on blogging and citizen journalism.

Hear the interview here.

We’ve been pretty tough on CNN for its integration of blogging into its newscast. But CNN isn’t the only network trying to do the blog thing and so let’s talk about MSNBC for a minute. Unlike CNN and its Inside The Blogs segment, MSNBC is using one of the bigger names in blogging; Jeff Jarvis from Buzzmachine. Jarvis knows his stuff and the reports are somewhat informative (though too short to be really informative).

One problem area though is in delivery. I don’t know whether Jarvis feels rushed to get everything out in the time allotted or he’s normally a fast talker but he blows through the blog names so fast sometimes that the viewer is left wondering if they heard the blog name right or not. It would be helpful if MSNBC would put the blog names up on the screen or dedicate an URL on MSNBC.com for where viewers could go if they wanted more info. Of course they could always go to Buzzmachine and ask Jeff and I’m sure he’d be happy to post the info. But for the segment to work right, there should be some visual cue.

Overall I think MSNBC’s on a better track than CNN is at the moment. But I think MSNBC needs to do more with the segment and do it on a regular basis. It airs too infrequently right now to gain any kind of traction.

BTW, did yesterdays blog segment on the new Pope, which eagle eyes would have noticed had an ABC News slam in one of the blog comments that was shown on the TV Screen, included as a sneaky means of tweaking ABC? Or was it all just a coincidence that a blog was shown on TV that had a comment that trashed one of NBC’s competitors? Hmmmmmm….

UPDATE: Egads…Jarvis responds in the comments section. Thanks for dropping by. I’d like to see you on more often on MSNBC but I assume that’s not your call to make…

TVWeek is reporting that MSNBC’s VP of prime Time programming Phil Griffin is to be named “Executive in Charge” of NBC’s Today Show. Today EP Tom Touchet was fired this afternoon. But is this the first part of a double whammy? Now that Griffin is going to Today, does this also signal an eventual change in the direction of MSNBC’s prime time? Yesterday TVNewser postulated a change in MSNBC Prime Time. Time will tell…

UPDATE @10:47PM eastern by blog spot- AP has confirmed that the EP of NBC “News” Today, has been sacked. The article doesn’t talk about who will replace Tom Touchet on TODAY. However, it does mention the vicious backstabbing that seems to be common place at 30 Rock. One must wonder how much of this firing is because of ratings, and how much of it is because of Katie Couric and her diva ways. Watch for Jeff Zucker, who now runs NBC and is Katie’s favorite, who seems to be pulling many of the strings behind the scenes.

This e-mail from Jean Sage at TV Talent was sent to Inside Cable News earlier today:

I can no longer ignore the recent blog postings and blind gossip items that claim or imply that my client, Keith Olbermann, is having any “woes and complaints” or is doing less than a spectacular and thoroughly professional job anchoring MSNBC’s “Countdown.” Rick Kaplan and Phil Griffin have been immensely supportive of Keith and “Countdown” and they were thrilled with his Pope coverage.

The gist of these totally unfounded postings and rumors is that a conversation was overheard on a train from Washington DC to New York, involving either myself or an “associate close to me.” I live and work in Northern California and haven’t been in New York since October of last year,
nor in Washington since August of last year or on such a train in at least five years. Just as importantly, there are no “associates close to me” and no one besides myself who ever, in any way, deals with Keith as a broadcasting agent, or anything close to it.

Perhaps I am not objective when it comes to my client but Keith Olbermann has never been more fulfilled by a job in the 22 years that I have represented him, than he has been in these last two years of “Countdown.” He rarely takes sick days (and, when he does, he voluntarily counts them against his vacation time). In fact, his superior coverage of the late Pope’s illness, passing, and funeral, occurred after he voluntarily gave up a vacation long-scheduled to begin April 1st. To the anonymous source who seems hell-bent on destroying my client’s reputation from dark cornors [sic], shame on you. If you are an on-air person, I understand how difficult it must be to see someone so immensely talented in all facets of television and radio, succeeding so well that you can only feel better by trying to discredit him.

Jean Sage

In a related note — Countdown with the aforementioned Keith Olbermann will air a 2-hour edition this evening. If that doesn’t disprove the speculation, I don’t know what does.

Is an MSNBC schedule shift in the offing?

TVN seems to think it is possible.

I wanted to see a visual of how this would all shake down: