MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews will cablecast from the Ronald Reagan building near the White House in DC Monday. Matthews will sit down with Arizona Senator John McCain, right before a premiere of “Faith of My Fathers” the A&E adaptation of his book.

Larry King is celebrating 20 years on CNN — and has a string of huge interviews on deck for the week of the 30th — including Bill Clinton, George HW & Barbara Bush, VP Dick Cheney — and Barbara Walters will interview Larry.

Great post from FishBowlDC on Jessica Yellin

Robert Smigel’s weekly SNL cartoon imagined a world where “those in charge” can distract the media — and thus the country — with a superhero who create salacious news (to pull the media away from “real” news).

The sequence featured animated versions of a generic MSNBC anchor, FNC’s Hannity & Colmes — Wolf Blitzer from CNN, and Nancy Grace from HN (who said very little more than “they should FRY!” repeatedly).

“Distractor” swooped in and made comedian Sinbad drop his pants in front of a group of school children… and other “distractions.”

The SNL season finale also opened with a Darrel Hammond Hardball skit… nothing super remarkable — just the usual Zell Miller meltdown.

Fox News Watch spent two segments on the Newsweek swirl — giving it labels like “Magazine’s Mess.” I’ll spare you the recap — you know what they said without even watching.

Reliable Sources talked only about Newsweek and the Saddam photos. One interesting exchange:

KURTZ: David Frum, I’ve got — excuse me, David Gergen, I have got a few seconds. You say that once it’s out, but of course, had newspapers declined to publish these leaked photos, they wouldn’t have been out. So you seem to be letting the media off the hook a little bit here.

[David] GERGEN: Well, listen, Howie, once they’ve been leaked, they’re going to get out somewhere. We know the nature of this business, and if “The Sun” hadn’t published them, somebody else would, some other tabloid would have. So I don’t think you can blame the press on this. This was — these pictures should never have been allowed to be taken.

Johnny Dollar notes this asertation:

“I don’t think I have heard anyone on CNN or MSNBC note the common
ownership of the Sun and the NY Post and FNC,” a viewer writes in.”

…doesn’t hold much water.

To wit: Countdown with Keith Olbermann mentioned Rupert Murdoch by name 7 times Friday (so says OlbermannWatch); NewsNight with Aaron Brown mentioned the link; even FoxNews.com notes it; as do numerous other sources.

I promised myself I would not attack or even mention TVNews any further. But this is so far out there.

Brian ran a new item blasting NBC for calling Tim Russert’s interview with Howard Dean as “first” and “exclusive.”

Then the young blogger claimed his transcript of Topic A was “First on TVNewser.’

Uhhh… ‘cept I heard most of those quotes 24 hours before… on MSNBC Live. Or here.

Those in glass houses