CNBC announced that it will re-air an updated version of its special “The Big Lie: Inside The Rise & Fraud Of Worldcom” at 8 pm EST on July 13th to coincide with the sentencing of former Worldcom CEO Bernie Ebbers. The 75 minute special will be followed by a 45 minute version of Mad Money. The special will re-air at 11 pm EST.

FOX News will have Shepard Smith anchoring the coverage from Florida on Wednesday. FOX is calling it…..you guessed it…..”Return To Flight”. What is this? Some sort of NASA mandated title? All three networks are calling it the same thing….

The day after the London bombing things settled down for the cable nets. Nothing really out of the ordinary in Friday’s numbers. Nothing really newsworthy either, except for The Situation scratching in the Demo. Well there is the fact that even though she was on vacation, Nancy Grace’s show kept getting good numbers. This means the show, like The O’Reilly Factor, has traction whether the host is there or not. All the more remarkable considering the relatively short amount of time the show has been on the air…
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CNN today issued a release on its Space Shuttle coverage plans. CNN will have a one hour special hosted by Miles O’Brien called “Return To Flight: Space Shuttle Discovery”, which hopefully won’t be confused too much with MSNBC’s (already announced last week) special and coverage called “Return To Flight”. The release is somewhat confusing about when the special airs but if I’m reading it right it says it’s airing on Wednesday in the 3-4 pm EST hour window that the Shuttle is scheduled to launch in (actual launch time is scheduled for 3:51 pm).

In a separate weeklong series, CNN’s American Morning will use O’Brien’s expertise as the network’s space correspondent as he reports on the changes and challenges NASA has faced to re-launch its manned space program. O’Brien’s extensive interviews include all seven Discovery astronauts along with NASA flight surgeons, engineers, flight directors and Discovery shuttle commander Eileen Collins, the first woman to hold that position. The special airs the week of July 11 on American Morning from 7-10 a.m. (ET) weekdays.

Yesterday ICN wondered what became of the Bloom Mobile? Today TVNewser says that it was used today on The Today Show. A little bit late now isn’t it? Why wasn’t it used yesterday? It would have put CNN’s Hurricane One to shame. There must have been a technical glitch of some sort.

Douglas Durden in the Richmond Times Dispactch has a refresher course of sorts on Nancy Grace. It’s more editorial than pure news story though…

Dozens die in Iraq almost daily; thousands flee across borders in Africa. Yet popular news shows, including network newsmagazines, tend to focus on single crimes committed by a single person.

Experts explain that the human mind can grasp only so much. It is easier to focus on a small event than a large one. A domestic murder in California is easier to digest than a massacre on another continent.

The article is here…

Both FOX and CNN continued on past the 2 am EST hour with live coverage. Carol Lin is on for CNN and Carol Iovanna and Rick Folbaum on for FOX News Channel. MSNBC, on the other hand has opted for an NBC Weather Plus simulcast with Milissa Rehrberger doing news cut-ins.

WHAC found a blurb buried in U.S. News and World Report’s Washington Whispers online site that hasn’t been reported elsewhere….

Pay attention to CNN’s brat pack: Dana Bash and Ed Henry. Insiders say they’re emerging as top candidates for anchor roles. Both have been doing double duty as reporters and fill-in anchors. “They’re great,” says one insider.

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And now we hear–and CNN execs deny–that NewsNight ’s Aaron Brown is on the outs. His latest faux pas: He didn’t come in on a day off to anchor coverage of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor ’s resignation. Some say he actually refused a request to come to work; a spokeswoman denied that. But CNN made a point of bragging on Blitzer, Paula Zahn, and others for interrupting vacations to anchor London bombing broadcasts.

ICN finds the former credible and the latter….welll…not so credible. Whether the above acocunt of Brown refusing an assignment is true or not isn’t the issue. The issue is if they were really souring on Brown over something like this they would have dumped him for not coming back from the charity golf event. And nothing ever happened to Brown over that incident. Indeed, he’s gotten the thumbs up several times since. So I don’t think this story flies whether he really did refuse an assignment or not.

Digital Spy has an excellent roundup of today’s Hurricane coverage. In ICN’s opinion, they pretty much nailed it too….