Reese blogs today…

Once again, it is an ill wind that blows no one some good. Fox News and CNN were the biggest beneficiaries of Katrina and Rita. For the month, Fox averaged 2,875,000 viewers per hour in primetime. CNN averaged 2,035,000. That’s a 4 to 3 ratio in favor of Fox News. For the total program day, Fox averaged 1,774,000 and CNN 1,279,000. That’s again about 4 to 3.

The big news for both networks was an upsurge in younger viewers. Fox News finished fifth among all ad-supported cable networks and CNN was eighth in primetime viewers 18 to 49. Total day, Fox News was third and CNN seventh. Both Fox and CNN have an audience demographic that hovers around 60. If hurricanes are the best way of attracting younger viewers, Fox and CNN might wish to encourage global warming.

It was a flat evening in a lot of respects. While O’Reilly was still a charger, On The Record had a sub par outting. Nancy Grace’s repeat was flat. Both Cooper and Zahn dipped under a million, early indications that the Katrina coattails may be starting to lose their potency.
(more…)

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine.com also writes up the big “future of media” roundtable yesterday….

The tone has changed. There is no dismissive huffing from the big guys about blogs. There is still that argument about who’s trustworthy (see the note here). Old hat. But there is an acknowledgment that the change is gigantic and has only begun.

………………………..

: Heyward surprised and impressed me when he talked about the weaknesses of mainstream media today:

(more…)

WHAC notes the Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Rob Owen answering the question which has been on Rudi’s fans minds since ICN first noticed her bio got pulled from CNN’s website…

Q:Where is Rudi Baktihar? Is she gone from CNN?

Looks like she is. Here’s what the cable news channel had to say: “Rudi is no longer with CNN. She has recently gone through the protracted illness and ultimate loss of her father. She is taking this time to be with her family.”

PressThink’s Jay Rosen blogs about an all star roundtable at The Museum of Television and Radio concerning the future of Big Media and blogs….

“The bloggers were the usual suspects who write about the issue of blogging, journalism and the media,” said David Weinberger, who was there. “The MSM folks were high-level execs at the usual suspect TV and print mainstream news organizations.” True. (We weren’t a representative group of bloggers, either. No one from the cultural right, no minorities, only a handful of women, no one in his or her 20s. Apply whatever discount rate you wish.)

…………………………………………..

The ground rules prevented quoting without permission, a condition I don’t like and would never request, but some of the big executives need the cover, so we do it that way. You have the cast of characters. Here’s what I heard:

(more…)

Mark Washburn in the Charlotte Observer writes about FNC’s Neil Cavuto…

Neil Cavuto, host of the highest-rated business show on TV, says the secret to his success is turning his back on Wall Street.

“We wanted shows that were less market-centric,” says Cavuto, who hosts “Your World with Neil Cavuto” weekdays at 4 p.m. on Fox News Channel.

Exploring broader economic themes is more interesting than the traditional Big Board coverage, says Cavuto, in Charlotte this week plugging his new book, “Your Money Or Your Life.”

A tipster wrote in to say that MSNBC was the first cable news outlet to report that Judith Miller had been released from jail for refusing to identify a source in the Plame leak investigation. The tipster said that MSNBC reported the news at the 8pm hour with information from the Philadelphia Enquirer. NBC’s Pete Wiliams was also brought in on the story. Can anyone confirm that MSNBC was first?

UPDATE: FTVLive says CBS aired the story. I can’t tell from the entry whether they broke it or not.

TVNewser scoops with news that the Aaron Brown/Anderson Cooper tag team pairing on the 2 hour expanded version of Newsnight is going to be sticking around for a while…

The content of the 10pm broadcast will certainly change, an insider says. The title may change, too. Aaron and Anderson will continue to co-anchor the two-hour block.

Klein is playing a game of executive producer musical chairs, moving NewsNight EP Will Surratt to 360 and transferring 360 EP David Doss to the new two-hour show. Doss has extensive experience programming for primetime at the broadcast networks. Some of the senior staff members are being switched, too. It’s effective on Monday.

The Yale Daily News’ Hillary August writes about Yale grad Anderson Cooper…(via FTVLive)

Since Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, the name of CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper ‘89 has been on everyone’s lips, from U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu to comedian Jon Stewart. Cooper the journalist has become the subject of news himself. Whether traveling to those towns hardest hit by the hurricane or giving first-hand assistance to a doctor during a chance rescue in the middle of an interview, Cooper’s reporting has been both praised and criticized for its emotional involvement.

“There is a value to personal story telling and intimate journalism, and talking to people and showing them what your reactions are — as long as they’re real,” Cooper said.

Harriet Rubin in USA Today criticizes the media for some of its Katrina coverage…

Katrina’s Homers sobbed and shouted along with the victims. MSNBC’s Tim Russert seemed to weep, Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera to act as though he’d seen the Rapture, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper to froth with blame for Washington for its alleged callousness and incompetence.

For their part, the displaced were quickly made “evacuees,” since mere “flood victims” would have dehydrated the drama. Reporters’ salty tears went down, over the air, a little funky, like MSG, as they puzzled over how best to milk more flood victim grief and find the silver lining — a few poignant family photos, a sense of closure upon returning to find a house completely gone.

Storytelling has the power to shape the events it reports. Shouldn’t journalists be the dry eye in the storm, the builders of a framework in which to tell the truth of suffering rather than enflame it for gain?

The Washington Times’ Jennifer Harper writes about the re-examination going on surrounding some of the more sensational stories that came out of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans…

The New Orleans Times-Picayune published a lengthy account Monday of errors, misrepresentations and wildly exaggerated claims of murder, rape and abuse of children at the New Orleans Superdome. The newspaper cited publication of “scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans’ top officials.”

Since the hurricane hit four weeks ago, estimates of deaths at the Superdome, for example, have been revised downward from 200 to 10, and four of those were heart attacks. One was a suicide, and one man is thought to have been pushed from a balcony to the floor hundreds of feet below. Police said one man found dead at the Superdome is thought to have been killed elsewhere.

(more…)

The Courier & Press’s John Martin writes about conservatvie talk show host Michael Medved’s comments on the media and general and CNN in particular…(via Romenesko)

The conservative talk radio host and movie critic spent the delay in the airport terminal, where he watched CNN - “always a mistake,” he quipped.

He said the cable network was “doing 3-day old stories” and “paraphrasing stuff from the New York Times, poorly.”

(more…)

Not much to write about last night’s ratings. FNC won the day and the night but its primetime lineup didn’t show much excitement in the ratings except for O’Reilly’s 3,000,000 viewers. CNN’s Cooper and Zahn’s shows seem to have stabilized at 1,000,000 viewers for the time being (a big increase over their normal levels) while Newsnight seems to be slipping a bit. MSNBC was back to pre-Katrina levels…and maybe a wee bit worse than that because no show broke 400,000.
(more…)

The New York Post’s Michael Starr writes about the NY Times correction…

Yesterday, The Times published an “Editors’ Note” admitting that it had goofed when TV critic Alessandra Stanley wrote that Geraldo “nudged” aside an Air Force rescue worker in a Hurricane Katrina play for airtime.

“It’s enough in the sense that they finally acknowledge that they had made an actual error,” Rivera told The Post yesterday.

“But the way they did it — the grudging, rude and disrespectful way they did it — still irks me.

“But it’s enough that I’m not going to sue them.”

Paul J. Gough in the Hollywood Reporter writes about how Katrina affected the 3rd Quarter ratings for the cable networks….

Hurricane Katrina coverage helped boost ratings at the four cable news channels in the third quarter, with CNN and MSNBC posting their best viewership levels since the Iraq war started in the second quarter of 2003, according to Nielsen Media Research data issued Tuesday.

Fox News, which was already having a standout summer, jumped 31% over the year-ago period in total day to 1.2 million viewers and 29% in primetime to 2.3 million viewers, Nielsen said.

(more…)

The New York Observer’s Rebecca Dana writes about CNN’s “The Blog Report” segment and its hosts Abbi Tatton and Jacki Schechner…

“What we’re trying to do, and what CNN is doing with The Situation Room, is to recognize that there are lots of different places to get opinions, information, perspectives,” said Ms. Tatton. “We’re bringing in diverse elements to help the story along.”

…………………………………..

David Bohrman, CNN’s Washington bureau chief and creator of the segment, explained the purpose of an MSM outlet (that’s blogspeak for “mainstream media”) setting out to explore the blogosphere. The information that Ms. Tatton and Ms. Schechner find on blogs is important. But “filtering it and judging it and weighing it is complicated,” he said, “and that’s where the CNN DNA comes into play.”

(more…)

With widow Anna Nicole Smith’s estate case appeal being accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court, it was only a matter of when Olbermann would say something. And sure enough, tonight we got the first installment of Anna Nicole Smith Puppet Theatre….

Update: Changed the description of the court case to make it accurate

Things looked a lot more like what we’ve seen over the past couple of years. MSNBC was down badly from Katrina levels…its primetime lineup had only one show over 400,000 and it was Countdown. CNN and FNC were down as well though not as badly from a percentage standpoint. Anderson Cooper and Paula Zahn continue to show resilience while Newsnight started to fizzle at the 11 pm hour. Was Greta off yesterday? That number is low for her program given its recent history going back the past few months.
(more…)

CNN announced today a new Sanjay Gupta special, “NASCAR: Driven To Extremes” which will air Sunday, October 16th at 10pm EST. NASCAR drivers Carl Edwards, Rusty Wallace, and Jerry Nadeu, former NASCAR driver Wally Dallenbach, and 15 year old phenom Joey Logano will be featured in the special..

During the special, Gupta reveals NASCAR to be more than fast cars zipping around an oval track. As he reports on the athleticism and safety required to be a top racing team, he offers viewers a revealing look at how the speeds, the heat, the intensity and the crashes associated with high stakes auto racing impact the human body. Gupta also gets behind the wheel of a stock car to see what it takes physically to drive at high speeds. What he experiences will intrigue even the most ardent fans.

(more…)

Colonel Thoma Beron of the Louisiana National Guard appeared on The Situation Room this afternoon to talk about what really happened down in New Orleans before everyone was rescued. Abridge transcript follows…

On allegations of murder, rape and other violence at the Superdome in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina

BLITZER: You were inside the Superdome during those critical days; is that right?

COL. THOMAS BERON: I was, Wolf. We got there the night of the — of the hurricane on Monday night and stayed until everyone had left the Superdome and we had secured it.

(more…)

From a story entitled “Covering Katrina: In the wake of the storm, the news media’s highs and lows” on page 45 of the 10/6/05 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine by Eric Boehlert:

THE SAY IT LOUD AWARD “You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals… So many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor, and they are so black.” –CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, September 1st. Give the guy credit. Covering the disaster for the first 48 hours, uptight talking heads pretended like race had nothing to do with who was left behind. Blitzer helped put the hot topic on the table; he just fumbled through the phrasing.

(more…)

Remember that Pew poll from earlier in the month? The one that asked respondents “Have you been getting the most of your news about the disaster from…”? Everyone who heard about that poll knows that CNN came out on top ahead of FNC. But check the extended ranking out…
(more…)

Here are the CUME numbers for September.
(more…)

September numbers are out. The networks saw gains due to the Hurricane Katrina/Rita coverage. FNC won the month. CNN charged hard and tried to cut down the gap between itself and FNC in the Demo, even managing to beat it out at 11pm. With all the disaster coverage MSNBC surged past HLN to retake 3rd position.
(more…)

The NY Times finally admitted Rivera was right. But it parses its admission.. (via FTVLive)

The TV Watch column on Sept. 5 discussed broadcast journalists’ undisguised outrage at the failings of Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts. It said reporters had helped stranded victims because no police officers or rescue workers were around, and added, “Fox’s Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety.”

The editors understood the “nudge” comment as the television critic’s figurative reference to Mr. Rivera’s flamboyant intervention. Mr. Rivera complained, but after reviewing a tape of his broadcast, The Times declined to publish a correction.

Numerous readers, however - now including Byron Calame, the newspaper’s public editor, who also scrutinized the tape - read the comment as a factual assertion. The Times acknowledges that no nudge was visible on the broadcast.

Howard Kurtz apparently doesn’t buy liberal or conservative conspiracy theories of Iraq War coverage by news networks…

What was striking to me, in an online chat yesterday, is how quick some folks are to attribute such estimates–flawed as they might be–to ideological bias. A reader in Excelsior Springs, Mo. said: “CNN aired all through the afternoon that war supporters had 20,000 people show up for their [pro-war] rally. This was hours after the actual number of 400-500 people was reported by Associated Press and other news services including The Washington Post. At 3:40 p.m. eastern, Renae San Miguel said on CNN headline news- ‘About 20,000 showed up in Washington today to voice support the Iraq war.’ This was a bold faced lie that mislead anyone watching. My question is how long can the media continue to do the right wing’s bidding before the nation realizes you are a mouthpiece for the administration?”

(more…)

The NY Post’s Don Kaplan revisists yesterday’s news that Bob Costas sub stint on Larry King Live may not last…

He said he is not sure if there will be time for him to work for CNN next year. “At the time that I agreed to do [’Larry King’] NBC had not acquired football for Sunday nights, and I’m not sure what my other assignments might be down the road.”

Costas and CNN hit a road bump in August when he refused to host an episode of “Larry King” devoted to coverage of Natalee Holloway, the teen missing in Aruba since last summer.

“I never tried to make a big deal out of it, but to clarify, I had it in my agreement with them [CNN] that if I was uncomfortable with the proposed subject matter of a given show that I could opt out of it,” Costas said.

Page Six dishes…

Fox News’ legal analyst Lis Wiehl and defense lawyer Mickey Sherman are engaged and thinking about a Spring 2006 wedding. Lis is so giddy with joy, she wrote one friend, “Pinch me!”

FNC had the largest audience for the hurricane as it approached landfall. O’Reilly, as usual, was huge with 4,000,000 plus viewers. CNN came in a solid, yet distant (by more than 1,000,000 viewers in Prime Time) second. MSNBC struggled. It only broke 1,000,000 viewers during Rita Cosby’s show. And this is the same network with the same lineup that did so well with the Airbus News Flash a few days earlier. What changed viewers’ minds so?
(more…)

MSNBC announced a special, hosted by Lester Holt, that will air on Sunday, October 9th at 9 pm EST. The special “Kids in Crisis” sounds like it will be powerful and dramatic television…

This extraordinary documentary traces an Indiana family’s battle with physical abuse within their family circle and the Indiana legal system. For the first time ever, viewers will see child-welfare officials remove two young boys from their home in the middle of the night.

“Kids in Crisis” explores a serious question– when does discipline cross the line and become abuse? MSNBC followed the Pitcock family’s heartbreaking story over a two-year period. A daughter claims she was abused by her stepfather, while her parents claim that their teen was not abused and cannot be controlled.

(more…)

Danny Heitman in the Christian Science Monitor makes some interesting observations about how cable news’ 24 hour news cycle may not be a good thing where stories like Katrina are concerned.

Here in Baton Rouge, while watching round-the-clock coverage of hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, I’ve been thinking about “The House of Sounds,” a chilling story by M.P. Shiel that began appearing in various forms in 1896. It’s the tale of people who are, quite literally, dying of too much news.

Though he wrote “The House of Sounds” a century before our 24/7 news cycle, Mr. Shiel eerily anticipates the consequences of a modern media machine that can make us feel as if we’re overwhelmed by the current of current events. The prevailing aesthetic of cable news, in which images are copied and multiplied with numb industrial efficiency, can remind one of a Warhol soup can - a picture multiplied into dim abstraction, the triumph of impression over insight.

The AP’s David Bauder writes about Shepard Smith’s reporting from a New Orleans overpass and how it has bouyed Smith’s reputation as an A level news anchor….(via FTVLive)

Much like a youthful Dan Rather made a name for himself with stellar coverage of a Gulf Coast hurricane two generations ago, Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith opened some eyes with his work in the face of a powerful and blustery force.

And we’re not just talking about Hurricane Hannity.

(more…)

Although completing a last second video project forced me to not blog this weekend, I was able to watch a lot of the coverage from the cable channels. Of my impressions of the coverages of the three networks, the thing that stood out to me the most was how FNC really stepped up this time, to an extent that matched CNN in terms of the A level talent in the field. Smith, Van Susteren, Rivera, Hemmer, and McCallum were all on location throughout the south. Even their meteorology department kicked it up big time with the Titan Nowcasting service. In the past I could fault FNC for not delivering the kind of visual forecast that CNN and MSNBC could deliver. But not this time. Titan may not be NBC Weather Plus’ 3D:Live, but it was good enough.
(more…)

Johnny Dollar has the video….

Everybody is making a big deal out of Public Eye’s leaked memo where Jon Klein is trying to maximize viewer attention by apparently hyping the Rita Hurricane story by making a big deal about the hurricane’s strength. I’m sorry but what exactly is the story here? That a cable network is hyping a news story? That’s not news. They all do it one way or another all the time. FNC turns its entire prime time lineup over to Aruba coverage in the face of a news vacuum. And that’s not hype? MSNBC does its own hype thing from time to time. This is not news. Nor is it really newsworthy.

If it wasn’t for the memo coming out, would anyone have said anything? Nope. If it wasn’t for the memo coming out, would anyone have noticed anything out of the ordinary in CNN’s presentation? Nope again. Let’s face it, the only reason we’re discussing it at all is because CNN got caught, not because CNN did anything outrageous or out of the ordinary for a cable network. And that in my opinion is the real story here. So let’s have some perspective…