The Washingtonian’s Harry Jaffe writes up on the coverage so far and says FNC’s Shepard Smith was “perhaps the best TV reporter in the devastated city at balancing hard reporting with mild outrage over what he thought was an inadequate government response”…

Is Fox News Channel taking this “fair and balanced” thing too far?

The cable news operation, often accused by critics of carrying water for the Bush administration, aired story after story during the past two weeks about the Katrina disaster that cast the government in a bad light.

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TVNewser is blogging that CNN successfully got a temporary restraining order on FEMA in regards to filming and broadcasting the recovery of bodies from Katrina damaged regions. A hearing is schedule for tomorrow to decide on whether the order will be made permanent.

A tipster writes in that The Situation Room will start at Noon on Monday due to the Roberts confirmation hearings and Katrina coverage…

This is an update to the original MSNBC weekend schedule I posted an hour ago as they changed things around. The Ethical Edge now premieres at 12 pm EST but will be re-aired five more times throughout the weekend.

Saturday:
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The gap between FNC and CNN in primetime widened from Wednesday.

UPDATE: The individual program numbers are now included. I want to take a moment to explain something to some of you who have been clammoring for the individual stats when they haven’t been part of the ratings the past couple of weeks. The folks at FOX who have been providing ICN with the numbers have been positively swamped since the Hurricane hit. I know how long it takes and how much effort is put in to transcribing these numbers into something that ICN can post. They don’t come out from Neilsen in the form you see when they show up on the blogs. That all has to be assembled by hand. So I would like you to keep that in mind in the future when you don’t get all the numbers you are used to seeing. It’s probably because someone was too busy doing the job they are being paid to do to get the whole set out. Thank you.
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Chris Jansing is the host of MSNBC’s The Ethical Edge series. The series examines the ethical issues that confront us in our daily lives. The next installment in this series “The Ethical Edge: Hurricane Katrina” will air Saturday September 10th at 12 pm EST. ICN had the opportunity to talk with Jansing about this series…

Q: The Ethical Edge is a relatively new series for MSNBC. What do you want most to accomplish with it?

The Ethical Edge provides viewers with the tools they need to think about the ethical decisions and consequences that accompany so many of the stories in the news today. It allows us not just to give our viewers the facts, but help them address the underlying issues that affect their world, their community, their everyday lives.

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FOX News Channel will present a two-hour live special of “Cost of Freedom” this Saturday from 10 am- 12 pm. Hosted by Neil Cavuto, the business program will look at the latest financial effects of Hurricane Katrina and will bring viewers updates from the ground in New Orleans. This week Cavuto will look at the stock market reaction to Hurricane Katrina and will compare it to the reaction after 9/11. He will discuss the soaring gas prices throughout the United States and will examine the current housing market. Former General Electric C.E.O. Jack Welch, Forbes magazine’s Steve Forbes as well as Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and co-founder of broadcast.com, will join Cavuto.

Saturday

7-10 am - Fox & Friends Satruday - Juliet Huddy, Mike Jerrick, and Julian Phillips

10-12 Noon - The Cost Of Freedom: America’s Challenge - Neil Cavuto
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Saturday

7am- 10am
American Morning (LIVE)
Anchors: Soledad O’Brien and Miles O’Brien (NY)
News updates: Tony Harris
(American Morning will include a chunk of House Calls with Elizabeth Cohen on location in the 8:30a half hour)

10am- 2pm
CNN Saturday Anchors: Tony Harris (ATL) and Betty Nguyen - (Houston)

2pm- 6pm
CNN Saturday Anchor: Fredricka Whitfield and Zain Vergee

6pm-7pm
CNN Saturday Anchor: Carol Lin
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From CNN:

Thurs., 9/08 - 2.2 million video plays, 71 million page views

Citizen Journalist Numbers:

CNN has received approximately 30,000 e-mails from citizen journalists. More than 1,500 of these submissions have included either video or images.

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Someone emailed ICN to say that former NBC/MSNBC weatherperson Rosey Edeh will now be a reporter for Entertainment Tonight Canada…

TVNewser and Romenesko both devote space today to the Pew poll on the coverage of the Katrina disaster. While I agree the information is worth noting it really needs to be stressed that as far as the Cable News Networks are ultimately concerned Pew, and Neilsen’s CUME rating for that matter, do almost nothing for the networks from a business standpoint. Advertisers don’t factor in Pew or CUME to any large extent when trying to figure out what they’ll pay the networks for the ability to advertise on them. They use the P2+ and especially the P 25-54 numbers. And the networks know this. While they will trot out CUME and Pew to boost their PR from time to time, they depend on P2 and P25-54….

UPDATE: Here are the average ratings for the five networks since 8/28…
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Eric Alterman in The Nation writes about the cable news coverage… (via Romenesko)

In an interview with House majority leader Tom DeLay, African-American MSNBC anchor Lester Holt asked, “People are now beginning to voice what we’ve all been seeing with our own eyes–the majority of people left in New Orleans are black, they are poor, they are the underbelly of society. When you look at this, what does this say about where we are as a country and where our government is in terms of how it views the people of this country?” When DeLay responded with the usual right-wing nonsense–”We’re doing a wonderful job, and we are an incredibly compassionate people”–Holt refused to back off.

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Page Six relates a bizarre CNN story…

CNN brass has launched an investigation after some funky footage from its London bu reau came over the airwaves. “A man, be lieved to be a CNN employee, apparently de cided it would be a good idea to take a stroll around the newsroom wearing nothing but a jacket,” reports The London Guardian’s Media Diary. “The incident was not broad cast to viewers around the world, but the news channel’s bosses at HQ back in At lanta reportedly got a shocking eyeful of the naturist wiggling his meat and two veg in front of a camera via a live internal feed.”

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz uses Kayne West’s commentary on the President to frame his story on media reactions on the federal government’s response to the Katrina tragedy and notes the Kyra Phillips/Nancy Pelosi exchange on CNN yesterday…

If you want an indication of how media coverage has changed, when Pelosi told that story to CNN’s Kyra Phillips yesterday, Phillips kept pressing her on whether FEMA was solely to blame, and whether Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers deserved blame, until the House minority leader said: “Kyra, if you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll.” Phillips said she was doing no such thing.

Neal Justin in the Minnneapolis Star Tribune writes about the media getting emotionally involved in covering the hurricane…

This past week, the press got angry over rescue efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

It got angry on Fox News when Shepard Smith slammed the government’s decision to keep New Orleans residents restricted to the Superdome, far from food and water. At one point, I was certain he was going to turn green and puff up into the Incredible Hulk.

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MSNBC’s Dan Abrams blogs on what the National Guard is doing…

The sweep went through an area of east New Orleans where they haven’t had many rescue vehicles go so far. There was an initial sweep-through last week, but the idea today was that they would go into an area that was covered with water where they thought there might be some elderly and disabled folks who might be hanging out or haven’t been able to reach people.

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CNN blogs:

Jeff Koinange in New Orleans, Louisiana:

We took a drive this morning through several neighborhoods asking people whether they’re going to agree to leave the city. Many of them told us that they don’t want to leave.

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