CNBC announced today that is promoting Jeremy Pink, previously Vice President of News and Programming at CNBC Europe to Vice President, International News and Programming, CNBC. It also announced that Barbara Stelzner has been hired to take over for Pink as Head of News at CNBC Europe.

“Now that we’ve acquired sole ownership of the international networks, we’re looking to build our global strength even more, and Jeremy Pink’s appointment reinforces our commitment to the global brand,” said Mark Hoffman, President, CNBC. “His role will be working across each international network–CNBC, CNBC Europe, CNBC Asia Pacific and CNBC World–to identify global programming and content opportunities.”

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Barbara Stelzner joins CNBC Europe from Sky News in Ireland and has also held the position of a senior television project advisor specializing in Pan-European television. She has also worked at CNBC Europe previously, as an executive producer in both staff and freelance capacities and also as supervising producer on “Market Watch” and senior producer on “Europe Tonight.”

Blogger Rory O’Connor strikes a cynical tone in appraising last week’s sudden “spine finding moment” by the media….(via Mediachannel.org)

Before all the media mavens break their arms patting their peers and themselves on the back, let’s call them on their latest lie – the one claiming some great journalistic ‘silver lining’ is emerging from behind Hurricane Katrina’s dark clouds.

So quick, someone stop all the analysts and pundits and commentators – be they mainstream, alternative, corporate, independent, right or left wing – from proclaiming that the Katrina coverage was somehow the press’s finest hour, that when suddenly face-to-face (where have they been all these years?) with the overwhelming reality of “America’s Third World,” our previously chained, complaisant and largely muted news media cast off their self-imposed shackles, inexplicably returned to comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and (as New York Magazine’s particularly puffy profile of CNN’s Anderson Cooper put it) “pushed right up to the line between tough questioning and confrontational advocacy journalism.”

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Say that three times fast! Sorry…Anyway CJR Daily notes the coverage of the coverage of the Hurricane Katrina Coverage and senses a pattern in coverage of CNN’s Anderson Cooper…. (note: links in excerpt are as they appeared in the CJR piece)

And you’d have to live in a hermetically-sealed bubble yourself not to have already seen more of CNN’s Anderson Cooper lately than you care to in your lifetime. Cooper “sticks out like a silvery human hood ornament,” after all, according to New York magazine, which this week adds another flattering article to the heap of existing pro-Cooper media hype. New York’s Jonathan Van Meter writes admiringly of Cooper’s “befuddled, sardonic style sometimes tipping over into adolescent excitability or deeply felt compassion” and notes that even before Cooper became endearingly “unhinged” on-air while covering Hurricane Katrina, “CNN was increasingly leaning toward an Andersonian emotionality, and seemed to be gaining some traction.” And so, the conventional wisdom goes, it won’t be long before Cooper is sitting in Rather’s or Jenning’s or Brokaw’s old chair.

Michelle Greppi of TVWeek writes about Rick Kaplan naming Bill Wolff as the VP of MSNBC’s Prime Time Programming…(via WHAC)

MSNBC President Rick Kaplan has an executive in charge of prime time for the first time in five months. Mr. Kaplan has named Bill Wolff–whose first foray into news programming has been as executive producer of MSNBC’s 2-month-old “The Situation With Tucker Carlson”–VP of prime-time programming for the cable news network.

Mr. Wolff will make the switch immediately, Mr. Kaplan said in an e-mail Tuesday afternoon to the MSNBC staff.

The Philadelphia Enquirer’s Gail Shister writes about CNN Newsnight host, Aaron Brown… (via Romenesko)

ABC’s Peter Jennings, who lost his battle with lung cancer last month, is very much onAaron Brown’s mind as he anchors Hurricane Katrina coverage on CNN.

“I’m thinking a lot about Peter - how much he would have liked covering this story, and the things I learned from him,” says Brown, 56, an ABC anchor from ‘91 until joining CNN in ‘01.

Lesson one: “Stay measured, stay calm. But balance that with being urgent.” Lesson two: “Never get ahead of the story. The story is where it is at any given moment… . Your job as anchor is to keep it in context, in perspective.”

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Howard Kurtz plays cable news president today…

If I were running one of the cable networks, this is what I would have done yesterday.

I would have told the Senate Judiciary Committee that if you want to devote hours to rambling opening statements from each and every member of the panel– essentially much-rehashed stump speeches– fine, but we’re not going to cover it.

We’ll take five minutes from Specter, five minutes from Leahy and five minutes from John Roberts, and then we’re gone until you actually begin questioning the nominee. Then we’ll give you some airtime.

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Tim Arango of the New York Post writes that MSNBC’s Rick Kaplan may be on his way out…

After being passed over for a chance to replace NBC News chief Neal Shapiro, MSNBC boss Rick Kaplan’s job is in jeopardy, The Post has learned.

Sources say Kaplan is likely to be out as the head of the ratings-challenged cable news network by the end of the year.

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CBS’s Public Eye blog scoops with the identity of the mystery analyst told to get angry by a CNN producer which was recounted by Michael Kinsley this morning… (via WHAC)

We’re not looking to beat up on a competitor so early in Public Eye’s young life, but a mini-media controversy has raised media issues we feel are important to look at. A quick search of which Los Angeles Times employees have recently appeared on CNN revealed a likely suspect: Jon Healy, the paper’s editorial writer, who showed up on “Paula Zahn Now” on Sept. 2. We called Healy, and he confirmed that he was the mystery colleague. He also fleshed out the story a bit.

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Mediaweek’s Mike Shields writes about the consolidation of various Time Warner owned business related web sites under CNNMoney.com site…

CNN and Time Inc. are consolidating four business-related Web sites under a single business news Web property.

Beginning in January 2006, Fortune.com, FSB.com and Business2.com will be eliminated as stand-alone sites and their content will be merged with CNNMoney.com, which now becomes the sole Time Warner business news site.

According to Time Inc. officials, the site will continue to report on the business news of the day, while drawing from commentary and analysis produced by the soon-to-be-defunct sites’ parent magazines Fortune, Fortune Small Business and Business 2.0.

Former CNNer Reese Schonfeld notes the viewer numbers for the Katrina saga…

It is an ill wind that blows no one some good. All of the news networks can boast about their Katrina numbers. FoxNews had more viewers than any other one ad supported network in both prime time and total day. But CNN, which was second in total day and third in prime lost to Fox by a ratio of four-to-three. Ordinarily Fox beats CNN two-to-one. CNN beat MSNBC by about five-to-two, more than its usual margin but MSNBC had a higher percentage gain, 56%. Headline News had the highest percentage gain but still lost to MSNBC three-to-two.

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