Ed Bark in the Dallas Morning News writes about Fox News Sunday’s 10th Anniversary and includes an interview with show host Chris Wallace which make some news because Wallace reveals that Ted Kennedy has agreed to be on the show for the first time ever.

And on the seventh day, the sleaze rests, at least on TV’s serious-minded, mostly well-mannered Sunday morning news shows.

“There’s zero pressure on us to do Natalee Holloway, Michael Jackson or a car chase,” says Chris Wallace. “It’s a tabloid-free zone, and I’m thrilled to be a part of that.”Mr. Wallace presides over Fox News Sunday, which will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this Sunday. He left ABC News in late 2003 to replace Tony Snow as the program’s headmaster. Now Mr. Snow is the brand-new White House press secretary after previously working for the first President Bush. He’ll also be Mr. Wallace’s “Power Player of the Week” on Sunday’s closing segment. Such luck.

“I think Tony will succeed in lowering the temperature between the White House and the press corps, which is up to a boil at this point,” Mr. Wallace says in a telephone interview. “I think he’ll be able to defuse some of the ill feeling. He’s a smart, charming guy who understands what reporters do for a living.”

The 10th-anniversary edition additionally has an exclusive interview with Josh Bolton, his first since becoming President Bush’s new chief of staff.

After getting prematurely outted by TVNewser on Friday, MSNBC’s The Most website is now up for real. The site includes MSNBC’s first official description of the show and it reads a bit like a press release…

MSNBC’s new groundbreaking news program, “The Most,” with host Alison Stewart, is set to debut on MSNBC on May 1 at 3:00 p.m. ET. Fast-paced and spirited, the new one hour show will give viewers a look at “the most” sought-after stories of the day. Every day, “The Most” will report on the most searched stories on the Internet, the most viewed stories from a multitude of news sources, the most e-mailed stories or photo images, the most downloaded music or blogged-about subject matter and the most viewed television programs or movies. Tapping into the top news stories of the day, “The Most” will dig even deeper to give viewers the most information on their favorite topics.

In addition to covering the top hard news stories of the day, “The Most” will cover a range of topics, from politics to pop culture, including business, technology, lifestyle, entertainment and news relating to people’s everyday lives. The program will cull all major daily newspapers, a plethora of news and information websites, weekly periodicals, and more, as it pinpoints the most widely searched topics of interest. “The Most” will also turn the tables on itself from time to time, featuring a most “underreported” story of the day or a most “overexposed” person of the week.
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Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice appeared on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer today. Transcript follows…

WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Madam Secretary, thanks very much for joining us.
Welcome back to LATE EDITION.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: Pleasure to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Welcome back from your overseas trip. The secretary of state, the former secretary of state, your predecessor, Colin Powell, has made some news, suggesting that he thought the U.S. should have gone into Iraq with a much larger force. Listen to what the secretary — the former secretary said.
(more…)

The MSN MSNBC board came across a radio interview Rick Kaplan did Thursday on Boston’s WBUR-FM with Tom Ashbrook. This is news because Kaplan mentions a “rebranding” coming soon to MSNBC…

During the 40-minute interview, Kaplan spent much of his time defending the cable news universe, saying there is room for a diverse group of opinions on his and other cable channels, while reminding the host, Tom Ashbrook, MSNBC still devotes many hours a day to simply reporting the news.

Ashbrook and many of the callers used FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly as the poster boy of what a cable news host shouldn’t be like, and there were times, surprisingly, where Kaplan defended O’Reilly, saying he fills an important niche that might have been otherwise ignored.

What might be of most interest to this group were some of the comments Kaplan made toward the end of the broadcast. After being questioned why so much of MSNBC’s time is devoted to less than hard-hitting topics, Kaplan said he thinks viewers will notice a renewed focus on traditional reporting during a “rebranding” that will take place in the near future.

I haven’t had time to listen to the whole podcast. But I did catch the rebranding part which sounds to me like Kaplan is referring, indirectly at least in part, to the new half hour specials during MSNBC Live and Monday’s launch of The Most. Rough transcript by me follows…

One of the things that we can do and what we are trying to do and that I think you’ll see a lot of growth in in the coming weeks as we rebrand our network at MSNBC is the challenge of trying to accomplish what Melanie (a caller who complained about too much opinion and pandering and not enough news - Spud.) was talking about and do it in a way so that you build your audience as well. I think there’s a lot of people - a lot of them listen to this program - a lot of them listen to this network - I think there’s a lot of people who are looking for a better…a better sense of real news and are a litte frustrated and a little put off by what we’ve all been doing too much of. And I’m hoping - the challenge is to do it in a way that tells stories in a fine fashion. It’s not that there… most people are objecting to international news. It’s that we tend to do international news in an incompetent way.

I think it can be done and I’d be willing to go down trying.

UPDATE: I got to listen to the whole broadcast. It’s worth the listen. So if you’ve got 40 minutes to kill and want to hear Kaplan talk about a variety of subjects (though the show concentrates heavily on what goes on during primetime) in an insightful manner (including commenting on Nightline and Ted Koppel) you won’t be disapointed.

MSNBC ran a TV ad for The Most during Countdown tonight.

TVNewser got tipped off to what I had suspected and tried to dig for a little but didn’t manage to find…a web page on MSNBC.com that mentions The Most.

Get ‘The Most’ from Alison Stewart
What’s happening in the news and on the Internet? Find out on MSNBC

Alison Stewart has her finger on the pulse of the Internet, entertainment, business, news, technology and health, and she delivers The Most information.

There is no direct link to this page, which is an internal work in progress that was posted four days ago according to the time stamp and repeats the same text over and over. I suspect this page won’t be up for long now that it has been outted.

MSNBC still has not made an official mention of this show yet even though it is supposed to debut Monday. When are they planning on taking the wraps off this show for real?

UPDATE: I take it back. There is a direct link to this page and it shouldn’t be there yet. The link is on Stewart’s bio page.

UPDATE 2: Apparently I underestimated that MSNBC would care about that incomplete page being exposed because it’s still up nearly two days after being revealed.

The first of three CNN Global Summit specials was taped this morning at the Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem. The Summit features former President Bill Clinton with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta moderating a discussion on eradicating HIV/AIDS. The program will air this Saturday on CNN at 8 and 11 pm ET with a repeat on Sunday at 8 and 11 pm ET.

George and Nick Clooney made what some might consider an unlikely appearance on FNC today. As part of their Darfur media blitz the father-son tandem dropped in on Studio B with Shepard Smith today. The two talked about their visit to the Darfur region of Sudan to draw attention to the crisis in the region and called for international help.

Kind of amazing how Clooney can bring more mainstream attention to a story that Nick Kristoff has been banging his head in futility over for the longest time now (including picking, what some considered a stupid fight with Bill O’Reilly over the issue).

The New Jersey Star Ledger’s Matt Zoeller Seitz writes up the landmark for Chris Wallace’s show…

On first glance, Wallace might seem an unlikely advocate for Fox News. He’s a bred-in-the-bone mainstream journalist. His politics are pretty much a question mark, a fact that led some conservative bloggers to tag him as a liberal fifth columnist. Plus, Wallace doesn’t re-frame the news in terms of a conservative world view, as Hume does virtually every single night.

Yet Wallace argues forcefully for Fox’s value — not as a primary news source, but as one voice among many. According to this interpretation, “Fair and Balanced” doesn’t mean Fox News is unburdened by preconceived political notions. It just means that if you set Fox alongside a news source that’s often unfriendly to conservative or right-wing thought, the complete picture becomes more balanced.

“The only thing Roger ever said to me was, ‘Treat everybody the same, be equally tough on everyone.’ Forget the conservative bloggers, just go do it,” Wallace said. “A lot of shots that are taken against Fox are cheap shots. I know the way we treat Republicans as well as Democrats on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ and I don’t know anyone in the political community, Republican or Democrat, who thinks I pull my punches.”

The New York Daily News’ Marisa Guthrie writes about the FNC show’s 10 years on the air…

Wallace has presided over “FNS” (10 a.m., Ch. 5) since 2003. He joined Fox after 15 years at ABC, where he worked on “Primetime” and filled in as host of “Nightline.” He has brought an element of his newsmagazine past to Sunday morning with the “Power Player of the Week” segment, which features apolitical personalities, including Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs and Placido Domingo.

“We have the best, most interesting, provocative, most cued-in panel on Sunday morning television,” said Wallace.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tim Cuprisin catches up with Aaron Brown…

After six months off-camera, former CNN anchor Aaron Brown isn’t hurrying just to do something.

“It’s one of the great things in my life, I have no one pushing me to do anything,” he says. Still, he keeps a pretty active speaking schedule, including a stop in town Saturday to receive the Sacred Cat Award from the Milwaukee Press Club at its annual Gridiron Awards Dinner.

“I don’t have a job, I have an employer,” Brown says of CNN. “That contract has another almost 18 months to run.”

The USA Today’s Peter Johnson has an interview with Chris Wallace…

Fox News has been accused of being pro-Bush, a perception that Snow’s appointment seemed to bolster, but Wallace says FNS gets no special treatment.

“I think we get a fair — although I think not particularly any fairer — shake than anybody else does from the Bush administration,” Wallace says. “We also get all of the top Democrats, because they know if they want to play, they have to come to us.”

The Milwaukee Joural Sentinel’s Tim Cuprisin has an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace…

Wallace seems pretty satisfied hosting “Fox News Sunday,” which marks its 10th anniversary this weekend. The program - which airs at 9 a.m. Sundays on Channel 6, with a 5 p.m. Fox News Channel repeat - is a bit different since reporter Wallace replaced pundit Snow at the end of 2003.

“I’m more of an interviewer, you know, and maybe it’s something from the genes, but I think I’m a pretty tough interviewer. And the only instructions I’ve been given by (Fox News czar) Roger Ailes, from the very first day, were just to treat everybody the same,” he says. “I think I have.”

If you didn’t get his “genes” reference, he’s talking about his dad, Mike Wallace.

Incidentally there’s a podcast that contains extra interview material…

The reason the news anchors have been appearing for most of the week in what has been referred to by some people as “The Temporary Set” or “The Duratrans Set” instead of the main MSNBC newsroom is because rehearsals/test runs have been going on for The Most prior to its May 1st debut.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Ken Herman writes about a strange to-do on Air Force One that occurred today and how the TVs in the press cabin got changed from FNC to CNN…(via Romenesko)

Despite McClellan’s TV options, the record will show that – other than when the movie of reporters’ choice is showing (and that frequently invites a gender-based battle over what to watch), Fox is showing on the screens in the press cabin of Air Force One.

As McClellan and VandeHei talked TV channels, Agence France Presse photographer Tim Sloan volunteered that he was the one who raised the issue.

“I was the Fox victim,” he said, “and I was told, the quote was, ‘No,’ when I asked for CNN. … I was told, ‘We don’t watch CNN here. You can only watch Fox.’”

Fishbowl DC has a rundown of the big celebration FNC threw for the show last night…

Yes, even on Prom Week, when the VIP circuit is already overheated, Fox News Sunday managed to pull off a stellar and star-studded event last night to toast the 10 year anniverary of Fox News Sunday.

Or as Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called it: “Tony Snow’s going away party.”

As we mentioned earlier, the room was abuzz with chatter that sounded something like this (okay, just like this): “What the hell is Hillary doing here?”

UPDATE: Johnny Dollar has audio of Bill O’Reilly talking about meeting Hillary Clinton

…comes from Lloyd Grove in the New York Daily News…

I’m quite sure that Kevin Goldman, vice president of CNBC public relations, outranks an ink-stained gossip columnist. So who can blame him for hanging up on Lowdown - twice - when asked why CNBC superstar Michael Eisner, the deposed CEO of Disney who gets astronomical ratings of almost 100,000 viewers, was a no-show on yesterday’s “Live With Regis and Kelly” - which, after all, gets only a measly 5 million viewers. “I’m not talking to you guys!” Goldman barked. Excellent promotional work, Mr. G!

The Washington Post’s Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts write about yesterday’s Maury Povich and Connie Chung luncheon…

…yesterday, there were Povich and Chung themselves, in the city where both got their start, taking questions in public. “They could have canceled. I would have understood,” Nathans owner Carol Joynt told our colleague Korin Miller. It was a carefully choreographed affair. An NBC exec was in the room, as were two network security staffers. Joynt made it clear the couple would take no questions from the floor. Instead, she invited the 50 or so paying lunchers (dining on salmon and asparagus) to write down questions and pass them forward. She said later that most she received involved the scandal, which she dispensed with in an opening comment.

Michael Starr in the New York Post scoops that Anderson Cooper will be joining 60 Minutes as a contributor…

Cooper will stay at CNN as the host of “Anderson Cooper 360″ and will contribute occasional reports to “60 Minutes” - which will also air on Cooper’s show.

It will be the second time the networks have shared on-air talent. Cooper’s CNN stablemate, Christiane Amanpour, contributed to “60 Minutes” for several years.

CNN announced this afternoon its coverage plans for the nationwide immigrations protests scheduled for May 1st, also known as May Day.

As part of CNN’s May Day coverage, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, who has provided leading news reports and commentary about immigration and border protection for more than two years, examines the immigration debates during Lou Dobbs Tonight. For the program, Casey Wian will cover protests along the West Coast, and Bill Tucker will cover those along the East Coast. Lisa Sylvester examines the politics of the boycotts from a Washington, D.C., perspective. Lou Dobbs Tonight airs each weekday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

On Tuesday, May 2, Cooper reveals a typical day along the border of the United States and Mexico in “24 Hours on the Border.” The special, which will air during Anderson Cooper 360° at 11 p.m., follows border patrol officers, civilians and others chronologically during a single, 24-hour period.
(more…)

Johnny Dollar emailed in to note that Kerry had to back out of the O’Reilly interview for later this week. Supposedly the interview will be rescheduled for a later date. In Kerry’s place will be Senator Charles Schumer…

TVNewser had a bunch of questions in regards to Tony Snow’s change of employment. Here are answers to some of them…

- Tony Snow was released from his contract with FNC and is no longer on its payroll.
- Rotating anchors will take over “Weekend Live” during the hours Tony used to host.

UPDATE: An emailer writes in to say that Catherine Herridge will host this weekend.

- As TVNewser already found out, the new radio show is called “Brian and The Judge” with Brian Kilmeade and Judge Andrew Napolitano. Here is FNC’s release on the show…

FOX News Radio will debut the nationally syndicated talk show, Brian and The Judge, on Thursday, April 27th. Hosted by FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Brian Kilmeade, co-host of the network’s morning show, FOX & Friends, the three-hour program will also feature FNC’s senior judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge. The program will broadcast live from 9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon ET and will replace “The Tony Snow Show.”

Brian and The Judge will serve as a news-driven, interview and commentary show, harnessing the vast resources of FOX News, and focusing on the latest national and international news, from politics to social issues to pop culture. Key newsmakers as well as a wide array of well-known movers and shakers in the worlds of news and entertainment will be featured on the show.
(more…)

Andrea Mitchell will be appearing on Eric Kuhn’s college radio show on Thursday. You can listen live at www.whcl.org or afterwards at www.erickuhn.com. If anyone would like to submit questions to Ms. Mitchell they can send them to eric@erickuhn.com.

CNN announced this morning that Seth Doane has joined CNN as a New Dehli based video correspondent…

Seth Doane, winner of a George Foster Peabody Award for his in-depth coverage in 2004 of the on-going humanitarian crisis in the Sudan’s Dafur region, will join CNN as a video correspondent based in New Delhi, it was announced today by Tony Maddox, senior vice president of international newsgathering.

Doane joins CNN from Channel One which broadcasts to more than seven million U.S. schoolchildren through 12-minute news programs. The network reaches about 30 percent of teenagers in the United States.

“Seth has shown the kind of commitment and endeavor we look for in our correspondents,” Maddox said. “In the past five years, he has reported around the world from challenging locations, and he will be a real addition to the reporting ranks of CNN. He will be working in a great bureau in a country which is making news on many levels.”
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The Detroit Free Press’ Susan Tompor writes about Jim Cramer’s University of Michigan appearance yesterday…

Fans, many of whom got seats weeks ago, gathered by 1:30 p.m. at the Michigan League to wait around for the show’s taping.

Cramer said he’s amazed about the bull-market enthusiasm at U-M and noted he has more callers from there than any other school in the country.

“It’s just extraordinary,” Cramer said in an interview Monday. “It’s very stock-driven.”

John Cipkala, 19, from Pittsburgh is a U-M pre-business and economics student who painted his face in blue-and-gold war paint — all in the hopes of getting on the show. He didn’t have a free ticket.

It worked.

Cipkala sat right behind Cramer on the set.

I was out when this news broke at The Tank tonight because The Sharks were in the process of going up 2-1 over Nashville with a dominating performance (YAY!) FNC’s Tony Snow will be named White House Correspondent Wednesday. Johnny Dollar has video from MSNBC (yeah you read that right!!!!) of Tucker Carlson talking about the news…

UPDATE: Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post writes up the story…

Brit Hume, Fox’s Washington managing editor, said he was “a little surprised” that Snow would give up his new radio show to take one of the capital’s most demanding jobs.

“I think he’s excited by the idea of being on the inside,” Hume said. “He believes he will be at the table when decisions are made. For someone of his bent, that’s too good to pass up.”

UPDATE 2: FNC released a statement on Snow’s new White House position…

“We’re proud of the work Tony did for Fox as a commentator and we wish him all the best in his second stint at the White House.”

UPDATE 3: Johnny Dollar has transcripts of reactions to the news.

While CNN has been making some noise in the Demo in the afternoon by beating FNC on certain programs recently, Friday MSNBC snuck up on CNN and stole 2nd place in the primetime Demo. This was a good news bad/news thing for MSNBC.

Good News: They beat CNN in the Demo.

Bad News: Friday was “Crimetime in Primetime” which meant no Live & Direct, Scarborough Country, or The Situation. If those shows can’t get MSNBC past CNN in the Demo but Crimetime can, that doesn’t bode well for the future of those shows or MSNBC.
(more…)

Johnny Dollar emailed in to note that John Kerry will be appearing on The O’Reilly Factor in a two part interview to air Thursday and Friday.

Update: I was given incorrect dates. Corrected.

CNBC announced that Mad Money is going on the road again; this time to the University of Michigan…

Booyah! CNBC’s Jim Cramer, host of “Mad Money w/Jim Cramer,” is back on the road for his “Back to School” tour. And the next stop is The Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Tonight, April 25, Cramer, host of CNBC’s hit, “Mad Money w/Jim Cramer,” will face his toughest audience yet: college students.

“Mad Money w/Jim Cramer” is seen on CNBC at 6 pm ET with re-airings at 9 pm and Midnight.

The “Back to School” tour gives college students the chance to experience the energy, passion and excitement of the wildly popular host of “Mad Money” up close and personal. Said Cramer, “Tonight, April 25, the Wolverines will meet the bulls! Professor Cramer says, ‘Go Blue!’”

FNC’s Dana Lewis has been spending time in the Ukraine to report on conditions 20 years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. FNC announced that Lewis will be reporting on the area throughout the day today and tomorrow…

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Fox News’ Dana Lewis has been on the ground in the Ukraine, reporting on the status of Chernobyl today. During “Special Report with Brit Hume” tonight, Lewis will look at both the threats that Chernobyl poses 20 years after the fact and the enduring human costs of the accident.

Lewis presents shocking footage of the 18 mile zone around Chernobyl, an area that still looks like a war zone even after twenty years. Despite the dangers of radioactive fallout and nuclear waste, villagers are returning to Chernobyl, eating irradiated cabbage and refusing to leave. Lewis talks to a firefigher who was in Chernobyl at the time of the accident and continues to live there today.

The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint writes about News Corp.’s proposed $1 per subscriber per month fee for FNC. (via TVNewser)

“We’re in the elite group,” says Tim Carry, vice president of affiliate sales for Fox News. “We have a significant advantage over 90% of the industry, yet over the last 10 years we’ve been paid as if we’re at the bottom.”

Only a handful of cable networks are able to command such a high fee, most notably Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, which takes in over $2.50 per subscriber. Like ESPN, these channels pay huge sports-rights expenses and get compensated for them. Other channels that command high distribution fees include Time Warner’s TNT, which carries Nascar and the National Basketball Association and gets 90 cents, and the Disney Channel, which doesn’t sell advertising and gets about $1.

“If they ask for a dollar and get fifty cents they’re doing very well,” adds Rob Stengel, an industry consultant.

While posturing is a big part of these negotiations and industry executives think Fox News doesn’t really expect to land a dollar per-subscriber, network executives insist they aren’t just bluffing.

CNN was advertising tonight that on Larry King Live Tuesday, Larry King will have an exclusive interview with the man who was Deep Throat; the former #2 man at the FBI Mark Felt. CNN is billing this as Felt’s only TV interview.

CNN is touting Demo wins over FNC for two of its programs last week; Lou Dobbs Tonight and the 5pm hour of The Situation room, and coming within 2K of FNC in the Demo during the 4pm hour.

4pm P25-54

CNN Situation Room 145,000
FNC Your World 147,000

5 pm P25-54

CNN The Situation Room 174,000
FNC The Big Story 148,000

6pm P25-54

CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight 230,000
FNC Special Report 214,000

CNN goes on to note that this was the 2nd out of the last three weeks that Dobbs beat Special Report in the Demo.

FNC’s Greg Palkot appeared on Fox and Friends this morning after spending a week in Afghanistan. Palkot had been embedded with the 1-3 Marines engaged in “Operation Mountain Lion” (he turned in a Reporter’s Notebook entry on this last Friday). Reporting on his experiences there, Palkot said he considers this to be his “roughest embedment” in the five years since Sept. 11th. Highlights from his report this morning and from his embedment follow…

Palkot on “Fox and Friends” this morning:

“I have been on many, many military embedments for Fox News in the last five years since Sept. 11th, but I can say without reservation that I am just back from the roughest embedment I have ever been on… Osama bin Laden has been known to frequent the mountains and the caves there…The terrain [the marines] are dealing with, 100-pound packs, getting over that terrain, just as difficult. The guys had weapons on their backs. We had TV gear on our backs, so we felt their pain.”

Palkot reporting from Afghanistan:

“Behind me, you’re hearing gunfire, very certainly could be insurgent elements here in this Kunar province, we’re near one of the villages thought to be harboring many, many terrorists. We’ve been seeing tracer fire over the hillside here. You can catch that. Also an illumination flare could be sent up by either side to try to pinpoint, try to find the people on the ground here, that is the terrorists, as well as the marines themselves.”

Rory O’Connor has posted FNC Senior Vice President, News Editorial John Moody’s answers to the questions he and users asked…

“If your readers would take a few seconds to consider the things they enjoy by virtue of being in this country, the depth of their anger would dissipate,” says John Moody. “We’re not arguing over whether democracy is being sacrificed here, we’re arguing over the path we’re going to take the country on – and rightly so!”
_____________
During a provocative, alternately aggressive and defensive, sometimes sincere and sometimes sarcastic interview this week, Moody did his best to answer questions about issues ranging from bias at FOX and other news organizations to mainstream media reporting on the war in Iraq, and from the cable news obsession with “dead white women” to controversial Fox commentators like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Ultimately, like Jonathan Klein, his peer at rival cable news network CNN, Moody seemed genuinely puzzled at the extent and depth of the anger and discontent expressed by the questions, and contended that they “all tend to be similar in voicing discontent.”