Johnny Dollar has the video of Shepard Smith, tongue in cheek, responding to Bill O’Reilly trying to give away his job to Diane Sawyer…

In next week’s L.A. Times Magazine, Dan Neil writes about Anderson Cooper and his “breakout season” in a near must read that I struggled over which part to quote…

I have no doubt that Cooper was deeply affected by the events of New Orleans. But news anchors get only one such episode to register their humanity. Walter Cronkite choked up the day JFK died. Dan Rather lost it on 9/11. Any more than that and they start to look unstable, emotionally opportunistic and, worst of all, unreliable.

A case in point is the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia. I’ll never forget the look on Cooper’s face when, after hours on-air, he was told the trapped miners had not, as it was earlier reported, survived. Cooper had allowed himself to be caught up in the relief, the elation of relatives and friends—indeed, he had played to it because it made good TV—and that undercut him just as he needed journalistic objectivity most.

Many people will call this just another hit piece and there may be some truth to that criticism. But what what struck me about the piece is Neil takes familiar criticisms that have been out there for a while but adds a focus that previous Anderson rants seemed to lack.

CNBC had the winners of the “Squawk Box Fantasy Portfolio Challenge” on this morning the network announced today…

This morning, the three challenge finalists—Mr. Ko, Jeremy Reuter and Chris Jorgensen —appeared on “Squawk Box,” and Mr. Ko was unveiled as the winner during the 8:30 AM half-hour of the three-hour program. “Squawk Box” is broadcast weekdays 6 AM-9 AM ET.

Mr. Ko, who has been working in Silicon Valley for the past 10 years as an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) engineer for companies such as LSI Logic, NEC Electronics, Broadcom, ZettaCom, and ATI, earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from San Jose State University with a minor in computer science.

Mr. Reuter, the first runner-up with a portfolio valued at more than $4.249 million, works for a non-profit agency in Michigan. He has a bachelor’s degree in family community service from Michigan State University, and expects to earn his master’s degree in family studies from Michigan State University by the end of 2006. Mr. Reuter was awarded a one-day pass to the Master Maserati driving school at the world class racing facility, Road Atlanta, where Mr. Reuter will be taught techniques in car control from Maserati experts.

Mr. Jorgensen, the second runner-up with a portfolio valued at more than $3.165 million, is an independent trader from Spokane, WA. Prior to his current position, he was a broker with a small regional firm from 1995 to 2003. Mr. Jorgensen holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Washington State University.
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