From an emailer…

Joe Scarborough’s lead story tonight is Star Jones being fired from The View and now it’s a story on Oprah. When did his show stop being about real news?

Y’know it’s not like I’m out to make MSNBC look bad but Star Jones? What about North Korea?

I saw this a couple of days ago but forgot to blog it. Larry King gets an exclusive interview with President Bush and his wife Laura tomorrow night…

UPDATE: Barbara-Laura…Laura-Barbara…I need a drink…

The Huffington Post’s Steve Young thinks Liberals should embrace Bill O’Reilly…

My mother, who’s a Democrat, likes O’Reilly. She says he tells it like it is. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t. He makes her believe he does. Perhaps not enough to vote Republican, but enough for her to believe there’s no difference between the parties. That’s not going to get her and her friends out to vote in a Democratic congress or senate.

I say it’s high time for the hate-Bush™, SP™, smear merchants™, and Keith Olberman™ to give it a break and start making nice. Surely there’s other “Worst People in the World”™ to pick from.
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I’m not saying we’d have to sleep with the guy, I’m just saying that Bill could help. I’m not sure what would sway him but his ability to trumpet that he was powerful enough to win the election for the Dems would pump up the man’s chest more than any number of fake Peabodys. That, in itself could do it.

CNBC announced this afternoon that Darren Rovell will join CNBC to cover sports business…

Darren Rovell joins CNBC as the network’s Sports Business Reporter, effective July 10, it was announced today by Jonathan Wald, Senior Vice President, Business News, CNBC. In his new role, Rovell will both analyze and report on the sports business world on all of CNBC’s programming including “Squawk Box,” “Power Lunch,” “Closing Bell,” and “On the Money.”

“CNBC recognizes the importance of sports to business and business programming,” Wald said. “Darren’s background and expertise will allow CNBC to take its reporting of sports business to the next level and provide our viewers with the relevant and useful information it needs and deserves.”

Prior to joining CNBC, Rovell served as sports business writer for ESPN.com and reported on the world of agents, stadium deals, endorsements and contracts on ESPN’s flagship, “SportsCenter,” its investigative show, “Outside the Lines,” and its morning show “Cold Pizza.”
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MSNBC announced this afternoon that it will offer exclusive simulcasting of the Joe Lieberman/Ned Lamont debate tomorrow at 7pm ET…

This is the first and only televised face-to-face debate between these two candidates, in what has become a closely watched and hotly contested local Senate race. Lieberman announced earlier this week that he would seek signatures to run as an independent candidate should he lose the August 8 Democratic primary to Lamont.

In addition to answering the moderator and panelist questions, the candidates will answer viewer emails and previously videotaped viewer questions. The debate will originate from WVIT-TV’s West Hartford studios. The special “Hardball” coverage is entitled “Decision 2006: Showdown in Connecticut, Lieberman vs. Lamont.”

MSNBC.com will offer live streaming of the debate and live blogging from the Hardblogger All-Stars as well as the public. MSNBC.com’s political reporter Tom Curry will be at the debate blogging live for “Hardblogger” (www.Hardball.MSNBC.com).

UPDATE: I transposed the start time in my head to PST which is why it said 4pm instead of 7pm. Sigh…

MovieWeb’s Studio Briefing has a wrap up of MSNBC’s disaster yesterday on North Korea…

The Dan Abrams regime at MSNBC got off to an embarrassing start on Tuesday as the cable news channel was caught unprepared to cover Korea’s test launch of a long-range missile in defiance of U.S. warnings. The channel aired mostly canned programs while rivals Fox News Channel and CNN presented live telecasts dealing with the launch throughout the day. TV news bloggers excoriated MSNBC for failing to devote appropriate coverage to the affair, with one writing, “Now, it’s not really even a cable news channel after ignoring an international crisis.”

“Bloggers”? What other blog besides this one said anything critical about MSNBC’s coverage (I don’t count TVN’s collection of emails on the subject because they weren’t his opinion)? I’m not tooting my own horn here. I really want to know who else is talking about it…

FNC is investing some resources in covering the one year anniversary of the London bombings. On Monday I noted that On The Record would be broadcasting there starting tonight. This morning on Fox and Friends E.D. Hill said she would be heading to London as well. She will co-anchor FOX & Friends live from London on Thursday and Friday with interviews and live reports from Tavistock Square, the location of the bus attack.

UPDATE: Changed entry title because the way it was written made it sound like FNC was covering a new bombing.

Here are the correct break in times for the Ken Lay news. CNN was first, CNBC was second, MSNBC third, and FNC fourth…

CNN: 10:01 (give or take 5 seconds)
CNBC: 10:01:15
MSNBC: 10:02:21
FNC: 10:03:20

UPDATE: I have…ahem…corrected the…uh… “correct” break in times. The original post listed CNN’s time at 10:04. That turned out to be the follow up time when CNN returned to the story. CNN actually beat CNBC by about 16 seconds.

Following up on this morning’s item, ICN has learned that Linda Vester is going to continue being a stay at home mom . . . Fox executives said there are no plans for her to rejoin the network at this time.

MSNBC.com announced today that it has hired Russell Shaw as its Deputy Editor, News.

MSNBC.com, the nation’s No. 1 TV news website announces the addition of Russell Shaw to its editorial leadership team. As the deputy editor, news, Shaw is in charge of the site’s overall news coverage, directing editors, writers and producers. In this role, he will manage the news and home page teams in Redmond, Secaucus and London, as well as oversee the site’s original projects team. This announcement was made today by Jennifer Sizemore, managing editor, MSNBC.com.

“We are thrilled to have an editorial executive of Russ’ caliber and breadth of experience leading our news department,” Sizemore said. “His background in leading national and international coverage are exactly what we need as we ramp up our original reporting and investigative projects.”

Shaw joins MSNBC.com from the Houston Chronicle, most recently serving as assistant managing editor, news. In that role, he was in charge of the national, foreign, state, city and suburban coverage, managing teams of reporters and editors. During his time at the Chronicle, he was part of award-winning coverage of the shuttle Columbia tragedy and Hurricane Katrina and was a lead editor of the newspaper’s coverage of the war in Iraq, and 9/11. He began his career as a reporter at the Brandon Sun in Manitoba, Canada.

One year ago Linda Vester went on a one year sabbatical after giving birth. This was her last blog entry.

I’d like to thank my boss, Fox News Chairman and CEO of Fox News Channel, Roger Ailes (search), for so generously giving me the time off to go home and be a mommy. As much as I will miss my FOX family and all of you, deep in my heart, I know I’m doing the right thing for my children. But it’s only a year, and I’m sure the time will fly by. To all of you who have wished me luck with the pregnancy, thank you!

That year is now up. The question I’m being asked is will she be back to FNC and in what capacity? The answer is I don’t know. I guess we shall wait and see…

From Johnny Dollar…

Just now, Secy Rice was speaking about the N Korean threat. She was live on CNN and Fox. MSNBC was running commercials. When the loooong commercial break ended, MSNBC jumped in, but Rice had just finished speaking. So they vamped for a minute or two and got the tape racked up to replay her comments. After that started, the UN Security Council members came out to speak on the subject. CNN and Fox had it live. MSNBC was running the Rice tape. After a few minutes MSNBC had to interrupt the Rice tape to come in late on the UN news.

CNN is trumpeting its radio affiliate coverage of the Korean Missle launch yesterday…

Why wait for breaking news audio? North Korea fired a 7th missile early Wednesday morning, CNN Radio provided their affiliates with the sound needed to report the news FIRST.

- CNN Radio affiliates had actualities from NORAD at 5:23am on the affiliate website, while other networks made their affiliates wait over an hour for a news feed.

- CNN Radio’s 5:30am newscast led with audio confirmation from NORAD on North Korea’s 7th missile launch

- CNN Radio gives affiliates the tools they need to cover the news NOW.

CNN Radio: the most trusted name in news.

UPDATE: An emailer says CNN’s claim of being first is incorrect and points to FOX News Radio’s Todd Starne’s reporting the seventh missile news at the top of the 5:00am ET newscast this morning.

I don’t know who was first but at 10 am I saw MSNBC throw up a Breaking News alert for the death of Ken Lay. I jumped over to FNC which was in the middle of a UN report and they quickly threw up a Fox News Alert. I didn’t have the opportunity to check CNN. MSNBC stayed with the Lay story for 10 minutes and then interrupted for an NBC News Special Report on Lay by Chris Jansing. Feel free to fill in the blanks…

TVNewser has an emailer calling MSNBC’s ” very simple ” shuttle coverage as a cost cutting move.

An e-mailer blames MSNBC’s “very simple” coverage of the launch to “cost cutting…”

Wrong. What is the basis of this charge? The fact that Chris Jansing wasn’t down in Florida? If you use that as the reason you have to add FNC to the cost cutting list because Martha MacCallum was not in Florida either. The fact is that, as ICN noted Sunday, Jansing was scheduled to guest host The Most this week which presented a logistical problem for the network - she couldn’t be in two places at once. But also NASA had aborted two launches already, it was the 4th of July, and, most importantly of all, all the resources MSNBC had at its fingertips on Friday were still available and used yesterday. The only difference between Friday and yesterday was the location of the anchor.

I saw the coverage MSNBC turned in yesterday. From the moment they started live broadcasting MSNBC was on the story throughout the day with multiple reporters and analysts. There was nothing wrong or meager at all about MSNBC’s coverage. This isn’t like what happened the last time the shuttle launched when it was clear that MSNBC cut back on the scale of its coverage between the first aborted launch and when the shuttle finally did launch. TV Newser’s emailer doesn’t know what he/she is talking about.

Buried in Doreen Carvajal’s New York Times piece on the expansion of Arabic language news is word that CNN is thinking about an Arabic speaking channel…

From the United States, CNN is watching the development of its Arabic Web site, which attracts more than 300,000 unique visitors monthly, before it decides whether to pursue television plans.

The New York Daily News’ Lloyd Grove manages to devote four paragraphs to MSNBC and Rick Kaplan without making much news…

Ironically, it was Kaplan’s attempt in April to switch Cosby to Carlson’s little-desired late-night berth that contributed to his demise, I hear. Cosby and her agent, Larry Kramer, got the decision reversed by appealing directly to NBC Universal Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker, pointing out that her contract guaranteed her a slot in prime time.

It’s been a little over a week since Dan Abrams talked to the New York Times about increasing Breaking News coverage in the daytime hours. But what has happened in the last nine days shows not a bearing down on breaking news but a flailing about grasping at straws. First there was sticking two producers behind the visible news anchor from 12-3. That was quickly followed by putting the control room on the air in a staged act - the results of which have been at times almost comical. I saw another one of those today.

But this “breaking news King” is only clothed part of the time. MSNBC got badly embarassed today with the Korean Missle Launch. True it was a national holiday and MSNBC made its resource bed by scheduling wall to wall tape after The Most. You can live by tape, but you can also die by tape and today MSNBC died by tape. It gambled on a slow news day and lost. With no live programming later in the day, MSNBC didn’t have the necessary staff to mount coverage of this very important topic, unlike FNC and CNN which both had live programs scheduled later on in the day. And I’ll wager that both FNC and CNN brought people in to cover this as well.

The best MSNBC could do was put Ann Curry on and that was an NBC News alert. But after that…nothing much. I have been very critical of what’s been going on at MSNBC the past week. And, from what I hear, this blog’s commentary on that subject has reverberated inside parts of MSNBC. MSNBC can pull the above breaking news daytime parlor tricks but in the end of the day they don’t amount to a hill of beans if it can’t do breaking news when it really matters. And I know from experience that when MSNBC sets its mind to it, it can mount breaking news coverage that equals anything that CNN or FNC can put on. Problem is, those moments are few and far between.