Dave Chappelle will sit down with Anderson Cooper 360 tonight in an exclusive interview…

Chappelle will address the reasons he walked out on a reported $50 million deal, what brought him to South Africa and what he is up to now. He will also discuss his thoughts on Comedy Central airing “Chappelle’s Show: The Lost Episodes” this Sunday.

UPDATE: Here is the transcript…

ANDERSON COOPER: And I’m very pleased that Dave Chappelle joins me live. Dave thanks for being with us.

DAVE CHAPPELLE, COMEDIAN: Man thank you, Anderson. Thank you very much. That was a tearjerker.

COOPER: So what do you think about these so-called lost episodes?

CHAPPELLE: It’s funny, I have mixed feelings. I mean, 90 percent of me feels like I wish they wouldn’t do this. There’s the 10 percent comedian that’s like, I hope the sketches do good.
(more…)

Actress Mia Farrow will be Jon Kasich’s guest on Heartland tomorrow night at 8pm ET. She will talk about her trip to the Darfur region and the tragedy there and how people can help.

MSNBC is renaming “The Situation” to “Tucker” starting Monday. I had heard something about this a few days ago but wasn’t able to confirm it until someone posted a message on the MSN MSNBC board…

CNN announced that next Wednesday Dan Rather will be Larry King’s guest on Larry King Live…

In an exclusive interview, Dan Rather will appear on CNN’s Larry King Live on Wednesday, July 12, at 9 p.m. (ET). He will discuss his life after CBS since his abrupt departure, and he will take viewer calls.

This weekend FNC’s War Stories with Oliver North will be doing a special on war and baseball. “From the Ballpark to the Battlefield: Baseball and WWII” will air Sunday at 8pm ET.

Set to air on the eve of the 2006 All-Star game in Pittsburgh, this episode of War Stories is a timely tribute to baseball, its fans, and the power of sports during times of hardship. From the players who gave up their baseball uniforms for military fatigues to those who provide inspiration and entertainment for soldiers on the front lines, “From the Ballpark to the Battlefield” is an inspiring reminder of what makes America great.blockquote>

Brian Williams will be anchoring MSNBC’s coverage of the Bush press conference set to start in a few minutes…

ICN has learned that MSNBC is jettisoning the two line crawl it put in place a few months ago and will be returning to just a one line crawl. This change is rumored to begin tomorrow. Now if MSNBC would show real initiative and dump the crawl entirely…

FTVLive scoops that Julian Phillips is off of Fox and Friends Weekend. Kelly Wright will join Alysin Camerota and Kiran Chetry for the near term. Also Rudi Bakhtiar will be joining the M-Fr edition of The Big Story with John Gibson in a higher profile position.

The New York Times’ Allessandra Stanley didn’t think much of the Larry King interview of President and Mrs. Bush.

And that is why President Bush invited the CNN talk show host to the White House on his 60th birthday. The standoff with North Korea over its missile tests, the war in Iraq and ever-sliding ratings in the polls have given the president little reason to celebrate. Mr. King gave the president a chance to defend his policies without risk of interruption or follow-up.

At times, Mr. King even provided the president with answers. “You’ve always had a lot of compassion for the Mexican people,” the interviewer interjected in a discussion of the president’s immigration bill. Mr. Bush seemed a little surprised, but grateful. “Yes, sir!” he replied.

OhmyNews has an interview with CNN reporter Kyong Lah…

Why did you decide on a career in journalism?

I started out as a poetry major at the University of Illinois, which has an excellent rhetoric program. I wrote for the University of Illinois newspaper the Daily Illini, where I had my own column. So that was the real beginning of journalism for me. My favorite process is finding the material and writing. I love writing up stories.

I find television quite challenging in that respect because you must consider visual and audio elements while writing concisely. Along the way in my career, I took classes in writing.

I enjoy the challenge of writing for multiple media formats. We take the technical and the academic, select the highlights, and make it accessible for a general audience. That is a compelling and creative process. We take a subject like North Korea and make it accessible. I have family in North Korea whom I have never seen, so it is particularly important to get that country right. The first thing that I want to avoid is people thinking I am crazy or evil because of what they have heard about North Korea. That is the image of Korea that is most powerful.

CNN has done an excellent job of covering the Korean Peninsula and East Asia. I am, however, domestic and have not been assigned there yet.