From CNN…

CNN’s In The Footsteps of bin Laden scored the highest audience of the year in its time slot - - delivering 2.2 million total viewers and 886k P25-54 for the two hours from 9-11pm. CNN won the prime time P25-54 demo versus the cable news competition.

The documentary, hosted by Christiane Amanpour, also delivered 26% more total viewers and 42% more P25-54 than Fox News from 9-11p.

CNN had a good night because of this documentary, no doubt about it. But it was just one night. If CNN wants to overtake FNC again, it’s going to need a lot more good nights like this one. So while I acknowledge CNN’s achievement last night, I have to keep it in perspective.

If anyone wanted a great indicator of just how bad the coverage of the John Mark Karr arrest has gotten all one had to do was tune in around 4 pm when Karr’s plane was sitting on a runway for 10 minutes and the networks were all over it like a cheap suit (though some were split screening that with coverage of two cars stuck in an overflowing creek near Phoenix).

My god people, it’s a plane on a runway! Is that how far you’ve sunk in your desperation to pander to this story that you have to waste time showing a plane sitting on a runway? The biggest offender was HLN which went long past 4pm covering this when CNN, FNC, and even Dan Abrams’ Ramsey obsessed MSNBC had dumped. I was half expecting a chase plane to follow alongside for the trip to Colorado to send back periodic pictures.

This is ridiculous. Considering the state of world affairs, what came over the airwaves at 4pm today was a travesty and an insult to journalism. Tracking Karr has become the new OJ SUV chase. The networks should be ashamed of themselves…

P2+ Total Day
FNC - 977,000 viewers
CNN - 707,000 viewers
MSNBC - 296,000 viewers
CNBC -149,000 viewers
HLN - 226,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC - 1,874,000 viewers
CNN- 1,689,000 viewers
MSNBC - 374,000 viewers
CNBC - a scratch 105,000 viewers
HLN - 507,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC- 324,000 viewers
CNN - 248,000 viewers
MSNBC - 119,000 viewers
CNBC - a scratch with 48,000 viewers
HLN - 97,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 564,000 viewers
CNN - 632,000 viewers
MSNBC - 130,000 viewers
CNBC - a scratch with 39,000 viewers
HLN- 210,000 viewers
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Time Magazine’s Jamil Hamad and Tim McGirk write about the kidnappers’ demands and how things might not be what they seem…(via Romenesko)

The Palestinian security sources told TIME that Holy Jihad Brigades is made up of gunmen who belonged to one of the many armed groups that splintered apart from the late Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement. Arafat’s weak and distracted successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has failed to rein them in, and they now operate inside the West Bank territories and Gaza as lawless vigilantes. Some are still on the payroll of Gaza’s Preventive Security Police, a fiefdom of the Fatah’s bosses. Suspicion has fallen on three groups in particular — Al Nasser Salaheddin, Abu Reesh Brigade, Abu Rees Brigade, and a spin-off of al Qasa Brigades based in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, near where the TV crew was captured at gunpoint. These security sources say that most likely, the Holy Jihad Brigades was created for the sole purpose of carrying out this kidnapping.

The true motivation behind the kidnapping, say these security sources, was to discredit both Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority — who rashly told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he could free the pair of journalists swiftly — and Ismael Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister, whose Hamas-led government has tried to crack down on Fatah splinter groups’ roaming death squads and extortion rackets in Gaza.

Johnny Dollar has the video of Ken Centanni’s statement in response to the video of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig which aired yesterday. This footage was broadcast at the top of the hour on Studio B…

More Grove…

Sign of the apocalypse! Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson - who, like a lot of folks, hosts his own show on MSNBC - has shed his bow tie for cheeseball disco garb, complete with rhinestone cuff links, in this promotional photo for ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” premiering Sept. 12. Carlson is shown grabbing a handful of Elena Grinenko, his professional dance partner. At least Carlson’s recent visit to war-torn Lebanon gave him a nice tan. Wonder what Jon Stewart will say.

Lloyd Grove writes about The Situation Room getting conned yesterday by a Howard Stern prank caller Captain Janks…

“So then what happened after that?” Blitzer pressed. “When did the E-mail, when did the talk of JonBenet Ramsey begin?” The fake Wendy answered: “It started around September of 2001, when he told me that he knew more about the JonBenet Ramsey case than what anybody else had known - and that he was instructed to kill JonBenet by Howard Stern.”

At which point, Blitzer, poker-faced, ended the interview: “All right. Well, that sounds like we’ve just been Howard Sterned, as they say.”

A CNN spokeswoman told me sheepishly: “We make every effort to screen all of our guests, and we’re looking into this incident.”

UPDATE: TVNewser has the video…

Here is NBC’s release, which came out after the news broke on the AP, about Dr. Nancy Snyderman being named NBC’s Chief Medical Edito.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman, an award-winning and longtime broadcast journalist, will return to television this fall, as the Chief Medical Editor of NBC News. Beginning in September, Dr. Snyderman will contribute to all NBC News properties, including “Today,” “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “Dateline NBC,” MSNBC, NBC News Radio, NBC Mobile and MSNBC.com. The announcement was made today by NBC News President Steve Capus.

“When someone of Nancy’s stature decides to return to television news, you can only hope it’s at your network,” said Capus. “I’m thrilled she will now be part of the NBC News family. With her unique combination of award-winning journalism and wide-ranging medical expertise, she will be a tremendous asset across our many news platforms. Working with our highly respected, award-winning Chief Science Correspondent, Robert Bazell, this tandem will be second to none.”
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TV Guide’s Stephen Battaglio has an interview with FNC’s Shepard Smith regarding the upcoming anniversary of hurricane Katrina and Smith’s return to New Orleans…

TVGuide.com: Is it a struggle to give this story as much attention and time as you’d like? The challenge is in the business of keeping people’s attention.

Smith: That’s never been my challenge. My company has said from the very beginning, “You and your teams know the reality there, and we’ll give it the airtime that it needs, period.” I’m very thankful for that. The challenge has been, sadly, that it all looks the same. To show town after town — it all looks the same on television. No matter how many times you fly along with a helicopter or drive down the street, there is no way to convey the vastness. There is no way to explain how horrible the largest national disaster in the history of the United States really is. I’m from there. I understand it…. You don’t get the kind of attention you’d get if it happened in a media center. This is a region and a culture that needs to be preserved, and it needs the attention of the nation. It needs the attention of all of our leaders, socially, politically and otherwise, and it has not gotten it. I don’t think people know to this day what a scar this is to our nation. It’s too big for the television screen.

The New York Times’ Virginia Hefferman reviews the CNN documentary and seems to not care for the way the material was presented…(via TVNewser)

But Ms. Amanpour’s diligent and detailed work does not save the material from its dissonant presentation. The documentary is riven by a contradiction that still seems to define most television reporting on Mr. bin Laden and his terrorist organization, Al Qaeda.

On the one hand, the producers here are attentive to Mr. bin Laden’s skill at media manipulation. On the other, they themselves seem half-seduced by the portrait of the pure-hearted Arab revolutionary that has so captivated parts of the Muslim world. With the heavy rotation of soulful portraits of the soft-voiced prophet of jihad with Super 8-style movies of the warrior on horseback, parts of “In the Footsteps of bin Laden” could almost double as a recruiting video for Al Qaeda.