This morning I posted a link to Radar Online’s article on Anderson Cooper’s past with the CIA. I did so because I expected this to blow up all over the internet about how Radar endangered Cooper’s ability to cover overseas stories by revealing past ties to the CIA. Radar essentially put a target on Cooper for any aspiring terrorist. For the rest of his career in this business Cooper will have to have extra security and be extra careful when traveling abroad to cover a story. Steve Centanni could have been killed because they thought he was CIA, even though that wasn’t true. Cooper has a CIA past, however fleeting it may be.

But the outrage never came. Nothing on Romenesko. Nothing on CJR Daily. Nothing on TVNewser. A whole lot of nothing. Totally mystifying…

…on Countdown’s Worst Person in The World tonight for his Talking Points Memo last night. However I have to say Olbermann played fast and loose with the details of O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo

…the Bronze…Bill-O!

He swallowed the bait again last night - concluded that the identification of Richard Armitage - and it’s Arm-i-tidge Bill not Arm-i-tahj - means there was nothing wrong with the outting of Valerie Plame and he wants the American media to say it’s sorry that Karl Rove was not indicted.

(more…)

P2+ Total Day
FNC- 909,000 viewers
CNN - 643,000 viewers
MSNBC - 324,000 viewers
CNBC -175,000 viewers
HLN - 322,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC - 1,600,000 viewers
CNN- 1,203,000 viewers
MSNBC - 409,000 viewers
CNBC - 461,000 viewers
HLN - 337,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC- 347,000 viewers
CNN - 274,000 viewers
MSNBC -182,000 viewers
CNBC - 87,000 viewers
HLN - 155,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 598,000 viewers
CNN - 501,000 viewers
MSNBC - 239,000 viewers
CNBC - 235,000 viewers
HLN- 144,000 viewers
(more…)

The St. Peterburg Times Curtis Kreuger profiles NBC News space veteran Jay Barbree…(via Romenesko)

Jay Barbree, 72, is a longtime correspondent for NBC News whose unflagging passion for space flight has allowed him to claim a unique spot in space history.

Barbree is said to be the only journalist to witness every manned launch by NASA.

Starting with Alan Shepard’s historic 15-minute journey into space on May 5, 1961, Barbree has covered all of NASA’s 146 manned space launches, he said. That includes every blast-off in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs.

NASA News Chief Bruce Buckingham of the Kennedy Space Center said the agency doesn’t keep a running count of how many launches journalists have covered, but it’s well known Barbree has been there since the early days.

“He has been around for as long as I can remember, and he was around for a long time before then,’’ said Buckingham, who started at NASA in 1985.

GretaWire wants to hear from you…

Anniversary shows are always difficult for TV producers and anchors. What do the viewers most want to see? Viewers of cable news are typically interested in what just happened… and what will happen tomorrow.

I am curious what you want to see on Sept. 11. E-mail us your idea. We have been working on some ideas but I am curious what you think would be the best use of our hour as we — on Sept. 11 — look back on a day none of us will forget.

None of them good. I mean, yeah I know it’s Larry King and he’s known for this sort of shtick but geeze this is awfully tabloidy even for him. The full Vanity Fair 22 page layout? Is there even an audience for this? I suppose so. Unfortunately.

CNN announced this morning that it was promoting Jonathan Davies to executive vice president of International Advertising Sales.

Jonathan Davies has been promoted to lead the advertising sales effort supporting CNN International, it was announced today by Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide. As executive vice president of CNN International Advertising Sales, Davies heads a team of more than 200 sales professionals representing the CNN International news networks and businesses in North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Davies is based in London and will report to Walton and work closely with Greg D’Alba, executive vice president and chief operating officer of CNN Advertising Sales and Marketing, and Chris Cramer, managing director of CNN International. His appointment is effective immediately.
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Radar Online chronicles Anderson Cooper’s life with the CIA during his college years…

Following his sophomore and junior years at Yale—a well-known recruiting ground for the CIA—Cooper spent his summers interning at the agency’s monolithic headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in a program for students interested in intelligence work. His involvement with the agency ended there, and he chose not to pursue a job with the agency after graduation, according to a CNN spokeswoman, who confirms details of Cooper’s CIA involvement to Radar.

“Whatever summer jobs or internships our anchors had in college couldn’t be less consequential,” she adds. He has kept the experience a secret, sources say, out of concern that, if widely known, it might compromise his ability to travel in foreign countries and even possibly put him at greater risk from terrorists.

Page Six holds its nose and dishes…

IT wasn’t just the bad ratings that had CNBC employees holding their noses yesterday morning. According to our well-placed source, “A skunk got into the CNBC studios in Englewood Cliffs, and it stinks to high heaven.” The main problem was for on-air talent such as Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer. “Now all the anchor people have to go on live trying not to make a face,” our source laughed. A CNBC rep said, “A skunk did get under a corner of the building. Some odor did get in through the air ducts, but it was cleared within an hour and a half.”

This may be old, but I haven’t seen it referenced before. The AP writes about Dr. Nancy Snyderman joining NBC News…

Explaining her decision to come to NBC, she told the Associated Press, “To fill a void, and be wanted and needed, is a real kick.”

Snyderman will report for broadcast-news programming as well as MSNBC’s cable and Web site outlets, NBC News radio and even NBC Mobile and the iVillage Web site. She begins this month.

“But we’re not going to emphasize headline-of-the-day coverage,” said NBC News President Steve Capus. “She’s interested in getting a little bit deeper and expanding the audience’s knowledge.

“She’s warm, has a reassuring presence, and she’s driven by the desire to share information, not just to be on television,” he said.

September 2

P2+ Total Day
FNC - 577,000 viewers
CNN - 491,000 viewers
MSNBC - 275,000 viewers
CNBC - 132,000 viewers
HLN - 248,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC - 568,000 viewers
CNN- 541,000 viewers
MSNBC - 315,000 viewers
CNBC - 158,000 viewers
HLN- 172,000 viewers

25 - 54 Total Day
FNC - 164,000 viewers
CNN- 185,000 viewers
MSNBC - 140,000 viewers
CNBC - 61,000 viewers
HLN- 103,000 viewers

25 - 54 Prime Time
FNC - 125,000 viewers
CNN- 159,000 viewers
MSNBC - 158,000 viewers
CNBC - 65,000 viewers
HLN- 73,000 viewers
(more…)

Proving he still hasn’t learned his lesson that he’s best served by staying quiet, Bill O’Reilly singled out MSNBC for criticism tonight, out of all the television news networks, for commentary and/or reporting in the Valerie Plame leak case. This was part of a Talking Points Memo on “far left Bush haters” hurting America. You can watch the video here by clicking on the featured video link on the right side of this page.

O’Reilly doesn’t mention who or what at MSNBC is responsible for this but you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out. To anyone who has watched O’Reilly try to camouflage his attacks on NBC and MSNBC in an attempt to answer Keith Olbermann’s over the top (and done to death, in my opinion) criticism of the Factor Host, this latest angle at getting at Olbermann by disguising it as an indictment of MSNBC isn’t going to fool anyone, though I give him creativity points for including a bunch of other people like Paul Krugman to cover his true targets (namely MSNBC/Olbermann and that other O’Reilly “nemesis” Al Franken, who was similarly not referred to under the alias of “Air America”, which were the first two targets on O’Reilly’s list). No matter how hard Bill tries to make it not look like it’s about Olbermann, it’s still about Olbermann. Otherwise he wouldn’t have singled out MSNBC out of all the cable and broadcast news networks.

It’s too bad too because O’Reilly has a valid point about the rush to judgement in the Plame case. A lot of people have wound up looking very wrong in the way they decided what the case was about only to find out it wasn’t what it was about after all. This is a serious issue that deserves attention.

Now of course Olbermann will respond, as he always does whenever he manages to get O’Reilly to do the wrong thing and respond by attacking MSNBC. But, unlike O’Reilly, Keith won’t disguise his attack. It will be for the jugular. And O’Reilly will be privately irked yet again. And so it goes and will continue to do so until one of these two stops. And we know it won’t be Olbermann since he’s got O’Reilly right where he wants him…