It arrived a few hours ago. It’s a pretty quick read actually. I’m already 1/4 of the way in. It’s basically a timeline for Jeff Cohen’s life in cable news on all three networks. I was rather dissapointed with the CNN part. It was all basically ideology, ideology, ideology, and not much behind the scenes insider dope.

But things have started picking up once Cohen got to FNC. The story behind Cohen’s landing on Fox News Watch is interesting. As Cohen tells it, it was because original host, the late Eric Breindel, “relished debating genuine leftists and not just wimpy liberals”.

I’ll have more to post on this as I get through the book. Which at this pace should be sometime tomorrow.

UPDATE: It won’t be Saturday. Something’s come up.

MSNBC beat CNN in the primetime Demo yesterday…

P2+ Total Day
FNC - 937,000 viewers
CNN - 452,000 viewers
MSNBC - 279,000 viewers
CNBC -160,000 viewers
HLN - 247,00 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC - 1,825,000 viewers
CNN - 706,000 viewers
MSNBC - 505,000 viewers
CNBC - a scratch with 105,000 viewers
HLN - 513,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC - 318,000 viewers
CNN - 175,000 viewers
MSNBC -129,000 viewers
CNBC - 58,000 viewers
HLN - 112,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 532,000 viewers
CNN - 227,000 viewers
MSNBC - 232,000 viewers
CNBC - 60,000 viewers
HLN- 217,000 viewers
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…someone put up a website to have Nancy Grace fired…

MSNBC is once again dropping Scarborough Country from Friday nights and replacing it with a documentary. Even Countdown tonight at least will be a repeat as the 9/11 show will be rebroadcast. This is leading to charges of more cost cutting on the MSN MSNBC board…

UPDATE: There is some confusion about whether all of Countdown from 9/11 is being repeated or just Keith Olbermann’s commentary.

Johnny Dollar has audio of Shepard Smith during Studio B talking with Jane Skinner via phone about her new job…

Extreme Mortman notes Chris Cuomo’s first question to Nancy Grace this morning on GMA…

Larry King pens an article on CNN.com about visiting Engine 54, Ladder 4, Battalion 9 of the New York Fire Department…

For years I’ve been telling people firefighters are my favorite professionals to interview. They’re an interesting breed of cat. They run into burning buildings as we run out of them.

So it was an honor for me to go to New York last week for the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and visit Engine 54, Ladder 4, Battalion 9 of the New York City Fire Department.

The firehouse lost all 15 of its men on duty on 9/11/2001, more than any other New York firehouse. In all, 343 city firefighters lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Engine 54 is housed in a small, nondescript brick building near Times Square. But the firefighters show it off like it’s a penthouse at Trump Tower.

AfterElton.com’s Christie Smith has an interview with Thomas Roberts…

Was he worried about the effect it would have on his career? “I had some concerns, but not enough to stop me from doing it,” Roberts said. “There was some trepidation… about making yourself vulnerable to a group of journalists with questions, to experience being on the other side, being in the hot seat, to come up with thoughtful, truthful answers in the way that I wanted…. It’s the largest step I’ve taken to be more active in the organization, and to interact with other gay journalists….

“No one advised me against doing it. I have no regrets, but I have some concerns about some of the reporting, certain correlations that are being drawn.”

Roberts was referring to online reports and speculation that CNN Headline News’ re-shuffling of its anchor positions, including canceling the time slot previously anchored by Roberts, was somehow related to his appearance at the NLGJA event. He was adamant that the timing of the two was purely coincidental.

As noted Tuesday, George Clooney and his fathre Nick appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 and was interviewed by John Roberts. The subject was Darfur. Transcript is on CNN.com…

ROBERTS: Can you, as a well-known figure worldwide, really do anything?

G. CLOONEY: Mmm-hmm.

ROBERTS: Can you really make a difference?

G. CLOONEY: Well, here’s the difference. And, no, I can’t make a difference, because I’m not a policy-maker, and I have been elected to no office, and I’m not in — I’m not a politician.

What I can do is — you know, Kofi Annan got up and gave a great speech, and nobody saw it. And, if I stand next to him, the cameras follow. So, if that’s what I can do to help move that along, I will do it as often as possible.

ROBERTS: Nick, are we reaching crunch time here with the situation in Darfur?
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The Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Joyce Gannon has a profile of CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo…

In an interview prior to the conference, Ms. Bartiromo, who turned 39 earlier this week on Sept. 11, said she got her start in financial news reporting in 1988 when she landed an internship at cable network CNN. “At that moment, business broadcast news was in its infancy.”

She worked her way up to producer and writer for popular CNN financial anchor Lou Dobbs, who advised her not to accept an offer when CNBC came calling in 1993.

Now she is the anchor of that network’s “Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo” from 3 to 5 p.m. daily and hosts a syndicated program, “Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo.” She also has a syndicated radio show and writes regular columns in BusinessWeek and Reader’s Digest magazines.

With a growing numbers of viewers and readers worldwide, she doesn’t mind being identified as the new face of business news.

The New York Post’s Linda Stasi uses Nancy Grace as a (bad) example of what I would call “interrogation TV”…

Let’s start with the deaths by TV: Earlier this week the mother of a missing boy, Melinda Duckett, blew her brains out after appearing on CNN’s “Nancy Grace,” where she’d been relentlessly interrogated.

“Where were you? Why aren’t you telling us where you were that day?” Grace demanded.

Perhaps the suicide of the 21-year-old mother was not spurred by Grace’s third degree, but we’ll never know. The fact is, TV hosts simply have no business cross-examining witnesses, playing judge, jury and prosecutor. That’s why we have courts.

UPDATE: C.W. Nevius in the San Francisco Chronicle piles on…
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Page Six notes that merchandising for Jim Cramer is doing well lately…

JIM Cramer call your agent. It’s time to renegotiate your contract at CNBC based on sales of your merchandise at NBCUniversalStore.com. Sources say “Mad Money with Jim Cramer” products - including playing cards, coffee mugs and T-shirts - are the second-biggest sellers over the past 30 days, topped only by “The Office” merchandise. The bobblehead of the maniacal host and “Mad Money” teddy bears are the third and fourth best-selling items on the site.

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal seems to be trying to draw a parallel between FNC’s new show The Live Desk and CNN’s The Situation Room…

Get the picture: When CNN announced it was putting Wolf Blitzer in front of a bank of fancy television screens to convey a sense of up-to-the-minute urgency and excitement on “The Situation Room,” I asked Blitzer and his producer why they didn’t just stick him in the control room, which would accomplish the same effect.

Their response, as I recall, was akin to the guy in Spinal Tap reiterating that his amps go all the way to 11.

Fox News Channel is sticking Martha MacCallum in a control room for “The Live Desk,” set to debut at noon on Sept. 25. The new program will replace “Dayside,” so anchors Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy can ready their syndicated morning show, launching in January on WFLD-Ch. 32 locally.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette writes about Greta’s Brett Favre interview (Part 2 is tonight)…

Greta Van Susteren has been waiting years for this interview.

Sure, she’s now headed to New York to interview the first lady. But on Thursday, Van Susteren was gushing about Titletown’s favorite, Brett Favre.

“(It’s) everything I expected and more. It’s a gorgeous day here in Green Bay,” she said from the Lambeau Field Atrium.

Van Susteren, who joined Fox News Channel in 2002 as host of “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” hasn’t been back to the area in at least five years.

The Washington Post’s Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts write about the 5th Anniversary party for “The Chris Matthews Show”…or is it the 4th?

Spirits were high: The nationally syndicated show has the cushy spot on NBC next to “Meet the Press” and ranks No. 2 in Washington and New York in the Sunday morning wonk wars. Matthews credits its success to having reporters (”not flacks or hacks”) who argue facts but listen to each other (imagine that). Our take? Maybe it’s because he’s a little less loud than he is on “Hardball.”

McCain’s take? “He always has several attractive women on his show.” Pause. ” Articulate , attractive women.”

UPDATE: John Eggerton in BC Beat has more…
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