Hot Air.com has the video from tonight’s factor where Malik Shabazz called guest host Michelle Malkin a prostitute…

Newsbusters chronicles David Gregory’s interview with Jesse Jackson where Jackson says MSNBC has not African American hosts while Gregory keeps correcting him vis a vis Alison Stewart…

Gregory: “I’m sorry, Reverend Jackson, I just have to interrupt you here. I’m sorry, be very precise in what you are saying.”

Jackson: “All right.”

Gregory: “You are saying from, what, 3:00 to 12, because we do have African Americans who work at this company who are on MSNBC and NBC and I don’t want to detract from your point because you are entitled to make it, but I think you need to be accurate.”

Jackson: “All right. Name- Name- Name- Name- Name me a host of an MSNBC show.”

Gregory: “We’ve gone through this before. We did this a few days ago on the air. Alison Stewart is an African American host on MSNBC.”

Jackson: “So, does she host, does she host between 3:00 and 12?

Gregory: “Well, that’s why what I’m trying to, for you to be precise about. You are talking about from three in the afternoon to 12? Is that what you’re saying?”
(more…)

Multichannel News’ reports that MSNBC’s Alison Stewart will host The Sundance Channel’s “ECOBIZ” series. Originally Maria Bartiromo was slated to host the series but then the Citigroup scandal happened…

MSNBC anchor Alison Stewart was tapped to host a Sundance Channel interstitial series that was to have been hosted by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, a network spokeswoman said.

David Freedman, the Attorney for Duke Lacrosse scandal DA Mike Nifong, will be interviewed exclusively by Greta Van Susteren at 10pm on On The Record. Freedman will discuss Nifong’s reaction to the case dismissal and what is next for Nifong as this story continues to unfold.

Johnny Dollar has the video from today’s Big Story with John Gibson where Bo Dietl and Dick Morris go at it over Don Imus…

UPDATE: More Dietl comments from The Big Story…

His Reaction To CBS Firing Don Imus:

I’m in shock. The fact that what we heard was that they were going to give the two week suspension, he was going to have the opportunity to talk to these young girls and their families and something tells me it might be happening as we’re even speaking right now. What was not fair, we’re in the middle of a telethon where we raise millions of dollars for children with cancer, for the ranch and since effected people; right in the middle of the telethon, you have to blow him off like this? This is irresponsible, it’s irresponsible for CBS.

On Les Moonves And Other CBS Content:

Mr. Les Moonves you care about the quality, why don’t you care about your CBS records with all the garbage my 17 year old daughter listens to and they use this word ho-ho-ho back and forth and they degrade women all the time, where are you behind this Mr. Moonves?

On Comments Made By Imus In The Past:

If I thought that Don Imus was a racist in any part, shape or form, I wouldn’t be here today. I know what he’s all about.

O’Reilly was huge for FNC last night with 3.2 million viewers. Hardball swept The Situation Room at 7pm as word of the Imus firing came out. MSNBC had its strongest night in quite a while with good showings from all its programs from 7pm-11pm but it wasn’t enough to overtake CNN in primetime.

Cable News Ratings for April 11, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 986,000 viewers
CNN – 466,000 viewers
MSNBC – 361,000 viewers
CNBC – 169,000 viewers
HLN – 243,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 2,209,000 viewers
CNN – 758,000 viewers
MSNBC – 633,000 viewers
CNBC – a scratch with 103,000 viewers
HLN – 422,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 283,000 viewers
CNN – 160,000 viewers
MSNBC –124,000 viewers
CNBC – 66,000 viewers
HLN – 105,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 470,000 viewers
CNN – 254,000 viewers
MSNBC – 227,000 viewers
CNBC – 54,000 viewers
HLN –149,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 747,000 viewers (292,000)
American Morning – 321,000 viewers (130,000)
Imus in The Morning- 465,000 viewers (159,000)
Robin & Co. – 196,000 viewers (103,000)
(more…)

TV Guide’s Stephen Battaglio writes about how NBC became convinced it had to fire Don Imus…(via TVNewser)

Imus faced a cascade of criticism for calling the Rutgers team members “nappy-headed ho’s” on his Imus in the Morning radio program, which had been simulcast on MSNBC. He made a public apology, and it appeared that the outrageously irreverent host would get off with a two-week suspension.

That all changed after a meeting late on the afternoon of April 10, which NBC News president Steve Capus held with about 30 of his staffers, including Today show weatherman Al Roker, the most high-profile African-American on-air personality in the news division. According to an NBC insider, Roker told Capus, “That could have been my daughter” Imus was joking about.

After hearing the concerns, Capus knew he had to do something more. The decision to cut ties with Imus became a lot easier when a number of his program’s high-profile national advertisers said they were pulling their commercials off the show. While Imus’ TV ratings had been growing recently, the simulcast was considered only modestly profitable for MSNBC

The AP has the story…

CBS fired Don Imus from his radio show Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation’s most prominent broadcasters.

Imus initially was given a two-week suspension, to start Monday, for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” on the air last week, but outrage continued to grow and advertisers bolted from his programs.

“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,” CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. “That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

The Society of Professional Journalists awarded CNN’s In the Footsteps of Bin Laden with a Sigma Delta Chi award in the Documentary category…

Documentaries (Network/Top 25 Markets)
“In the Footsteps of Bin Laden,” Christiane Amanpour, Ken Shiffman and Cliff Hackel, CNN, Atlanta

Presidential candidate, Arizona Senator John McCain appeared on FNC’s America’s Newsroom this morning. During the interview with Bill Hemmer, McCain discussed the War in Iraq…

I believe that this General and this strategy should have a chance to work and I’m not interested in midterm elections, I’m interested in what the judgment in history will be in whether we did what was necessary to protect our nation from this force of evil which will now be part of our enemy in Iraq if we fail there and that’s what I’m concerned about.

TVWeek’s Michele Greppi writes that Elisabeth Hasselbeck will guest host on Fox and Friends on Monday…

FNC is tweaking its live bug, including “the flag”. Johnny Dollar is not happy…

More fiddling with the live/flag graphic on Fox. Now the flag has been reduced to an underline! Why can’t they leave well enough alone?

FishbowlDC has a nice round up of Imus quotes from this morning’s radio show, which was still being broadcast from MSNBC’s studio even though Imus won’t be seen on TV. Which explains why Chris Jansing was coming from the “duratrans studio” instead of Homebase.

Imus says he spoke with MSNBC Senior VP Phil Griffin and said “some of the stuff that MSNBC has done this morning is frankly unethical and I’ve asked them to stop doing it.”

But also said, “I’m not whining about the coverage. I’m not whining about any aspect of this.”

“I’ve said 100 times: I said it and if I hadn’t said it, we wouodn’t be sitting here talking about it. And that’s the bottom line.”

Imus also said that losing television (via MSNBC) isn’t as big as losing radio. “The big part of the program is radio. There’s millions of people listening to the radio. At best a few hundred thousand are watching television.”

On MSNBC’s decision: “I understand the pressure they were under. I’m not stupid.”

Cindy Adams writes that a planned Don Imus sit down with Larry King has been killed. I wonder who leaked it to Adams?

Don Imus was scheduled for a sit-down on Larry King’s show. Considered a big get, all was set. A difference of opinion behind the scenes unset it. Nobody quite understood the machinations behind that since CNN’s various anchors and programs had been running the Imus story nonstop. Word trickling out is, a difference of opinion, a butting of heads, some sort of upmanship backstage caused a war over it. The controversy dragged on two days and went all the way to the top. Seems Imus is not the only one having troubles.

The Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker is amazed that Imus was fired but more amazed that a corporation like NBC would care what its employees think…

My feeling was that Imus had no place on a news channel. I never believed NBC would drop him, however, because of ratings and money. Imagine my surprise.

Then imagine my shock that NBC cared what its employees thought. What if companies around the country started emulating that style?

In an interview on MSNBC last night, Capus said, “What price do you put on your reputation? And the reputation of the news division means more to me than advertising dollars. Because if you lose your reputation, you lose everything.”

The NBC employees cared. I think they saved their company big time. Good for them.

The AP’s David Bauder writes about the latest Imus news…

Don Imus pushed ahead with his annual radio charity fundraiser Thursday, a day after MSNBC pulled the plug on his television broadcast over a racial slur against the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

“This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million,” Imus said at the start of the event, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990 and appeared to be doing well Thursday morning.

Imus acknowledged again that his remarks about the Rutgers team had been “really stupid.”

“There’s a difference between premeditated murder and the gun going off,” but the end result is the same, he said: “Somebody’s still dead.”

Ana Marie Cox pens an article on why she’ll not go on Don Imus’ show anymore…

I’m embarrassed to admit that it took Imus’ saying something so devastatingly crass to make me realize that there just was no reason beyond ego to play along. I did the show almost solely to earn my media-elite merit badge. The sad truth is that unless you have a book to promote, there’s often no other reason any writer or columnist has to do the show. If Rich wants to “talk in an informed way,” I’m sure there’s an open mike at C-Span Radio, and if there’s really a hunger for such adult dialogue, does it really have to be accompanied by childish crudeness? Actually, don’t answer that. In any case, the media figures and politicians who clown around with Imus can pretend that the show is really about informed conversation or pop sociology or anything except junior-high-level teasing, but its true appeal for them lies in the seal of approval Imus bestows.

Paidcontent.org’s Staci D. Kramer talked with MSNBC.com President Charlie Tillinghast about the Imus incident…

Charlie Tillinghast, president of MSNBC.com, told me by email: “We had received some calls from advertisers today about the situation, but with MSNBC TV dropping the Imus show, that has gone away. MSNBC.com has been only tangentially involved in this, but I am quite pleased with the decision to drop the show.” He added, “MSNBC.com did not communicate that fact (about the advertisers) to NBC News, so it played no part in their decision.”

The Washington D.C. Examiner editorializes on the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards withdrawal from an FNC/CBC Institute sponsored debate…

Somewhere Richard Nixon is chuckling as Democrats adopt a media strategy that recalls his own. For Nixon, the way to respond to the mainstream media and its liberal bias was confrontation, led by Vice President Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism” speech. Democrats should rethink their daggers-drawn strategy lest they end up like Nixon, faced with a permanently hostile, alienated Fourth Estate whose members knew they would be around long after he departed. Cooler heads advising the campaigning Democrats should remind them that Bill O’Reilly and Brit Hume operate in two different worlds. The former intentionally cultivates controversy with his strongly conservative opinions, while the latter anchors the fair-minded evening news and participates on a Fox Sunday news discussion panel that includes such well-known members of the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” as Mara Liason and Juan Williams of NPR. And Chris Wallace, host of the Fox Sunday talk show, is about as even-handed as they come. The advisors should also remind the candidates that Fox has been killing CNN in the ratings for years, so why cut yourselves off from the larger audience? Campaigning against the media now will probably work about as well as it did for Nixon.

This morning from 7-9am David Gregory hosted a two hour program on the cancellation of Don Imus. Steve Capus made another appearance to discuss what happened. MSNBC also was taking phone calls from viewers regarding this story.

Following up on this, YouTube has the video of Laura Ingraham getting fed up and leaving Hannity & Colmes during a commercial break….