Andrew Speaker and Ted Speaker appeared on Larry King Live tonight to talk about Andrew’s TB saga. Partial transcript follows (full transcript here)

KING: Ted Speaker, why — why did you tape that meeting?

T. SPEAKER: I tape things frequently. I’m a little hard of hearing. One-on-one, I have no problem. When there’s a microphone, I have no problem. But I enjoy tapes and when I travel in the car, I listen to tapes all the time. And I just normally…

KING: Do you tape people — when you’re having conversations with people you tape them?

T. SPEAKER: Yes.

KING: All right.

Why did — I know you released part of it.

Why not all of it?

T. SPEAKER: We released the portion that we were primarily interested in as far as they stating that he was not contagious.
(more…)

Anderson Cooper took Barack Obama to task tonight for saying that the media in general and Cooper in particular have given up on covering New Orleans in the months since Katrina hit. Cooper played a clip from an Obama speech…

And nothing really changes, except the news quiets down, and Anderson Cooper moves on to something else…

Cooper then delivered a long retort…

Gotta say we were kind of surprised to hear the Senator say that. With all due respect Senator Obama, unlike pretty much everyone else in the media except perhaps NBC, we’ve not moved on to something else - we have an office in New Orleans and we return there regularly. We spent five weeks along the Gulf Coast in the dark days after Katrina and since then we’ve anchored around 20 programs from there - easily more than any other national news cast - and we continue to anchor programs from there on a regular basis.

We made a promise not to forget - not to move on - and we are honoring that promise. Now some viewers, and in fact much of the country, may say they have Katrina fatigue. We think the only people who have a right to be fatigued are the people of Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast who are still trying to rebuild, still waiting for help, and still hoping to move back home someday.

We’re going to continue to visit New Orleans and Mississippi - telling the people stories and keeping politicians honest about the promises they have made and the promises that they still have not kept. We will be back in New Orleans soon and hopefully Mississippi as well. And when we go, we would like you Senator Obama to join us. We hope you will.

FishbowlNY talks with Phil Donahue about MSNBC…

What happened at MSNBC?

I was back on for a while at MSNBC and had a very short, unhappy life there because I was against the war. A memo was leaked to the press from the NBC management team that Donahue is not such a good idea up against all the competition waving the flag, and that my anti-war voice would not be welcome when all the other networks were supporting the war.

Drudge is reporting that O’Reilly beat CNN’s debate coverage in Total Viewers during the 8pm hour. Hannity & Colmes with the Fred Thompson interview beat CNN’s post debate coverage in Total Viewers in the 9pm hour…

O’REILLY BEATS CNN REPUBLICAN DEBATE… O’Reilly at 8pm on FOXNEWS CHANNEL averaged 2,291,000 viewers — more viewers than CNN’s entire debate from 7-9pm which had 1,974,000… At 9pm, Fred Thompson’s appearance on FNC HANNITY/COLMES out-rated CNN/Anderson Cooper’s analysis of the Republican debate — FNC averaged 1,628,000 viewers to CNN’s 1,178,000 from 9-10pm…

At 5pm ET, FNC and MSNBC carried the live press conference on the discovery of a body that may be 18 year old Kelsey Smith. For some reason CNN waited until stories on Iranian weapons in Afghansitan and Andrews Speaker’s Senate testimony were finished airing before it cut to the press conference at 5:06 pm…

CNN is noting its ratings for the Republican Debate yesterday…

CNN’s Republican Presidential Debate was the Highest-Rated Republican Debate of the 2008 Election season in P25-54. CNN delivered 747k P25-54 viewers and 2,055k total viewers from 7-9p last night during the Republican debate.

CNN New Hampshire Republican Debate, 6/5/07 - 747k P25-54
Fox News South Carolina Republican Debate, 5/15/07 - 720k P25-54
MSNBC South Carolina Republican Debate, 5/3/07 - 561k P25-54

The CNN debate, co-hosted by WMUR-TV and the New Hampshire Union Leader, aired on Tuesday, June 5 from 7-9pm ET.

Also, CNN’s Democratic Presidential Debate on Sunday, June 3, averaged 2.8 million total viewers - - more viewers than any other presidential debate of this election season, and the highest P25-54 delivery for a Democratic primary debate in cable news history.

The Palmetto Scoop blogs about Joe Scarborough discussing last Friday’s “Morning Joe” incident with Fred Thompson’s wife…

By now, TPS readers are well aware that Joe Scarborough had an Imus moment on his MSNBC show this week when he wondered out loud whether Fred Thompson’s pretty young wife “worked the pole” as he giggled lecherously over his sexual double entendre.

So we weren’t exactly shocked when, on today’s Morning Joe, Scarborough “spun” seven full minutes of air time trying to explain away his crude remark. In doing so he not only lied, he misquoted himself. But what really shocked us was that he began attacking every blogger and news source that covered the comment.

The Extreme One has reaction…

UPDATE: Scarborough and Scarborough Country EP Christopher Licht both contacted NewsBusters with a transcript of the “pole discussion” leading up to the much talked about incident…

Word is trickling in of another over the air apology within the past few minutes by FNC Live Desk anchor Martha MacCallum. Working on getting a transcript…

Update: Transcript…

On Monday, in our report on the indictment of Congressman William Jefferson, in error we aired some video of Congressman John Conyers of Michigan. That tape was labeled “A Meeting about William Jefferson” and it was mistaken as video portraying Mr Jefferson. We regret this mistake. We in no way meant to suggest that there was any connection between the Jefferson indictment and Congressman Conyers. We have extended our apology privately to the Congressman, and we do so here as well.

The Politico’s Shenanigans blog has (the full?) email to John Conyers’ staff from FNC’s Brian Wilson regarding the b-roll incident…

An on air correction and apology will be made this afternoon - at about the same moment in the broadcast day that the original mistake was made. We are deeply sorry - and, in fact, mortified - at the mistake. It occurred because of the actions of a very junior member of our library staff in New York. This egregious mistake is getting attention at the very highest levels of our company. The anchor of the broadcast, Martha McCallum, also asked me to also pass on her personal apologies. Please call me if there are any other questions, or if you would like for me to make the apology directly to Congressman Conyers.??

The New York Observer’s Micael Calderone writes about some of the goings on at the Eric Breindel awards for opinion writing; including some comments made by FNC’s Roger Ailes…(via TVNewser)

“We’ve become increasingly successful, and yet we’ve been increasingly criticized,” he said to the crowd about his company. “Sometimes for being too pro-American. Sometimes we’re too pro-Israel. Sometimes too pro-democracy.

“I’ve been quoted as saying, ‘This is a great country.’ A lot of people are trying to get in, nobody’s trying to get out. The press is an essential pillar of that democracy. The press didn’t invent democracy. Democracy invented freedom of the press. So we will investigate anything and find the truth, and report it, but we do not get up every morning, assuming that our country is guilty. We just happen to like democracy.”

And he had some choice words for Democratic candidates who have decided not to debate on Fox.

“The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes. “And that’s what’s coming.”

Retuters has a story about NBC Universal allowing pieces of NBC programs to be posted on websites via widgets.

Independent Web Site and blog owners can add short NBC video using software widgets — small bits of code that function as dynamic applications when installed on a Web page.

Other media companies including CBS Corp. and the New York Times Co. also let Web enthusiasts post their programs or content.

Television shows initially offered include “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” and “Dateline”, as well programming from NBC Sports, DotComedy.com and iVillage.com, NBC Universal said. NBC’s widget system is being supported by Clearspring Technologies.