CNN has been re-airing episodes of God’s Warriors this weekend. Coincidentally, or maybe not, Fox and Friends did a segment with Father Jonathan on God’s Warriors this morning. I thought another segment had been done as well during the show but for the life of me I can’t remember for sure.

Update: FNC is doing another segment on it this morning.

The New York Daily News’ Errol Louis says Bill O’Reilly deserves applause…

The New York of Woody Allen and Jerry Seinfeld is very different from the Brooklyns portrayed by Spike Lee or Bill Cosby - and they, in turn, are a world away from the Italians-vs.-Puerto-Rican gang warfare of “West Side Story” or the insular Queens depicted in the old hit show “All in the Family.” One way of breaking down barriers is to talk to one’s own tribe - often in a native dialect guaranteed to jar the ears of outsiders - and explain that “those people” aren’t so different after all.

That’s what O’Reilly was trying to do: tell a segment of his conservative, angry-white-male audience that Harlemites aren’t as violent, crazed and immoral as they’ve been led to think.

That’s also what he meant when, talking with Williams, he described a concert by R&B diva Anita Baker by noting that “the band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedoes, and this is what white America doesn’t know, particularly people who don’t have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris and Snoop Dogg.”

It’s easy to condemn O’Reilly for acknowledging the obvious truth that many people hold ignorant, untrue, unflattering opinions about blacks. It’s much harder to go out on a limb and try to meet people where their bias lives, and nudge them a step closer to the light.

I wish more people would try.

What’s hot:

I really can’t think of anything that deserves Hot status this week. It was so dull…

Not…

Bill O’Reilly - No matter which side of the issue you come down on regarding O’Reilly’s comments on eating at Sylvia’s restaurant, and I think O’Reilly got a bum deal for the most part this time, you can’t deny the buzz generated by this story drowned out just about everything else this week including, unfortunately, the far more newsworthy launch of the new Fox Report with Shepard Smith. Oddly enough it wasn’t Keith Olbermann who was the big beneficiary of O’Reilly’s predicament this week, at least in terms of buzz. Rick Sanchez and Out in the Open barged in on Countdown’s “territory”; so much so that nobody on the blogs was talking about what Olbermann said this week…probably because they kept waiting to see what Sanchez and CNN would do next.

What’s not:
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Newsweek’s Susannah Meadows has an interview with Chris Matthews (who has a new book coming out so expect to read more interviews in the near future)…

You write about your failed run for Congress when you were 28. Might you give it another go someday?

I would admire myself if I did.

That doesn’t sound like a no.

Old dreams die hard. But I like doing what I do. I’m able to express myself without constituency worries, which make you boring.

During CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz today one of the subjects that was discussed was the Bill O’Reilly incident. The transcript of Kurtz’s discussion with Rachel Maddow and Amy Holmes follows…

KURTZ: Welcome back. Bill O’Reilly was trying to make a point. The point, he says, was against racism. But his radio remarks about his dinner with Al Sharpton at Harlem restaurant Sylvia’s sparked a media firestorm this week with all kinds of charges being hurled at the FOX News host, who punched back hard, swinging at CNN, among others. We’ll play the tape in a moment, but joining us now talk about this and other media controversies, Rachael Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Air America Radio. And Amy Holmes, a conservative commentator and CNN contributor.

All right. Let’s give the full context here. Here’s what ticked off the controversy on “The Radio Factor.”

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
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Johnny Dollar has the video from this morning’s Fox and Friends where Greg Kelly taking on Wayne Simmons over something Simmons characterized John Kerry said…

FNC’s Juan Williams writes a piece in Time magazine talking about the Bill O’Reilly incident…

The lesson from the rappers and comedians is that any young brother or sister who is proud to be black has to treat education with indifference, dismiss love and marriage as the business of white people and dress like the rappers who dress like prisoners — no comb in the jail so they wear doo-rags all day, and no belts so their pants hang down around their butts.

That was the heart and soul of the conversation between O’Reilly and me. The point of the whole exchange was to defeat corrupt, untrue and racist images of real black people.

So imagine how totally astounded I was when I heard O’Reilly was attacked on the basis of that radio conversation as a “racist.” He was slammed for saying he went to a restaurant in Harlem and had a good time. He was slammed for saying the audience at the concert was nicely dressed. The suggestion was that O’Reilly had racist preconceptions about the restaurant and the concert crowd.

That twisted assumption led me to say publicly that the attacks on O’Reilly amounted to an effort to take what he said totally out of context in an attempt to brand him a racist by a liberal group that disagrees with much of his politics. But the out-of-context attacks on O’Reilly picked up speed and ended up on CNN, where one commentator branded me a “Happy Negro” for allowing O’Reilly to get by with making racist comments without objection.

This is so far from the truth of the conversation on the radio that it is beyond a matter of words being taken out of context. This is a pathetic cowardly, personal attack against me intended to damage my credibility and invalidate any support I offer to O’Reilly against the charges that he is a racist.

TVNewser reports that FNC correspondent Kim McIntyre is leaving FNC due to a “personality conflict” in the Dallas Bureau. However, sources have told ICN that the real issue for McIntyre was FNC Dallas Bureau Chief Russ Cosby - she couldn’t stand working for him, and he didn’t make it easy for her to do her job. Sources say that Cosby’s management style is too much for any good reporter to handle.

TV Newser contributor Gail Shister has an interview with CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin…

The New York Daily News’ Lisa Chase writes about Shari Lewis’ daughter’s Mallory’s new children’s DVD…

Childhood friend and former longtime CNBC host Liz Claman was thrilled to be a “test mom” for the DVD.

“My son Julian was the perfect age of 2 when he saw this,” the mother of two says. “People get hyper about kids watching TV, but if you restrict it without being frantic and crazy, it can be good.

“Instead of turning his brain into mush watching this DVD, Julian was walking up to the television and pointing at the answers when Mallory would ask, ‘Where is the bar of soap?’ For me to see that, I was thrilled.

“Of course it didn’t surprise me, to have someone like Mallory - who is brilliant and raised from her genius mother; it was a dream come true to see that as a mom.

“It was the best of Shari and the best of Mallory and my kid responded immediately, running up to the TV and talking to it, saying, ‘E, e, elbow!’

“Now he has the alphabet down and it’s helping him read more quickly. Even his 5-year-old sister, Gabrielle, found certain things compelling, like the counting, the humor and some of the phonics.”

The San Diego Business Journal’s Connie Lewis writes that Kyra Phillips will co-host the 17th annual “Cox Presents: A Salute to Teachers” October 6th at 7 pm PST…

The Academy Awards-style TV special honors the county’s 26,000 public-school teachers, culminating with the announcement of the San Diego County Teachers of the Year.

The presentation is produced in cooperation with the San Diego County Office of Education. It will air live on Channel 4, in high definition on Cox Channel 704 and on ITV Channel 16 on Cox and Time Warner Cable.

Post your nominations for this week’s edition of What’s hot/What’s not. I will post the finalists on Sunday…

HLN’s Nancy Grace show at 8pm was first to break the news that the Nevada girl that was in the video had been identified and found. CNN followed suit about fifteen minutes later during Rick Sanchez’s Out in the Open. Police have requested that all future showings of the video stills camoflage the girl’s face. However HLN was not fast enough to cover her face for the first Nancy Grace repeat. The second repeat did cover her face. CNN and FNC both covered the subsequent presser during the 10pm ET hour…

Invitations have gone out for NBC News Headquarters’ unveiling party to be hosted by Jeff Zucker and Steve Capus on October 11th…

TVNewser reports that Rick Sanchez will be a guest on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday…

La Cruces Sun-News reports that Anderson Cooper 360 will look at the case of the murder of Katie Sepich tonight at 10pm ET…

According to CNN’s Web site, the broadcast will look at how mandatory DNA testing could have solved the case more quickly.

Sepich was raped and killed Aug. 31, 2003, at the age of 22. The case remained unsolved with no new leads for more than three years.

Eric Bolling, the subject of a failed litigation attempt by CNBC to keep him off of FNC/FBN’s air, made another appearance on Your World with Neil Cavuto this afternoon…

It seems like people were more interested in seeing what O’Reilly had to say last night than what either Rick Sanchez or Keith Olbermann had to say about him as both Out in the Open and Countdown turned in somewhat flat numbers under the circumstances while O’Reilly had over half a million Demo viewers.

Cable News Daily Live Ratings for September 27, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 830,000 viewers
CNN – 455,000 viewers
MSNBC – 288,000 viewers
CNBC – 230,000 viewers
HLN – 248,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,630,000 viewers
CNN – 683,000 viewers
MSNBC – 452,000 viewers
CNBC – 237,000 viewers
HLN – 502,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 213,000 viewers
CNN – 153,000 viewers
MSNBC – 107,000 viewers
CNBC – 69,000 viewers
HLN- 103,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 350,000 viewers
CNN – 209,000 viewers
MSNBC – 165,000 viewers
CNBC – 81,000 viewers
HLN – 178,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 872,000 viewers (307,000)
American Morning- 407,000 viewers (120,000)
Morning Joe – 264,000 viewers (76,000)
Robin & Co. – 238,000 viewers (124,000)
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Special weekday version (I just know someone is going to pound me with “You haven’t had a weekend version in forever.”).

Is the media giving out too much graphic/explicit details in how they report the case of the mystery little girl, apparently from Nevada, seen being molested on a video tape? If so, why? If not, why not?

(Left to right: Alexis Glick, Vice President, Anchor & Director of Business News for FBN, Kevin Magee, Executive Vice President, FOX News, Brian Jones, Senior Vice President of Operations for FBN, Neil Cavuto, Senior Vice President, Anchor & Managing Editor of Business News for FBN)

The Politico’s Anne Schroeder blogs about the GOP Boycott of MSNBC..if it exists…

But GOP insiders say that the boycott is ongoing, and that Republican appearances on MSNBC are out of desperation.

“If a Republican senator has something they want to say, and they’re not getting booked anywhere else, they might turn up on MSNBC,” said one Republican source. “But it’s not at the top of the list.”

Adding, a bit more directly: “Note to David: We’re just not that into you.”

Ouch.

Johnny Dollar has the audio from this morning’s Radio Factor where Bill O’Reilly and Le Shawn Barber talk about Boyce Watkins and CNN as well as Jesse Jackson’s appearance on The Factor…

In your must read for the week Ad Age’s Andrew Hamp writes about a three to four week lag under the new Live+3/C3 ratings system will require to get accurate numbers to the networks. This means that the ratings numbers you are going to be seeing the day after a program airs are not the actual final numbers networks will be using as one of the tools to benchmark ad rates! Which begs the question, will the networks beat each other over the head with numbers that won’t be used as a sales tool? (hat tip to TVbytheNumbers for supplying the tip)

But more accountability requires more patience, as buyers and networks now must wait up to four weeks for the results of their C3 ratings. Nielsen spokeswoman Anne Elliot said for the program week ending Sept. 30, the average commercial-minute data file is expected to be released on Monday, Oct. 22. If that seems long, it’s only an additional week longer than it used to take to measure average program ratings, the previous Nielsen standard.

Next-day ratings

It should be noted that live program ratings are still available the next day via Nielsen’s Fast Affiliate rankings, which give a snapshot of the size of the audience each network attracted for a certain time slot. When the industry negotiated on program ratings, that number gave advertisers a pretty good idea of how many people were available to see their ad. But with the industry’s focus now on commercial ratings, it will be a four-week wait to find out if the audience stuck around for your spot.

ICN hears FBN will have an announcement this afternoon about its microsite launch on Monday which will serve as a gateway to the actual network website upon launch…

Update: The release…

FOX Business Network (FBN) will launch a microsite on October 1st at 12am, 15 days prior to network’s debut. This personality-driven site, which will provide a glimpse into FBN’s anchors and reporters, can be accessed at www.foxbusiness.com and will serve as a gateway to the launch of FBN’s website. The URL, www.foxbusiness.com, will automatically convert to the network’s website upon the October 15th launch.

Video clips of on-air talent including, Neil Cavuto, Senior Vice President, Anchor and Managing Editor of Business News and Alexis Glick, Vice President of Business News and Anchor, will provide insight into what viewers can expect from FBN’s signature names and faces. Each on-air personality will have a personalized web page consisting of a series of headshots, a biography and blog entries.

Additional on-air talent including, David Asman, Cheryl Casone, Rebecca Gomez, Dagen McDowell, Stuart Varney, Peter Barnes, Jenna Lee, Nicole Petallides, Cody Willard, Shibani Joshi and Connell McShane can be seen talking about their unique approach to covering business during a series of three, 30-second video promos.
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FishbowlDC is reporting that MSNBC GM Dan Abrams personally wrote large sections of David Shuster’s on air apology…

FishbowlDC hears that MSNBC General Manager Dan Abrams asked David Shuster to apologize for Wednesday’s Rep. Marsha Blackburn incident and even wrote the bulk of Shuster’s on-air apology.

We also hear that an on-air explanation of this episode is not expected today, with MSNBC hoping to pretend the entire episode never happened.

Blackburn’s office told Abrams that the congresswoman never received a death notice from the Army for Jeremy Bohannon (that is true). Shuster hoped to acknowledge on air the various complaints received and that MSNBC would look into it further. Shuster is slated to host “Tucker” on Monday and that would provide a proper venue for a follow-up.

Man, who is leaking this stuff to FishbowlDC?

Update: Another question. How did Abrams, Capus, Griffin, et al. feel about a substitute guest host sand-bagging a member of Congress with what amounted to a grandstanding cheap shot?

DCRTV covers the Paul Farhi radio interview this morning…

In a phone interview on 3WT radio Friday morning, Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi (right) claimed that Bill O’Reilly “secretly taped me” and played his phone interview with the Fox News commentator on Thursday’s “The O’Reilly Factor” without Farhi’s consent. Farhi was heard telling O’Reilly: “Please don’t repeat this… You’re getting so dragged into something you don’t deserve,” regarding O’Reilly’s latest racial controversy, which Farhi reported about in Wednesday’s Post

Update: O’Reilly has now put himself on a dangerous slope. Nobody in their right mind will want to interview a guy who secretly tapes the interviewer, if that is the case (and it is on O’Reilly’s shoulders to prove that this taping was above board and fully disclosed in advance). That said, Farhi should show a little spine. If he believes something to be true then he should write about it that way instead of pandering to what his readers may or may not want to read.

Update 2: According to this, it is legal to tape phone conversations in New York State so O’Reilly has broken no laws doing this. Still I don’t see how anyone could ever again go into an O’Reilly interview without wondering whether something they say may be used against them at some future point. If it was me, my first question to O’Reilly would be “is this conversation being recorded”?

Update 3: Who’s going to be the first talking head to compare O’Reilly to another famous taper Richard Nixon?

CNN announced that Anderson Cooper would be doing one minute Planet in Peril spots for CNN Radio affiliates to preview CNN’s October mega-documentary…

Beginning this week, CNN Radio affiliates have access to one-minute special reports from a 20-part series anchored by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in conjunction with CNN Worldwide’s Planet in Peril, a sweeping four-hour television documentary about issues threatening the planet and its inhabitants.

A new Planet in Peril radio report from Cooper will be released each weekday starting Monday, Sept. 24, and will continue through Friday, Oct. 19. Each segment will post in the special Planet in Peril section of the network’s affiliate site at www.CNNRadio.com, and also will be available in the 12:07 a.m. news feed.
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FNC’s Ainsley Earhardt visited her old stomping grounds WLTX recently… (via FTVLive)

She was here in Columbia Thursday to receive a very special honor: the Outstanding Young Alumni Award, presented by the Carolina Alumni Association at USC.

Before she went to the event, she caught Darci and Andrea up on how she’s doing. To see her full interview, click on the video link attached to the right-hand side of this story.

MediaDailyNews’ Joe Mandese writes about Nielsen possibly reversing itself and decided to provide CUME program data to cable…

The speed with which NBC embraced the opportunity caught some cable and ad agency executives by surprise and following a series of conversations with Nielsen, the ratings firm says it is now considering ways that the same process can be applied to cable networks.

“We are rethinking this new rule,” a Nielsen spokesman confirmed for MediaDailyNews. “We received a lot of feedback from clients over the past two days about the way the rule is being applied and we are evaluating whether we should amend it. No decision yet but it’s under consideration.”

The executive said Nielsen’s systems currently are not set up to generate the new ratings for cable networks because they do not currently supply Nielsen with the kind of “lineup” data that broadcast networks provide, and there are also issues with various time zone feeds for certain cable networks.

DCRTV reports that Washington Post columnist Paul Farhi will respond to Bill O’Reilly’s attack…actually it should be happening right about now…9:15 am…on 3WT’s air.

Heard on 3WT on Thursday afternoon. Bill O’Reilly says he’s now mounting a charge against “corrupt media coverage.” And he says the first target of his “smear stops here” campaign is the Washington Post. On Thursday evening’s “O’Reilly Factor,” the Fox News commentator slammed Paul Farhi’s Thursday Post article on O’Reilly’s latest racial controversy. DCRTV hears that Farhi (right) will answer O’Reilly’s “heavy hit” on 3WT’s airwaves (107.7 FM and 1500 AM) at 9:15 AM on Friday…

The Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Bartholomew Sullivan writes that the deceased soldier Jeremy Bohannon’s last legal address was in Rep. Blackburn’s district… (via FishbowlDC)

Bohannon grew up, was home-schooled and was buried in McEwan, which is clearly in the 8th Congressional District of U.S. Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn. But his last legal address was in Blackburn’s district.

The Politico’s Anne Schroeder writes about possible blowback from David Shuster’s interview with Rep. Blackburn…

“We don’t mind skipping MSNBC. No one watches that channel anyway,” says a high placed Republican consultant.

Word is, a growing number of GOP lawmakers have become mysteriously “unavailable” when asked to appear on MSNBC. Numerous meetings have taken place in both the House and the Senate side regarding the interview and “what to do about it,” Hill sources report.

One MSNBC producer told a Hill staffer, as relayed to us: “We can’t even get any republican senators!” While other offices immediately declared “absolutely not” when they heard the host was Shuster.

“There’s no difference because sending your boss over to David Shuster or the Democratic National Committee at this point,” sniffs one high-placed House source.

“He thinks acting like a jerk will turn him into a rising star, but he’s really just Chris Matthews’ schlep,” says a high-placed Senate aide.

Why not just apologize Bill? And then just move on - admit it was a stupid thing to say and just be done with it. Because racist or not…intentional or not…one thing is indisputable…it was a stupid thing to say…

Uh oh…

The Miami Herald’s Glenn Garvin blogs about the whole O’Reilly incident and takes a shot at CNN’s Rick Sanchez…

The cheapest shot of all comes from CNN’s Rick Sanchez, who — referring to a movie about white sexual fantasies about blacks — told the Washington Post that O’Reilly was using “the Mandingo argument…that there’s a big, bad African American out there that we all need protection from.” That’s a startlingly dumb summation of O’Reilly’s argument, but what Sanchez really ought to be ashamed of is the way he allowed a guest on his show to engage in a driveby sliming of the NPR correspondent Juan Williams. (I told you we’d get back to him.)

Williams, a former Washington Post columnist, is author of Eyes on The Prize, a best-selling history of the civil rights movement that he adapted into a documentary that won an Emmy and was nominated for an Oscar. Stanford history professor Clay Carson, the editor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s papers, called it “the principal film account of the most important American social justice movement of the 20th century.” Yet Sanchez stood by without comment or protest Wednesday night when one of his guests called Williams “the eternal happy Negro” whose role on O’Reilly’s show was “to congratulate him on his racism.”

Way to elevate the conversation, Rick. I guess this means it’s okay for Lou Dobbs, next time you’re debating immigration, to call you a wetback

CNN’s Rick Sanchez is addressing the O’Reilly incident again tonight on Out in the Open…