What’s hot:

New budget cuts coming to NBC News - Late Friday, ICN broke the news of budget cut meetings taking place at 30 Rock with an eye on Operational cuts. Though the cuts being looked at likely extend beyond operational…

CNBC wants to know what you think of FBN talent - Screen grabs from a CNBC Exchange viewer survey asking viewers to rate CNBC and FBN business talent leaked out. It didn’t take long for commenters to use that “Not concerned” quip against the network. Again.

CNN’s YouTube Debate controversy - The controversy over Keith Kerr’s question and his ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign overshadowed the news of the YouTube debate generating the highest primary debate ratings ever.

Chavez vs. CNN - A graphical error on CNN International was seized upon by Hugo Chavez to beat the network over the head with. It was typical Chavez. The surprising aspect was the way CNN took Chavez so seriously when I think they should have just reported it as a mistake, apologized, and then dropped the matter.

FNC debuts new election vehicles - FNC took the wraps of its two Election Link vehicles and has been using them a lot since then.

What’s not:
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Following up on last night’s entry on Keith Olbermann’s Friday night WPITW segment and the reaction from a Fox executive to said segment, Olbermann issued this response to said reaction…

“Considering the only place I’ve ever been fired was Fox Sports (and that was not only the best thing that ever happened to me but also the only nice thing the company’s ever done for anybody), another statement by another proud and anonymous Foxie is, as usual, completely factually inaccurate–like their newscasts.”

Update: Fox responds, “It’s endlessly entertaining to watch Keith unravel and show the world a glimpse of what everyone in the industry already knows — his skin is paper thin and his paranoia is at an all time high.”

And with having been fair and given both sides the chance to respond to each other, I’m going to call it a day on this round…

Ok this is interesting. It’s not common knowledge but networks, particularly NBC, like to do viewer surveys. In the age of the internet these surveys are sent out by email links. I’ve been on the NBC Survey for years. You can occasionally pick up some intel on what NBC is planning by taking them. For example they put out a survey asking what viewers thought about a variation of To Catch A Predator but instead of Chris Hanson catching predators it was exposing ID Thiefs and Con Men and other associated scams. This survey went out months before NBC started airing specials about those very subjects. So there’s value in plodding through those surveys (and lying through your teeth that you aren’t connected to TV somehow…heh)

The NBC Surveys are all over the map, covering everything from NBC itself to Bravo or Sci-Fi (they put out a Tin Man survey weeks before ads started appearing) or whatever NBC property they want. So far no MSNBC surveys, unfortunately. So I thought NBC was doing all the surveying for everyone under its umbrella. I was unaware that CNBC Exchange had been sending out its own viewer surveys. Until now…
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Today on Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz the topic of the wrong person being I.D.’d as the Clinton NH Campaign HQ hostage taker was discussed and Carl Cameron’s involvement. Transcript follows…

KURTZ: When a disturbed man seized five hostages Friday at a Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, some of the media were trafficking in misinformation. The man arrested by police was Leeland Eisenberg. But while the crisis was still unfolding, FOX’s Carl Cameron went on the air and named the wrong suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS: We’ve been told by eyewitness that the suspect in the hostage taking is a man by the name of Troy Stanley. We know this from an eyewitness by the name of Cody Bennett (ph) who spoke with us a few moments ago, who is friends with Troy Stanley’s son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Linda Douglass, of course it was not Troy Stanley. Is it irresponsible to be naming a suspect based on a friend of the guy’s son while people’s lives are still in jeopardy?
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Newsday’s Neil Best profiles Keith Olbermann…

It is a stridently political show that has made him a standard-bearer for the liberal wing of cable news and a pop culture figure familiar enough to have appeared - playing himself - in a Marge Simpson dream sequence on “The Simpsons” last week.

Fittingly, the cameo put him in direct competition with himself at 8 p.m., illustrating his peculiar dual existence: George Bush-haunting crusader weekdays, Reggie Bush-lauding narrator Sundays.

Awkward?

“I would hope that people who don’t agree with anything I do politically can separate themselves long enough to remember these are football games,” he said. “I would be stupid to bring up politics. Unless Dick Cheney runs out onto the field in the middle of a game, he’s not getting in the broadcast.”

This morning at 8, MSNBC Live began with Alex Witt from the MSNBC set but you could tell right away that things weren’t completely back to normal. Clue #1: The anchor desk was missing. It had been replaced by the circular glass table/desk used on Morning Joe. Clue #2: Camera orientation has not changed, apparently, for the entire broadcast. This means one of three things; either there’s a part of the set (wall monitors or the blue/red lighting panels for example) which isn’t working that they don’t want us to see or they can’t light the set properly in other areas. Or perhaps both. The third possibility is that something blew up in the news desk itself when it was being rotated during a commercial break. This would explain why they’re using the Morning Joe desk this morning as I see no reason why they couldn’t be using the regular desk. Two things that are definitely not broken are the video projection wall and the bank of monitors next to it which show outdoor pictures.

Two questions remain to be answered. One, how bad is the damage? Two, how long will it take to fix?

Update: It was the third scenario. ICN hears that when the desk was rotated something shorted out. It should be repaired by Monday.

TVNewser reported yesterday that Hugo Chavez threatened the network again. This was a second response from Chavez to the graphical screw-up that aired on CNN International en Espanol.

“If any international channel comes here to take part in an operation from the imperialist against Venezuela, your reporters will be thrown out of the country, they will not be able to work here,” Chavez said. “People at CNN, listen carefully: This is just a warning.”

A CNN Spokesperson issued a statement in response…

We are observers, not political players. We are committed to continuing to cover the current situation in Venezuela in a fair and objective manner. For example, we’ve frequently offered live, extended coverage of President Chavez’s speeches and news conferences, even when he uses our air to voice his criticisms of CNN.

We work hard to avoid errors on our air but we are human and sometimes mistakes will happen, especially considering the dynamics of a 24-hour news channel. It is important to put things in context: we have aired thousands of stories about Venezuela since President Chávez assumed power and the number of errors has been minimal. And in the few instances of significant errors, we have aired corrections prominently and promptly, and apologized as appropriate.

We reiterate our commitment to upholding the highest professional standards and presenting a balanced portrayal of events in Venezuela, even in the face of harsh criticism and baseless accusations.

Honestly, I don’t know why CNN is even bothering. It was an accident. Everyone, including Chavez, knows it. He’s just using the network for propoganda purposes and from my point of view it really doesn’t matter what they say or do at this point because he has his own agenda. By engaging, it just continues to legitimize an illegitimate issue.

The LA Times’ Tim Rutten scathingly takes CNN to task regarding the Republican YouTube debate, particularly over its “immigration obsession”…

HERE’S what Pew found: By an overwhelming margin, Americans think the war in Iraq is the most important issue facing the United States, followed by the economy, healthcare and energy prices. In fact, if you lump the war into a category with terrorism and other foreign policy issues, 40% of Americans say foreign affairs are their biggest concern in this election cycle. If you do something similar with all issues related to the economy, 31% list those questions as their most worrisome issue. As anybody who has looked at their 401(k) or visited a gas pump would expect, that aggregate figure has increased dramatically since Pew started polling in January. Back then, for example, concerns over the war outpaced economic anxieties by fully 8 to 1. By contrast, just 6% of the survey’s national sample said that immigration was the most important electoral issue. Moreover, that number hasn’t changed in a statistically meaningful way since the first of the year. In other words, more than nine out of 10 Americans think something matters more than immigration in this presidential election.

So, why did CNN make immigration the keystone of this debate? What standard dictated the decision to give that much time to an issue so remote from the majority of voters’ concerns? The answer is that CNN’s most popular news-oriented personality, Lou Dobbs, has made opposition to illegal immigration and free trade the centerpiece of his neonativist/neopopulist platform. In fact, Dobbs led into Wednesday’s debate with a good solid dose of immigrant bashing. His network is in a desperate ratings battle with Fox News and, in a critical prime-time slot, with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. So, what’s good for Dobbs is good for CNN.
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