The AP’s Suzanne Gamboa writes about a charge of “hate speech” being leveled at certain commentators by a latino group…

National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia announced plans to pressure television network executives and candidates seeking their parties’ presidential nominations to clamp down on such remarks.

The group launched a Web site to counter the speech, http://www.wecanstopthehate.org, with clips of what it considers offensive comments on television as well as a tracking of hate crimes.

“Hate groups and extremists have taken over the immigration debate in an unprecedented wave of hate,” Murguia said. Although some comments could be considered free speech, “there is a line that sometimes can be crossed when it comes to free speech,” she said.

Some of the remarks the Hispanic group identified included referring to immigrants as an “army of invaders” or an “invading force,” associating immigrants with animals, accusing immigrants of bringing crime and diseases like leprosy to the U.S., and purveying a conspiracy theory that Latinos are trying to take back parts of the United States once ruled by Mexico.

Murguia named as offenders Pat Buchanan, who appears on MSNBC as a commentator, CNN’s Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck of Headline News, a CNN network.

Post your reactions to CNN’s Democratic Debate here…

Tomorrow, FOX Business Network’s “Happy Hour” crew is taking their show on the road. FBN anchors Cody Willard and Rebecca Gomez will be hosting a pre-Super Bowl “Happy Hour” from Glendale, Arizona. Rebecca Gomez just left, halfway through today’s show, to catch her flight to Arizona.

The guest line-up for tomorrow’s “Happy Hour” include Steve Tisch, co-owner of the Giants; Rande Gerber, nightclub owner, Cindy Crawford’s husband and host of this weekend’s MAXIM party; Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy.com and Brian Griese, quarterback for the Chicago Bears.

Additionally, FBN’s “Money for Breakfast” and “Opening Bell” anchor Alexis Glick will continue her coverage from Arizona, featuring interviews tomorrow with Phil Simms, Super Bowl XXI MVP and Steve Tisch, chairman, executive vice president, and co-owner of the New York Giants, among others.

Alexis Glick will also ring the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange from Arizona tomorrow.

With the Republican California debate and its 4,000,000+ viewers, CNN won the night.

Daily Live+SD Ratings for January 30, 2008

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The Huffington Post’s Jason Linkins blogs about a Robert Greenwald backed protest of veterans regarding Bill O’Reilly and the back and forth over John Edwards’ remarks on homeless veterans…

Now, a group from Fitzgerald House, an “organization representing homeless veterans,” plans to bring their fight for recognition to Fox’s doorstep. They plan on visiting the Fox News Channel Studios today at 3:00 pm, and will come carrying a petition signed by 17,000 people demanding an apology from O’Reilly for his ignorance and abuse. In a press release, Brave New Films and Fitzgerald House say thay “have found that it is very easy to locate homeless veterans and are willing to help O’Reilly find them if his desire to help homeless vets is sincere.”

ICN hears that at approximately 3:15pm this afternoon - six veterans arrived, with two cameramen from Brave New Films in tow.

ICN has learned that O’Reilly Factor producers met, and spoke to the handful of veterans outside the News Corp building, took the petition they had prepared – and everyone quietly went their separate ways (including a camera crew from NBC, who promptly packed up their gear and left when the ‘protest’ never actually materialized).

Besides Greenwald’s hand held cameras, NBC was the only crew to show up to cover this.

Slate’s Jack Shafer looks at some of the more tabloidish stories that have appeared on cable news channel websites…

Although any story featuring sex, violence, death, or dismemberment can qualify a news story for heavy promotion on a cable channel Web site, nothing satisfies the sites like an endangered baby. If an infant or a toddler anywhere in the world has been harmed or placed in peril, the story is a safe bet to be featured by one of the Web tabloids. If the baby has suffered a gruesome injury or is rotting dead, it’s a cinch, as Foxnews.com’s “Manhunt After Infant Found Dead Near Car” and similar stories by the competition demonstrate.

If the wires fail to produce a baby-in-a-microwave story, the Web tabs are happy to fill the depravity gap by substituting accounts about slightly older children imperiled by sex monsters. In the past two days, Foxnews.com has promo’d both “Kindergartener Accuses 2 Classmates of Sex Assault” and “Elementary School Principal Charged in Sexual Assault.”

ICN hears that Karl Rove will join Fox News Channel as a contributor and will likely be used throughout Super Tuesday coverage…

CNN announced that Rafer Weigel has joined Morning Express as a sports anchor…

Rafer Weigel will be joining Headline News’ flagship morning program, Morning Express with Robin Meade, as a sports anchor, it was announced today by Ken Jautz, executive vice president of CNN Worldwide. Weigel’s first day on the air will be Monday, Feb. 4, when he provides insights about Sunday’s Super Bowl.

“The addition of Rafer to our Morning Express team gives our audience yet another reason to tune in every morning for all the news they need to kick off the day,” Jautz said. “Rafer’s breadth of experience and enthusiasm for the arena of sports news make him an ideal fit for the high-energy morning lineup. We’re happy to welcome him aboard.”
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Having a guest come on your show with their own agenda and hijacking the discussion…

FOX Business Network’s Alexis Glick was live from Glendale, AZ this morning interviewing business and sports celebrities before Sunday’s Super Bowl.

“Money for Breakfast” featured Phillippi Sparks, former Giants player and father of Idol winner Jordin Sparks; Tony Dorsett, former player for the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos; and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots.

Kraft told Alexis, “I feel I have great karma with the whole FOX family.” He mentioned, “This game has the potential to be the largest rated show in the history of television and I hope we do that.”

Lost Remote’s Cory Bergman looks at MSNBC.com’s “bridge tracker”…

Investigative reporter Bill Dedman and the rest of the MSNBC.com team posted an original story today that discovered that more than 17,000 bridges in the U.S. went more than two years between safety inspections. MSNBC.com acquired inspection data for 100,000 bridges through a FOIA request, and then mashed the data with Microsoft Virtual Earth, so you can see the condition and inspection schedule for bridges along your route. Cool.

Reuters’ Jennifer Coogan writes about the market taking a tumble after CNBC’s Charles Gasparino made a comment. (via Talking Biz News)

On Wednesday, the three major U.S. benchmark indexes had each been up by more than 1 percent after the Federal Reserve cut the fed funds rate by a half percentage point at 2:15 p.m.

Then, shares of Ambac and MBI tumbled abruptly at around 3:10 p.m. when CNBC On-Air-Editor Charles Gasparino made his comments about the companies. Major indexes quickly followed suit.

“My gut is telling me Moody’s and S&P are going to downgrade either one or both,” Gasparino said on air. CNBC later posted a report on its Web site saying the network had learned that the downgrade could come as early as Wednesday. The report cited no sources for the information.
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Silicon Alley Insider’s Michael Learmonth writes about FBN Executive Vice President Kevin Magee’s comments on the WSJ/CNBC deal and the “loopholes” therein…

Magee, speaking at the Always On conference yesterday, didn’t go into details about FBN’s plans to use WSJ staff. But he did lay out his case: “There are some restrictions. We can’t just go ahead and use anything. I believe the restrictions involve regularly-scheduled, branded segments. There is a carve-out for non-business news and there is a carve-out for breaking news.”

If this should sound familiar to ICN readers it’s because this was already chronicled back in January when Magee gave an interview to the Boston Globe and said pretty much the same thing…

FNC’s Judge Andrew Napolitano will be appearing on The Colbert Report tonight…

Bloomberg TV announced what’s coming up on this weekend’s “Conversations with Judy Woodruff”…

This weekend on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION® program “Conversations with Judy Woodruff,” Woodruff interviews Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill and Representative Emanuel Cleaver. Both lawmakers discuss their endorsements of presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton, the role of race in the election and predictions for next week’s Super Tuesday in Missouri.

Senator Claire McCaskill is supporting Senator Barack Obama and Representative Emanuel Cleaver is supporting Senator Hillary Clinton.

“Conversations with Judy Woodruff” airs on Saturday at 11AM ET and is repeated throughout the weekend.

TV Guide’s Cheers & Jeers writes about Morning Joe…

Cheers to Morning Joe for becoming a must-have fix for political junkies. Ex-congressman Joe Scarborough seemed like a poor man’s Bill O’Reilly on his old prime-time MSNBC show, Scarborough Country. When the cable net moved him to the morning shift, it seemed like a desperate stopgap in the wake of Don Imus’ sudden ouster. Then a funny thing happened: Scarborough lightened up. He traded his suits and ties for fleece pullovers and surrounded himself with appealing sidekicks like Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. As the presidential campaign has raged on, they’ve talked about — and with — the candidates in a relaxed yet informative fashion. Scarborough’s become the anti-Chris Matthews: Think of Morning Joe as Softball. And his team’s hitting it out of the park.

Unfortunately it hasn’t translated into a boost in the ratings much, if at all. Morning Joe continues to perform well off Imus in the Morning’s levels from the same time the previous year, despite all the politics going on with the primaries and debates.
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CJR Daily’s Liz Cox Barrett writes about the Florida primary and, in part, about how the cable nets sort of got duped by Hillary Clinton…

It was clear that some in the cable commentariat felt played/duped/forced by the Clinton campaign to talk about something they considered a non-event. As if this—covering a politician’s photo-op, something “ginned up,” as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell put it—were somehow new to them. This one, however, seemed to stick in some craws, and the resulting commentary took on a surprisingly shrill tone, at times, even by cable standards.
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Live +SD – Prime Time (8:00pm – 11:00pm) – Jan. 29th

FOX News Channel
P2+ - 2,512,000
Demo – 717,000

CNN
P2+ - 1,882,000
Demo – 639,000

MSNBC
P2+ - 1,257,000
Demo – 551,000

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Post your reactions to tonight’s CNN Republican debate here…

Daily Live+SD Ratings for January 29, 2008

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News Hounds blogs about Hillary Clinton’s appearance on the Hannity & Colmes program last night…

Hell almost froze over last night as Hillary Clinton did an interview on Hannity & Colmes. I just heard Alan Colmes say on his radio show that she said she’d be available but she wanted to be interviewed by Chris Wallace.

I know I’m in the minority but I think HIllary could do a lot for herself by facing down Hannity. I think she’d win over some people if she appeared and showed up with horns on her head, for example.

Go ahead and rake me over the coals for it. But I think Democrats do themselves a big disservice by not taking the bullies by the horns.

The Politico’s Shenanigans notes that John Edwards dropped out today and how Edwards didn’t appear on FNC but Obama and Clinton did…

Going back to our earlier post about John Edwards touting a FNC survey after the Las Vegas debate despite his ongoing boycott of Fox News, eyebrows have raised over the fact that Edwards never once went on FNC and now he’s out of the race. There’s no way to prove one affected the other but…put a “W” in the Fox column.

MSNBC’s Super Tuesday coverage plans…

The networks of NBC News – NBC, MSNBC, MSNBC.com, NBC 2 Go and NBC News Radio – will present continuing live coverage of the Super Tuesday primaries, when voters in 24 states cast their ballots in Democratic and Republican presidential primaries and caucuses.

“NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams will lead the network coverage, joined by NBC Washington Bureau Chief and moderator of “Meet the Press” Tim Russert, with live coverage of election results on NBC, 10-11 p.m. ET. The special coverage will be live across all time zones. NBC News Special Correspondent Tom Brokaw will contribute analysis, with “Today” anchor Ann Curry reporting on exit polls. NBC News correspondents Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory, Kelly O’Donnell, Ron Allen, Lee Cowan and Kevin Corke will report from the campaigns across the country. NBC News will also present a special one-hour edition of “Nightly News,” which will be updated with election results across all time zones. In addition, Williams will also anchor network special reports throughout primetime as primary and caucus results are available.
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The Huffington Post’s Danny Shea blogs about an unfortunate situation that Kyra Phillips created for herself today. With video…

Gerri: Alright Don, you come too.
Kyra: We could bring him along with the girls.
Gerri: Come on!
Kyra: He’s paying! Thanks, Gerri.
Don: A little sandwich!
Kyra: Ooh!
Gerri: Whoa, I have to go now!
Kyra: Yeah, good time. You don’t want to talk about the reverse oreo!

Willis was visibly embarrassed by Phillips’ joke, though Lemon seemed to enjoy it, laughing out loud and announcing, “Oh, she said it! I’m glad she said it.”

MSNBC announced that Keith Olbermann will be hosting a special 10pm edition of Countdown following the Democratic debate on CNN…

Keith Olbermann will anchor a special edition of “Countdown” Thursday, Jan. 31, 10-11 p.m. ET. The special live “Countdown” airs after the Democratic candidates debate in Los Angeles.

“After you watch it there, come and understand it here,” said Keith Olbermann, of what to expect from the special edition of “Countdown.”

MSNBC will also present a special 10 p.m. ET edition of “Hardball with Chris Matthews” tonight, immediately following the Republican candidates debate.

“Countdown with Keith Olbermann” telecasts weeknights, 8-9 p.m. ET on MSNBC. Izzy Povich is executive producer. “Hardball with Chris Matthews” telecasts weeknights, 5-6 p.m. ET and 7-8 p.m. ET on MSNBC. John Reiss is executive producer.

Shep is getting a lot of press this week with the Super Bowl special this weekend. Boston Daily has an interview with Smith…

Boston Daily: Tell us about the show. What do you have planned for us?

Shepard Smith: Oh, man, we’re going to mix America’s two favorite things: politics and football. I’m really excited about it. We’re going to have the best players in politics and the best players in football. It’s a perfect mix for me.

BD: We know politicians love to rub elbows with football players, but will football fans tune in for the politics?

SS: It’s two days before Super Tuesday, maybe the biggest Super Tuesday in the history of the country, and it’s only going to decide what’s going to happen to the nation over the next four years. It’s a brilliant move on the part of this company. On a day when you have a natural audience already there, to put on a something that really matters to this nation. My guess is there are easier ways to make money, but I don’t know if there’s a better public service.

There’s one part of CNN’s January numbers release that has me scratching my head and asking questions…

During the 10:00 p.m. time period (M-F), CNN delivered the most viewers in the key demographic P25-54, with 485k viewers, while FNC posted 466k and MSNBC had 338k. In a head-to-head program comparisons, Anderson Cooper 360 was the top-rated program at 10pm throughout January with 382k viewers while FNC’s On the Record with Greta Van Susteren placed second with 360k. This represents CNN’s first monthly 10:00 p.m. time period and program wins in the key demographic P25-54 since November 2001.

Ok, I get that at 10pm CNN had more viewers than FNC in the Demo. But this program name stuff is confusing me because there were chunks of time when On The Record was not on the air but Debate/Primary coverage was. So when CNN says AC 360 beat On The Record, are they factoring out the times when On The Record wasn’t on the air?

Conversely there were times when AC 360 wasn’t officially on the air during primaries and debates but they still flashed the AC 360 bug in the lower thirds, something I already noted, as if to say it was AC 360 even though it would be hard to argue it as such in my opinion. So in addition to factoring out On the Record’s non appearances at 10pm, are they also factoring out AC 360’s non-appearances at 10pm?

If the answer is no to either of those questions, a third question is raised: how can CNN say AC 360 beat On The Record for the month of January then?

I would like to see some better sourcing of exactly what CNN is considering as AC 360 time and what it isn’t. I don’t have this issue with regards to FNC because it’s plainly obvious when On the Record is on the air and when it isn’t.

Earlier this month I noted that in the head to head matchup between 9am-5pm ET dayside newscasts, HLN beat MSNBC in both Total Viewers and the Demo. I speculated that January would see a swing for MSNBC in dayside due to all the primary coverage. Well, the January numbers are now in and the results aren’t as conclusively in MSNBC’s favor as I had figured they would be.

Here are the numbers for November, December, and January. I’m including November and December again because I now have more granularity in the Demo breakouts than I had last time.
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CNN announced this morning that Scott Zamost had joined the networks Investigative Team as an investigative producer…

Scott Zamost, an investigative journalist who has won nearly every major broadcast journalism award for his hard-hitting reports, has joined CNN as an investigative producer, it was announced today by Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer of CNN Productions. Zamost will be based at the network’s world headquarters in Atlanta.

“For more than 15 years, Scott has maintained a reputation as one of the most astute and accomplished investigative journalists in the country,” Nelson said. “So when we learned that he was seeking new opportunities to expand his investigative efforts, we were not surprised that many networks and news stations actively sought him out. I’m pleased to say we won.”
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FBN will have special coverage today regarding an announcement from the Federal Reserve…

Today, FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto will join Davis Asman and Liz Claman in the 2pm ET hour of FOX Business to discuss what Americans can expect from this afternoon’s Fed announcement. Cavuto and an all-star panel of Fed experts and business leaders will remain throughout most of the hour to provide post-announcement analysis.

FNC dominated the night with big numbers for the SOTU in Total Viewers and the Demo, beating MSNBC and CNN combined. Paradoxically, more people tuned in for MSNBC’s post SOTU analysis with Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews than watched the MSNBC broadcast of the SOTU itself; the only network to experience this phenomenon. This would suggest MSNBC’s hosts are pulling in viewers who want to hear what they have to say about the SOTU; presumably Keith Olbermann. They’ll watch the SOTU elsewhere but then tune in to MSNBC for reaction.

Daily Live+SD Ratings for January 28,2008

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Here is the January program ranker. FNC claimed 14 out of the top 16 spots in cable news ranked on Total Viewers (Live).
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The Motley Fool’s Rich Smith notes Geri Willis’ appearance on The Daily Show and then accuses Willis and Stewart of misinterpreting something that Jeff Macke said on Fast Money…

The real irony here is that Stewart actually managed to prove his point, albeit accidentally. Despite having hours, perhaps days, to parse “bald guy’s” statement, he ultimately came up with gibberish. That’s probably forgivable in a comedy host, but I’m amazed that CNN’s “Personal Finance Editor” could listen to the same statement — twice! — and still wind up getting it 100% wrong.

Kind of makes you wonder whether the talking heads on TV are a case of the blind leading the 20/20-sighted. But it does give us a pretty clear answer to Stewart’s question: Can these networks help us understand what’s going on with the economy?

Answer: Nope. Not if they can’t figure it out themselves.

Update: This incident was brought up Monday on Fast Money…
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The New York Observer’s Felix Gillette interviews Shepard Smith in advance of the big pre-Super Bowl extravaganza on Fox Broadcast this weekend.

Mr. Smith explained that later this week he will fly to Glendale, Ariz., site of Super Bowl XLII, where he will interview Archie Manning about all things Eli. Afterward, Fox News’ executive producer of political programming Marty Ryan will splice the highlights into Super Sunday—an experimental football-and-politics spectacular that Mr. Smith will be hosting for Fox broadcast stations, around the country, on the morning of Eli’s big game.

The three-hour special, said Mr. Smith, will begin with politics and ease into football. Along the way, Chris Wallace will interview presidential candidates. Alexis Glick, of the Fox Business Network, will assess the state of Super Bowl ads. Fox station reporters will file dispatches from the campaign trail. And Mr. Smith will report from behind-the-scenes as members of Fox Sports prepare for kickoff.

“There’s technology being used now that has never been brought together before,” said Mr. Smith, who is an outspoken admirer of flashy news graphics and shooshy special effects. “I’m kind of a techno freak. So that’ll be fun.”

Even those at Fox who don’t necessarily know Eli Manning from a Waffle House booth jockey can still feel gung-ho about the upcoming News Corp. synergy.