Today, the legendary Harlem Globetrotters brought their basketball skills and wizardry to the floor of the NYSE. In the final minutes of trading, FBN’s Tracy Byrnes played ball with the team while traders smile in the background…

MSNBC announced its coverage plans for the Patomac primaries…

Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann will anchor MSNBC’s special live coverage of the “Potomac Primaries,” in Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C., tomorrow beginning at 6 p.m. ET.

MSNBC will continue live coverage all day, with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, NBC News White House correspondent David Gregory, MSNBC anchor Dan Abrams and MSNBC Chief Washington correspondent Norah O’Donnell anchoring from New York and MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson and NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell anchoring live from Washington D.C.

MSNBC’s primetime lineup begins with “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” live at 5 p.m. ET; Olbermann and Matthews will anchor live coverage of primary returns from MSNBC Election Headquarters in New York beginning at 6 p.m. ET, with Williams and NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and moderator of “Meet the Press” Tim Russert joining to provide analysis, along with NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd. Panelists will include MSNBC political analysts Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan, and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

The Huffington Post has video of The View’s Barbara Walters talking about David Shuster…

Today on FBN, David Asman and Liz Claman interviewed Michael Winship, President of the Writers Guild of America, East, and Patric Verrone, President of the Writers Guild of America, West, regarding the deal that was recently agreed upon by the WGA and the conglomerates. Transcript highlights follow…

Winship on the 17-day window agreement stated in the contract:

“We would have liked to have closed that window completely. That is one of the things we did not achieve in this contract and something we will be working on going forward. The important thing is that we got jurisdiction in new media, we got jurisdiction in the Internet and we got a percentage of the distributors’ gross. These were our major goals and we achieved those.”

Winship on whether the networks will air programs after 17 days that would require them to pay writers:
(more…)

Newsday’s Neil Best writes about CNBC’s “Swoosh! Inside Nike” special airing tomorrow night…

Tuesday night, the network debuts his most ambitious project to date, a documentary called “Swoosh! Inside Nike,” for which he traveled more than 20,000 miles in December and January.

That includes a visit to Vietnam to observe Nike factories, where conditions have improved in recent years but where problems inherent in third-world production remain.

Rovell’s lineup of interview subjects is impressive, including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, LeBron James and co-founder Phil Knight, who rarely grants interviews.

CNN announced that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will debate on the network next week, February 21st. This does alter the likelihood that Clinton could pull out of the MSNBC debate with another debate in the offing so soon. But I still believe she won’t; that it would hurt her more than help her. Given the tightness of the race betweem the two she needs the publicity that a debate would generate.

CNN, Univision Communications Inc. and the Texas Democratic Party in conjunction with the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation will host a Democratic presidential primary debate on Thursday, Feb. 21. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have accepted invitations to the debate. The program will air live from the LBJ Auditorium at the University of Texas in Austin on CNN and on CNN International from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (ET)/7p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (CT) and will air in Spanish on the Univision Network beginning at 11:30 p.m. (ET)/10:30 p.m. (CT). It will also stream live on CNN.com and will later be available on demand on both on Univision.com and CNN.com. It will also re-air on CNN and CNN en Español.
(more…)

New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer writes about Eric Burns’ impending departure from Fox News Watch…

Just so you know, Burns, the spokesperson added, the reason they wanted to see other people was that Burns just wasn’t satisfying their needs anymore: “We didn’t feel the current talent would be capable of handling the new direction,” the spokeswoman told the Times. But Fox really can’t blame Burns for pining for them. After all, they are kind of great. Probably the best Burns will ever have. It must be hard for him, you know? The spokeswoman added. “Not having a contributor agreement renewed is something that’s very difficult to accept.”

Meanwhile the AP’s David Bauder writes about the story and interviews Burns…
(more…)

The Politico’s Mike Allen says the Shuster camp, for lack of a better word, is circulating an email…(via Fishbowl DC)

David Shuster’s friends and family circulate an “Enough Is Enough” e-mail, pleading for some consideration of the context of his foolhardy remark.

Update: And then there’s this…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average will be making its first change to the average in four years. It was announced today that the DJIA will be dropping Honeywell and Altria from the index and adding Chevron and Bank of America. FBN broke the news of this at 9:05:18 am ET with Alexis Glick reporting the story. Glick brought in the Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Marcus Brauchli to discuss the story.

CNBC broke the news at virtually the same time (9:05:25 am) during Squawk on the Street with Mark Haines and Erin Burnett, who interviewed John Prestbo, Dow Jones’ Indexes Editor & Executive Director a minute after they reported it.

FNC contributor Judge Andrew Napolitano will be a guest on Mike Schneider’s “Night Talk” tonight at 10pm ET…

Tonight on “Night Talk with Mike Schneider” Judge Andrew Napolitano rails against President Lincoln, trumpets the candidacy of Ron Paul and talks about his latest book “A Nation of Sheep.” Napolitano is the youngest life-tenured Superior Court Judge in the history of the State of New Jersey, a Judicial analyst and the author of “Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks its Own Laws.”

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz writes about the latest on the Shuster saga…

NBC executives say privately that they have acted appropriately to deal with a bad choice of words and are waiting to see whether the Clinton camp follows through on a threat to withdraw from an MSNBC debate in Cleveland on Feb. 26. A spokeswoman yesterday said only that the network stands by its previous comments.

Considering how she got whumped by Obama over the weekend and her campaign manager stepped down, gazing into my crystal ball I’d estimate the chances of Clinton pulling out of this debate at…oh…about zero!

She needs the publicity and there isn’t another debate scheduled this week that both Clinton and Obama have accepted. Ergo, she’s going to keep the NBC debate.

The TV Spy Watercooler hints at some form of protest to occur at 30 Rock if David Shuster isn’t reinstated soon. Caveat: It’s the TV Spy watercooler where anonymity rules and accountability and accuracy don’t. So it could all be the musings of a couple of agitators.

The New York Observer’s John Koblin writes about Richard Greene leaving The Politico for CNN where he’ll be the news desk editor for CNN Wire…

Media News’ Joe Mandese writes about…wait for it…problems at Nielsen…

NIELSEN FRIDAY SENT A NOTICE to clients acknowledging systemic problems in the delivery of its national ratings data since the beginning of the 2007-08 TV season. Nielsen attributed the delays to a combination of factors, including data volume, A/P meter processing, software issues and human error, and said it was taking the following steps to fix the problems:

* Data volume: “We are increasing capacity and evaluating core processes and applications to reduce cycle time and create some slack time in the overall process.”

Update: The NY Times’ Bill Carter writes about the Nielsen problems as well…
(more…)

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Michael Klein writes about Carol Costello…(via FTVLive)

CNN’s Carol Costello was spotted at CBS3 last week, interviewing for the anchoring chair formerly held by Alycia Lane. A job here would put the New York-based Costello closer to her husband, Timothy Law Snyder, who last year moved from Fairfield U in Connecticut to a high-level job at Loyola College in Maryland.

Broadcasting & Cable’s Marisa Guthrie writes about FNC Senior VP of Newsgathering David Rhodes’ indirect connection to the Obama campaign; his brother Ben…

But it turns out Fox News and the Obama campaign are bound by blood.

David Rhodes, Fox News’ senior VP of newsgathering, is the older brother of Ben Rhodes, one of the speechwriters responsible for Obama’s orotund oratory.

David, 34, who has been with Fox News since its 1996 inception, is responsible for the network’s news coverage. But while some will no doubt look for evidence of punches pulled—or redoubled, as it were—in Fox’s Obama coverage, David says brother Ben is discreet.

“He’s very careful not to give me any particular insight into his job,” he says.

Page Six notes that apparently John Edwards isn’t the only one boycotting FNC…

THE folks at Fox News Channel are magnanimous enough to put their rivals from CNN on air, but CNN isn’t big enough to return the favor. Geraldo Rivera - who has a new book coming out, “His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.” - was booked to appear on Nancy Grace’s CNN show on Feb. 28. But then he was disinvited and told CNN had “a blanket boycott” against anyone from Fox. ” ‘The Most Trusted Name in News’ just chickened out,” Rivera told Page Six. “This reveals a corporate insecurity.” Fox has had on as guests both Wolf Blitzer and Glenn Beck. A CNN rep denied any boycott and blamed a scheduling conflict.

Scheduling conflict? How can a program have a secheduling conflict…that far in advance? If it really was a scheduling conflict, the standard procedure would be to rebook the guest at another date. Unless they really didn’t want him there…

AdWeek’s Mike Shields reveals the big mystery of why CNN would shell out $750,000 to get ahold of the domain name iReport.com.

Since CNN embraced the citizen journalist movement back in August 2006 with the launch of its iReport initiative, the news organization has received nearly 100,000 news-related photos and videos from viewers, including nearly 10,000 this past January alone. Yet less than 10 percent of those submissions have appeared on CNN.com or the cable channel.

That’s all about to change. Time Warner’s CNN this week will enter YouTube territory with the launch of iReport.com, a new Web site built entirely on user-produced news. And unlike CNN’s own properties — where only iReport submissions that have been handpicked by editors and checked for accuracy ever make it online or on air — the new site will be wide open, allowing users to post whatever content they choose, CNN told Mediaweek exclusively.

The new site looks and feels much like YouTube and other video-centric destinations. Wanna-be Anderson Coopers can upload videos, photos and audio files through an easy-to-use interface. Visitors to the site can search for specific clips or sift through various news categories, such as politics or weather. Users also can rate and share clips, and even embed them on personal Web sites.

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about campaign embeds…

The emergence of off-air reporters dates to 1988, when the networks sought to save money by sending full TV crews to only some campaign events. Partly because most off-air reporters are relatively young and not members of a union, they create some cost savings for networks.

The off-air reporter role became especially prominent in 2004 when NBC News renamed them “campaign embeds,” in an allusion to the embedding of correspondents during the Iraq war. During that election, hand-held cameras became ubiquitous, but the reporters did not have a ready-made outlet for their video.

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about Eric Burns departure from Fox News Watch…

Although Mr. Burns said he was surprised by his termination, he acknowledged that he had seen changes coming. Fox’s executives had recently decided that the network’s weekend ratings were not high enough, especially in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic.

Perhaps in an effort to draw younger viewers, Mr. Burns said he expected the modified show to cover Internet trends in more detail.

“But I don’t know because I don’t think anybody at Fox knows, except in general terms, that somehow they must catch up with new information sources,” he said.

Mr. Burns said Fox News had never actively promoted the show, despite pledges that it would be advertised in print.

“If that’s not evidence that they don’t want this show to be seen, I don’t know what it is,” he said.

Ms. Klinghoffer of Fox said that Mr. Burns’s assertions about advertising were “not true,” adding that “not having a contributor agreement renewed is something that’s very difficult to accept.”