Free for All: 02/17/10

What’s on your mind?

Questions for Chistiane Amanpour

The New York Times Magazine’s Edward Levine has a whole mess of questions for CNN’s Christiane Amanpour…

14. How She Tells Her Son She’s Going to War: I didn’t tell him when he was little. I just said, “Mommy is going to work.” It gets more difficult as he gets older. He’s 9 now, but I never let him watch television news, so he isn’t aware of all the implications.

15. Shell Collecting: I have a piece of an unexploded cannon shell that fell into the hotel I was staying in during the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia, in the mid-1990s. I use it as an umbrella stand, but it is an important reminder to me that I am so lucky to have escaped there alive and sane.

16. Toughest Interview: President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan. It was incredibly difficult to get him to answer any question. I was trying to understand why the Sudanese government felt it necessary to attack Darfur and bomb villages. There was a complete denial of black-and-white facts.

17. Historical Villain She’d Like to Talk to: I’d like to interview Stalin. I’d like to explore with him the process of how you go from being an ordinary person to becoming a mass-murdering megalomaniac.

The Case of the Missing MSNBC Live News: Epilogue…

I’m closing out this story with a late email from the person who originally tipped me off to the story of the alternate MSNBC feed…

I’m watching CNBC’s Olympic coverage and switching back and forth to the Maddow show that is being broadcast now. Which kind of shoots the NBC enhance package argument in the foot. I guess Morning Joe and Daily Rundown just don’t rate coverage in my area. No wonder my provider didn’t” opt to pay extra for coverage we are getting anyway.

It is a head scratcher. I don’t get why MSNBC’s “vanilla” feed that’s supposed to keep the Olympic experience to a minimum necessitates the blackout of Morning Joe and Daily Rundown.

Update: MSNBC, apparently sensing a PR problem in the making, responds to Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer with some figures that puts the problem in perspective…

Update: An MSNBC spokesperson tells us less than 1% of all homes with MSNBC are on the cable providers that do not subscribe to the feed.

And still more Gasparino…

The LA Times’ Joe Flint writes up the Gasparino news…

Gasparino, 47, said he was leaving General Electric Co.’s CNBC for the upstart Fox Business Network because he “wants to be part of something that could do something great.” Though he claims to harbor no ill will toward CNBC, he did say his job at Fox Business is to “beat the hell out of the competition.” Asked why he hadn’t been on CNBC’s air since early December, he said, “I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to stay or go.”

Gasparino will make his debut on Fox Business next week and will also pop up on the Fox News Channel as well. Terms of Gasparino’s deal were not disclosed, but it is a wee bit north of $1 million a year, people familiar with the contract said.

“I think this is a better platform for him,” said Kevin Magee, executive vice president of Fox Business Network. Asked if Gasparino’s role on Fox Business would be similar to that of CNBC’s hot-shot reporter David Faber, Magee said, “I’m sorry, who’s that?”

Zing!

Bozell vs. Scarborough…

Brent Bozell responds to something Joe Scarborough said on his radio show…

Now I know why MSNBC hired Joe Scarborough. He’s about as accurate and honest as everyone else there.

False articles? Here’s something Joe knows, because he and I have had this conversation privately already: I’ve never written a bloody article about him. Ever.

As for conservative bloggers at NewsBusters writing false articles about him, that is equally untrue. Have they sometimes been negative? Guilty as charged – and for good reason. Increasingly he’s making statements that are stupid, or reckless, or provocative, or insulting, or a combination of all the above.

Still More Gasparino…

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz interviews Gasparino…

“I always wanted to work for Fox,” Gasparino says. “I don’t take chances with stories. I do take entrepreneurial chances with my career.”

While Gasparino is said to have felt underappreciated at CNBC, he says he is leaving on “very amicable” terms and “going to a place that, if you can make it work, I’ll be part of a team that builds something. And that’s very appealing to me.”

Kevin Magee, the Fox executive who runs the business channel, calls Gasparino “a big get for us. Charlie Gasparino is a terrific reporter. He’s also a great television character. He’s got a great command of the screen. We’re determined not to have a channel with nothing but bland people.”

Kurtz is also the latest MSM writer to post FBN numbers even though FBN isn’t rated which means the numbers aren’t official. Shame, Howard…

More on the Gasparino jump to FBN…

The Business Insider’s Joe Wiesenthal spills some dirt on Charlie Gasparino…

A CNBC insider said that many at the network admired Gasparino’s reporting and top executives were pleased with his performance.

But others close to the matter say that Gasparino definitely rubbed some of his colleagues the wrong way.

“I think the key here is that Charlie is an aggressive reporter and a colleague. Some of the energy that drives him to be an aggressive reporter can make him difficult to work with,” one person familiar with the situation said.

“He’s a very aggressive reporter. I think that act grows a little thin when you work with him day in and day out,” another person said. “He’s a double edged sword. People at the network might have grown tired of getting cut.”

Oliver Willis vs. Rachel Maddow…

Olliver Willis pens a response to Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment regarding diversity at NBC. But the kicker is the way Willis characterizes Rachel Maddow…

Even with the addition of Rachel Maddow to that lineup, still male and white.

Not cool. Not cool at all…

Update: alindc posted this comment which I quote in full here…

I think it’s a misunderstanding of a sentence that wasn’t written clearly enough. The last line of the study there, that says all the cable networks are too male and white, mentions that Greta and Campbell Brown are prime time anchors. Willis is saying that even with adding Maddow, the cable networks are still too male and white. Not taking a shot at Maddow.

Shuster addresses Twitter issue…

David Shuster broke his 20 day tweet silence by tweeting about his tweet silence…

Thanks shag. I hope to get the green light to twitter again soon. Cheers, d

Thankyou. I appreciate it. I’m hoping mgmnt will revisit the twitter issue soon. Thx again 4 your great support.

So now we know. Shuster’s Twitter time out was not of his own choosing…

But what’s interesting is Shuster tweeted his answer which, if he’s supposed to not be tweeting, shouldn’t be happening. Here was an explanation…

Problems with direct text function.

Update: Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer notes that Shuster’s tweet flurry from yesterday has been deleted.

The case of the Missing MSNBC Live News…

I received this email this morning from a reader…

I live in the Sacramento, CA area and watch Morning Joe every morning. On Monday MSNBC was running another of their useless prison programs and I thought it was a change in programing because of the holiday. Then I found out that Morning Joe was in fact broadcast on Monday. Is possible that MSNBC runs a different program in different parts of the country?

At first I thought this must have been a mistake. But then I saw this tweet from a Detroit viewer to Contessa Brewer…

MSNBC’S news shows are not on in metro Detroit today. Lock-Up on instead. Feed mix-up? Phones not being answered at 30Rock.

So, evidently some markets were not showing MSNBC Live yesterday but others were. DirecTV, for example, had live MSNBC all day. I have a query in to MSNBC regarding this matter and I’ll update when I get more information…

Free for All: 02/16/10

What’s on your mind?

Picture time…

I think I may have posted some of these before but here are some photo albums from my excursions last year and this year…

Molokini Crater, Maui

Lehua Island off of Ni’ihau, Hawaii

Cabo

My WW2 related tours from Palau and Yap last year…

Maddow vs. FNC?

Politico’s Michael Calderone gets Rachel Maddow to respond to FNC’s comment in today’s Howard Kurtz story that she applied for a job at FNC…

So did Maddow, former Air America host and now a star of MSNBC’s liberal prime-time line-up, really apply to work at Fox News?

“I never personally applied for a job at Fox,” Maddow tells POLITICO in an email. “I have an agent who I assume talks to everyone on my behalf, so I have no reason to believe that Fox’s claim that they were approached on my behalf is false, even if I never knew anything about it at the time.”

Update: FNC responds on Mediaite…

To which an FNC spokesperson tells Mediaite: “We find it entertaining that Rachel would implicate herself further on this matter and validate our original comment to Howie Kurtz.”

Zing!

“…a rare appearance outside of Fox by Vice President Dick Cheney..” – Andrea Mitchell earlier during her MSNBC show this afternoon..

Tweet-less David Shuster…

Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer writes about what I was mulling writing about; David Shuster’s disappearance from Twister since the James O’Keefe debacle…

When asked about the 19 days of Twitter silence since, an MSNBC spokesperson had “no comment” for Mediaite. So did the fight with Breitbart on MSNBC the next day lead to the prolonged silence? It looks like it probably played a part.

J$ has been keeping a running total of the days Shuster has been off of Twitter. MSNBC’s “no comment” response to Krakauer is telling though.

Nigerian Insuance Company to sponsor new CNNI Editorial segments…

News on News reports that a Nigerian insurance company will sponsor two new editorial segments on CNNI…

From 15th February 2010, Nigerian insurance company Industrial and General Insurance (IGI) is the exclusive sponsor of two new editorial initiatives on CNN International. The Business Diary highlight, airing during weekly day parts and the Morning Agenda feature airing during CNN International’s morning schedule, both bring audiences a preview of the current top business and financial events expected to occur that week in the world of international business.

CNBC primetime Docs down?

The New York Post’s Peter Lauria writes about CNBC’s primetime doc woes…

Call it the winter of CNBC’s discontent.

The crown jewel of NBC Universal’s cable stable, CNBC has tried to extend its business day audience into primetime with original programming, but the effort has gone into hibernation during the long, cold months, after a successful autumn.

Based on premiere-night ratings for the business network’s last 10 documentaries, CNBC averaged 332,000 total viewers and 155,000 viewers in the adult 25-54 demographic from Sept. 23 thru Dec. 16. Included among the documentaries to air during that time were “New Age of Wal-Mart,” “Coca-Cola: The Real Story,” and “Inside the Mind of Google.”

But ratings began a precipitous decline with the Dec. 16 broadcast of “Illegal Gambling.” That documentary and the four others to premiere since then, which include “Marriage from Hell: The AOL Time Warner Merger,” and “Planet of the Apps,” averaged a total audience of just 178,000 and only 75,000 viewers aged 25-54.

Rachel Maddow Profile…

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz profiles Rachel Maddow and her crusade against “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell”…

“I was an activist before I went into the media,” Maddow says. “It is useful for me to tell my opinion on some things I cover. But I’m not trying to get people to march in the streets or call their congressmen. I don’t believe that’s my role.”

Her executive producer, Bill Wolff, says Maddow gets just as exercised about wasteful weapons systems. “I don’t think it’s personal so much because she is gay and it’s an issue of gay rights, but because it’s an issue of military efficiency,” he says.

Maddow has brought a distinctive style to the cable program she launched in the fall of 2008. A self-described “liberal” but “not a Democratic Party hack,” she fuses passionate argument with a fact-laden approach reflecting her doctorate from Oxford. Rather than speaking out as a lesbian, Maddow frames the battle by stressing that 12,500 gay service members have been kicked out of the military under the 1993 compromise that allows them to serve if they keep their sexuality hidden.
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“We don’t really treat gay issues differently than other issues,” Maddow says. The controversy, she says, is just “a great story.”

FNC vs. The Columbia School of Journalism?

The Independent’s Stephen Foley writes about the Columbia School of Journalism and FNC…

When the boss of Fox News, Roger Ailes, was recently asked by The New York Times what made his conservative news channel such a ratings winner, he thundered back: “I built this channel from my life experience… my first qualification is I didn’t go to Columbia Journalism School.”

The Columbia University journalism school in Manhattan is the American industry’s pre-eminent post-grad trade school and a smelting plant for the “gotcha liberal media elite” of the imaginations of Sarah Palin and her ilk. And of Ailes, the son of an Ohio factory foreman, whose view of the New York chattering classes is encapsulated in the comment: “There are no parties in this town that I want to go to.”

Nick Lemann is Columbia’s dean. Surprisingly he’s rather tickled by Ailes’s assault on his institution. “What we teach is how to report the news,” he says, leaning back on a sofa. “I don’t know if I said to Roger Ailes, ‘Roger, go out and cover a story and file by deadline’, I don’t know if he has that skill set. That’s what we teach here. We don’t teach liberalism.”

Contributor candidates…

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about paid network contributors who have visions of political office…

Sarah Palin. Mike Huckabee. Newt Gingrich.

Today, that is a list of paid Fox News political analysts. Two years from now, it could be a list of Republican presidential candidates.

A former Fox analyst, Angela McGlowan, entered a House race in Mississippi last week. Over at MSNBC, Harold E. Ford Jr. was on the payroll until a few weeks ago, when he told his boss that he was seriously contemplating a run for the Senate from New York. TV names are also constantly being run through the candidate rumor mill. There is a “Draft Larry Kudlow” movement. There is also talk of a political bid by Lou Dobbs, who left CNN last fall.

“It does seem amazing how many are being either discussed as candidates, rumored as candidates, or are actually doing it,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 02/14/10

What’s Hot:

Bill Sammon – FNC’s D.C. Bureau Managing Editor was the center of attention after some comments he made on Fox News Sunday regarding the MSM and the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin. This kicked off a quasi running battle between elements of Politico and FNC throughout the week.

Charlie Gasparino – Late Sunday, word leaked out via TVNewser that Gasparino was defecting to FBN. This is big. Very big.

What’s Not:

Pointless Comparisons – I’ve said it before but it’s time to say it again. If you’re going to tout your shows’ ratings the comparison should be with the shows they’re up against, not shows that air hours earlier. And MSM media writers need to write smarter than that.

Lawrence O’Donnell – How many times has this guy gone off the rails on MSNBC? Better question, how many times more is MSNBC going to let O’Donnell go off the rails before it finally does something?

Twisting in the wind – If you’re going to go live to your reporter on the scene, make sure she’s aware of the latest developments, particularly when you already broadcast said developments seven minutes earlier. Don’t let her go on the air for two minutes before you decide to cut in to re-iterate the latest developments.

Look before you leap – Not all branding opportunities are created equal. Bloggers really need to analyze them before they write, myself included. Some are best avoided.

Gasparino to FBN…

TVNewser scoops that CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino is jumping ship to FBN. This is pretty huge. It’s a major defection, the biggest since Liz Claman…

Megyn Kelly Non-profile…

Slate’s Troy Patterson non-profiles FNC’s Megyn Kelly with a lead paragraph that’s keeps that 10pm rumor alive and kicking, even though there’s been nothing to suggest it will happen. At some point we’re going to have to see more than uneducated guesses that Greta won’t get renewed at 10pm when her contract is up. I’m calling this a non-profile because one usually needs the co-operation of the one being profiled for it to be considered a real profile…

The future of Fox News began on Feb. 1, when Megyn Kelly popped up behind the anchor desk on a new two-hour show called America Live (1 p.m. ET). The program itself is not anything special, nor does it need to be. As a midday show, its sole purpose is to keep a stream of information—meaningless and otherwise—flowing at a decent pace. As a Fox News offering, it just needs to throw out some red-state red meat, U.S. commercial grade or higher, every other block. But Kelly, here working for the first time as a solo anchor, is a natural. “She seems to be progressing through Fox’s star-making machinery,” the New York Times recently understated. The article went on to note that the contract of Greta Van Susteren, Fox News’ 10 p.m. anchor, expires at the end of the year. It can’t be news to Greta that Kelly, her presentation sharp and jazzy, is more than ready for prime time.

The Hazards of Live TV: #25,045

This is really embarrassing…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: Submissions…

Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/What’s Not. I’ll post the finalists Sunday night…

MSNBC Primetime’s Profitablity…

Keith Olbermann commented on Daily Kos about how much money MSNBC primetime is making…(via J$)

Reports from tv trade publications have charted the finances of MSNBC over the last few years. When Countdown started seven years ago next month the operation was losing a lot of money. By 2005, largely through advertising on Countdown, we were at about break-even. In 2006 we started to make a small profit. By 2007 it was reportedly around $100 million. The 2009 estimate was twice that, and I don’t think that correctly gauged the profit off Rachel’s show.

We are, despite what the Right would like to believe, an ATM. All previous incarnations of MSNBC – including the Fox Lite stuff of 2002-03 – were financial disasters. Guess which MSNBC a company like Comcast wants to be buying?

Whatever else you think of these guys, they are not in the habit of saying “a billion in profit over the next five years? Who needs it! Cancel the shows that generate it! (Oh, and let’s keep paying both of their salaries, too).”

If you want to argue the other points of the Senator’s stand, have at – you can understand why I need to recuse myself. But the “they’ll-kill-Keith-and-Rachel” stuff is an understandable but groundless fear.

The Hazards of Live TV: #25,044

I need to set this clip up. At the top of the 3pm hour David Shuster reported on MSNBC that a Georgian luger had been in a horrific accident. Shuster tossed to Chris Jansing in Vancouver to report on the story. Around 3:17 pm Shuster reported that the luger had passed away from his injuries. Seven minutes later MSNBC came out of commercial directly to Chris Jansing, not David Shuster in New York, and she again reported on the accident. Around 15-20 seconds into her report I realized Jansing didn’t know the luger was dead. MSNBC reported it 7 minutes earlier. The lower 3rds said the luger was dead. But nobody bothered to let her know.

If MSNBC had reported the update a minute or two before Jansing came on, I could see how maybe the news hadn’t trickled down to her yet. But seven minutes is an eternity in cable news. And remember, they went straight to her out of break. That had to be set up in advance so someone was talking to her. But nobody bothered to let her know the luger was dead. And NBC News and NBC Sports is out in force in Vancouver and they couldn’t keep their on the air reporter in the loop? This is inexcusable. Someone dropped the ball big time.

To make matters worse, MSNBC let Jansing twist in the wind for two minutes reporting out of date information, while the lower third’s current information made her look bad, before Shuster interrupted to report, again, that the luger was dead.

Harold Ford off the NBC/MSNBC payroll…for now.

Politico’s Michael Calderone scoops that NBC/MSNBC analyst Harold Ford’s contributor contract has been suspended because Ford is mulling a Senate run…

When Harold Ford appears on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this Sunday, it’ll be as chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, according to a network release. On the show’s website, he’s listed as a “political insider.”

But when he’s more recently appeared on NBC and MSNBC programs — such as “Today,” “Hardball,” and “Morning Joe” — it was as an “NBC Political Analyst.”

An MSNBC spokesperson tells POLITICO that Ford’s deal “was put on hold” a few weeks ago, meaning that the network is not currently paying him. “We’ve still booked him in his capacity as a potential Senate candidate and he’s questioned as such,” said the spokesperson.

Update: The New York Observer’s Felix Gillette has more details…

A spokesman for Mr. Ford, Tammy Sun, explained to The Observer in an email: “Harold Ford asked for the leave of absence from NBC as a paid analyst while he weighs a run for the U.S Senate. Consistent with that, he also asked for an unpaid leave of absence from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch while he travels the state, listens to voters and weighs an opportunity to serve them in the Senate.”

Geist vs. Jansing…

Yesterday Willie Geist challenged Chris Jansing to a zip line race in Vancouver. The results of said challenge were broadcast on Morning Joe this morning. Bonus points to whoever cued up “Mountain Song”. Classic album..

Business Week and Bloomberg TV team up…

TVNewser reports that the first on air collaboration between Business Week and Bloomberg TV occurred this week…

Bloomberg BusinessWeek had an exclusive sit-down interview with President Obama that ran today, and BusinessWeek reporters have been appearing on BloombergTV to discuss the story all week. Al Hunt, who was was among the reporters who took part in the interview, has more tonight on his show “Political Capital” at 6:30pmET.