The Media Continue to Circle Around Piers Morgan…

In a semi-must read, The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren A. E. Schuker and Paul Sonne write about Piers Morgan in the wake of the NotW scandal. Notable sections…

Two people close to CNN say that there has been ongoing discussion about the situation internally at the network, and Mr. Morgan has repeatedly reassured executives that he never hacked a phone or did anything illegal.

And this describing the “background check” the network ran on him.

Before signing him, CNN executives carefully read his books and thoroughly questioned him about his journalistic habits and ethics, a person close to the network said. A lot of the questioning, this person said, surrounded not telephone-hacking practices but Mr. Morgan’s firing from the Mirror in 2004, after he authorized the newspaper’s publication of photographs showing Iraqis being abused by British soldiers that the British army alleged were fakes.

Since CNN was hiring Mr. Morgan to host an interview show, rather than cover breaking news, the discussion focused on Mr. Morgan’s methods for booking guests for the show. CNN wanted to ensure that Mr. Morgan would never pay for interviews, this person said, and were satisfied with his answers.

“He wasn’t hired to be a news anchor or correspondent; he was being hired as a personality—that dictated the standards,” a person close to the network said. “He came off as a guy who had been chastened by his past and as someone who had the intelligence to grow and learn from it,” this person added.

CNBC Failure…

Earlier this afternoon I got a press release from CNBC…

MEDIA ALERT: WATCH LIVE TV COVERAGE OF THE OPENING OF THE ASIAN MARKETS ON CNBC.COM – SUNDAY, JULY 31ST AT 7:30PM ET

What: With the breakdown in debt talks and all attention on how the global stock markets will react, CNBC.com will live stream CNBC Asia’s coverage of the opening of the Asian markets on its homepage.

Yes, you read that right. CNBC makes a big deal about global stock markets and debt crisis but wouldn’t take CNBC US out of tape to cover it…or even simulcast CNBC Asia. No, you had to go to CNBC.com to watch CNBC Asia.

Further making CNBC’s blown call look even more ridiculous, CNN, MSNBC, FNC, Bloomberg, and FBN were all live tonight covering the latest developments. CNBC was the only major network to stay in tape.

It would be somewhat amusing if this wasn’t just the latest example of CNBC blowing weekend coverage and getting lapped by the competition. Now, it’s just plain sad. The network seems incapable of learning from its mistakes.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 07/31/11

What’s Hot:

Debt Crisis – The seemingly never ending saga is still not ended and cable news is all over it.

Craig Melvin – Melvin joins MSNBC as an anchor. Where he’ll wind up is anybody’s guess at this point…

What’s Not:

Washington D.C. – #F***YouWashington

Al Sharpton – More articles this week questioning giving Sharpton a 6pm show on MSNBC.

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 on Sunday night…

FNC Weekend Debt Crisis Coverage Plans

FNC’s altered schedule for this weekend…

Saturday

10:00am The Cost of Freedom

Inside the last minute deals on the Hill with the biggest names in business and politics! Neil’s LIVE in DC!

10:00pm Stossel

America in crisis! The debt debate could cripple our country … why can’t lawmakers make a deal?

Sunday

4:00pm Your World w/ Neil Cavuto (cc)

Neil’s LIVE in D.C. with special coverage of the debt deabate in Washington

5:00pm America’s News HQ

Bringing you the stories that matter most!

6:00pm Special Report w/ Bret Baier

Up-to-the-minute reports on the debt debate in Washington!

7:00pm FOX Report w/ Shepard Smith (cc)

News is breaking – and Shep is bringing you all the action LIVE!

8:00pm Huckabee

America’s drowning in debt … but you don�t have to! Find out how to keep your money safe!

9:00pm Hannity

Sean is LIVE bringing you all of the breaking news from the beltway!

10:00pm On the Record w/ Greta (cc)

Greta is LIVE with all of the breaking updates on Capitol Hill!

CNN Weekend Debt Crisis Coverage Plans

CNN announced some schedule changes for this weekend in order to cover the Debt crisis…

SATURDAY, July 30

THE SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER – Airs LIVE Saturday 6:00PM – 7:00PM
Live coverage of the debt crisis negotiations.

Anchor: Wolf Blitzer

SUNDAY, July 31

STATE OF THE UNION WITH CANDY CROWLEY – Airs LIVE Sunday 9:00AM – 10:00AM, NOON – 1:00PM

Topic: Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Guest: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Minority Leader

Topics: Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Guest: Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Topics: Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Guest: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Budget Committee

Topics: Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Guest: Mark Zandi, chief economist, Moody’s Analytics

Guest Anchor: Gloria Borger

GET IT DONE! : COUNTDOWN TO DEBT CRISIS – Airs LIVE Sunday 9:00PM – 11:00PM

A live, two-hour special co-anchored by Wolf Blitzer from Washington and Don Lemon from Atlanta on the latest from the debt crisis negotiations.

Anchors: Wolf Blitzer and Don Lemon

MSNBC Weekend Debt Crisis Coverage Plans

MSNBC is expanding its regular news programming this weekend to cover the debt crisis. As of now MSNBC will be live until 3pm Saturday and 2pm Sunday but that may get extended depending on how events unfold. In related news, The Ed Show will air live tonight at 10pm with Thomas Roberts filling in.

Related: TVNewser’s Alex Weprin reports that FNC’s Neil Cavuto is in Washington D.C. where he will anchor coverage tomorrow…

Free for All: 07/29/11

What’s on your mind? Mine’s on sleep since I was up all night. Nighty night…

The Hazards of Live TV: #25,116

Looks like Pat Caddell needs a time out…

Press Releases: 07/28/11

CNN (1)

CNN, the James Weldon Johnson Institute of Emory University and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights Join to Launch Forum Series
Inaugural Presentation Moderated by Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday, Aug. 31 in Atlanta, Georgia

CNN, the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights have joined together to launch CNN Dialogues, a series of public discussions featuring prominent figures debating the major issues that define our times. CNN’s lead political anchor and anchor of The Situation Room Wolf Blitzer will moderate the inaugural program on Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 7:00pm ET at The Cecil B. Day Chapel of The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. This first public forum will focus on the U.S. Census and the impact of the nation’s changing demographics upon who we are and how we live, examining our national identity, economy, politics, and the view of America in the broader world.

Free for All: 07/28/11

What’s on your mind?

The Al Sharpton Complication…

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about issues surrounding the potential hiring of Al Sharpton by MSNBC…

Rarely, if ever, has a cable news channel employed a host who has previously campaigned for the business goals of the channel’s parent company. But as channels like MSNBC have moved to more opinionated formats, they have exposed themselves to potential conflicts. (The hosts Keith Olbermann, before he left MSNBC, and Joe Scarborough were briefly suspended in 2010 when it was reported that they had made political donations.)

MSNBC said in a statement this week, “There is no agreement with Mr. Sharpton to host a program; however, it is important to note that Comcast plays no role in either the independent editorial decision-making of MSNBC or the selection of its hosts.”

Separately, Comcast said in a statement, “Comcast pledged from the day we announced the transaction that we would not interfere with NBCUniversal’s news operations, including at MSNBC. We have not and we will not.”

Craig Melvin Joins MSNBC/NBC…

MSNBC announced that it has hired Craig Melvin as an anchor.

WRC ANCHOR CRAIG MELVIN JOINS MSNBC AS DAYSIDE ANCHOR AND NBC NEWS AS CORRESPONDENT

NEW YORK, NY—July 27, 2011—Craig Melvin will join MSNBC as a dayside anchor, effective immediately. Melvin comes to MSNBC from WRC, NBC’s owned and operated station in Washington, DC, where he anchored the station’s weekend editions of News4 and 6 and News4 at 11. In his new role at MSNBC, Melvin will contribute to various hours of MSNBC’s live news coverage. In addition, Melvin joins NBC News as a Correspondent, where he will report across all NBC News platforms.

“We are thrilled to welcome Craig to MSNBC’s dayside team,” said MSNBC President Phil Griffin. “He’s smart, loves the business and will be a great addition to the team.”

Prior to joining WRC, Melvin worked as a photographer and producer at WIS in Columbia, South Carolina. In only a few short years, Melvin became the station’s evening news anchor, earning an Emmy Award as well as “Best Anchor” from the South Carolina Broadcaster’s Association. Prior to that, Melvin served as an Our Generation reporter at WRC, while he was still attending high school. During his time there, Melvin received a prestigious Associated Press award for his reporting on innovative teaching.

Free for All: 07/27/11

What’s on your mind?

Wandering off the Reservation…

Business Insider’s Glynnis MacNicol writes about Juan Williams taking a stroll off the FNC reservation…

But the most interesting exchange came when Lehrer pressed Williams over whether Fox News was actually ‘fair and balanced.’

Williams initially demurred saying Fox allows him far more latitude to express himself in various venues than NPR ever did, but when Lehrer kept pressing Williams admitted all of Fox’s major personalities are indeed conservative and (in the case of Fox News Sunday) he is there to make sure viewers swallow “the far right conservative” view point “whole cloth.”

Press Releases: 07/26/11

CNN (1)

Coal vs. Environment – Soledad O’Brien Explores Both Sides of Mountaintop Removal Battle for Blair Mountain: Working in America airs Sunday, August 14 at 8:00pm ET & PT on CNN/U.S.

Sharples, West Virginia – population: around 100 people – is ground zero in the fight over an issue of importance to every American who has ever plugged in a computer, watched a television or taken a hot shower. Around 50 percent of electrical power in the United States is produced by coal. Across the nation, a schism that separates pro-coal and pro-environment movements over mountaintop removal, a destructive yet highly effective form of strip mining, is deepening.

CNN documents the intense struggle over mountaintop removal in Battle for Blair Mountain: Working in America, debuting on Sunday, August 14 at 8:00pm ET and PT, with a replay on Saturday, August 20. Anchor and Special Correspondent Soledad O’Brien examines the fight over Spruce One, the largest ever proposed mountaintop removal site in the U.S. When O’Brien’s team first arrived in Sharples, W.V., nearly everyone in Appalachia was waiting to see if the Environmental Protection Agency was going to allow Spruce One’s permit to proceed, citing Clean Water Act violations.

Megyn Kelly Back on FNC Soon…

Deadline Hollywood’s Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Megyn Kelly will return to FNC’s airwaves August 8th…

Free for All: 07/26/11

What’s on your mind?

Anatomy of an Ambush Interview…

In next month’s Frontline…not the PBS Frontline…this is a magazine in India…publishes a letter from Vijay Prashad describing getting ambushed by Jesse Watters. It should be noted that the main cover story in this issue concerns Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World and in general takes a very negative tone towards the media baron and his companies. To say that this is a fair and balanced treatment of Murdoch and News Corp. would be so charitable it borders on an outright lie.

IN the interests of full disclosure, I should say I have had my own run-in with Fox News. A day after Osama Bin Laden’s death, I had been on National Public Radio talking about international law and the example of the Nuremberg trial. In this regard, I criticised the killing of Bin Laden. Bill O’Reilly decided to make a target of me, and when I refused to go on his programme, he sent his “ambush reporter”, Jesse Watters, to my home.

Watters and his cameraman arrived before 7 a.m., followed me to the bus stand where I dropped off my daughter, and then chased me to my home. The broadcast segment in which O’Reilly decided to call me a pinhead brought me several hundred hostile e-mails, including several death threats. This is the quality of Fox journalism, where the nuances are less important than the ability to wield the bludgeon against those who do not toe the line.

Mark Whitaker Interview…

Adweek’s Brian Braiker interviews CNN’s Mark Whitaker…

How do you see your role at CNN?

CNN has all these platforms: domestic, a robust international network, and we’re so strong on the Web. All of those parts of the empire have been managed quite separately. The role of the managing editor would be to sort of oversee from a bird’s-eye view the tone and direction of CNN content, reporting, and editorial voice across all of those platforms. The other thing is how to become known for more than just covering breaking news.

CNBC’s HD Teasing…

Tonight CNBC carried President Obama’s address to the nation in HD. Then it was back to crummy upconverted SD again. Get with the program CNBC. You’ve shown you can broadcast in HD so hurry up and flip the HD switch on your business programming. You’re badly lagging behind everyone else now…

The Hazards of Live TV: #25,115

This evening during The Fox Report there was a massive audio glitch that affected the live TV and commercials. It was reported on DirecTV, Time Warner cable, and Comcast feeds which means it was a problem outside of the control room but before the uplink to the satellite. Master Control maybe?

Update: It took about half an hour to fix the problem…whatever it was.

Athena Jones Joins CNN…

CNN announced that it’s hired Athena Jones who will be a Washington correspondent…

Athena Jones Joins CNN Washington as Correspondent

Athena Jones will join CNN as a general assignment correspondent, it was announced today by Sam Feist, Washington bureau chief and senior vice president. Jones will report on a wide range of general news stories and will appear on programs across the network. Jones will be based in the Washington D.C. bureau and will begin her position with the network immediately.

“Athena will be an outstanding addition to our political team,” said Feist. “Her experience covering the White House, politics and international affairs are a perfect fit for the Washington bureau.”

“I’m excited to be joining the CNN team,” said Jones. “And look forward to getting started.”

Free for All: 07/25/11

What’s on your mind?

Phil Griffin Interview…

Mediaite has an interview with MSNBC President Phil Griffin…

Mediaite:: One of the biggest critiques of MSNBC is that there are times of, not of dearth, but there’s a lack of dissenting opinion on the network.

Griffin: I don’t want armor; I don’t want this idea that you just plow through regardless of what people are saying to you. That’s not who we are. I don’t think that’s healthy. But I do believe in a strong, fact-based point of view that’s willing to take a position and willing to bring in others and discuss it.

Mediaite: But if I go back and I look at the guests that have been on air for the last week, and I see apart from Michael Steele and one or two other people, I don’t really see many dissenting opinions.

Griffin: I’d say you see a few. I can name the shows and what they are. Sometimes it’s not easy, because people don’t want to come on because they’d like to point us in a different direction, but that’s not our goal. I like dissenting opinions. We’re breaking a different kind of ground, and we’re threading a needle, but it’s worked.

Mediaite: Do you ever get pushback from any of the NBC News talent, like Brian Williams, about your focus on opinion and analysis over news?

Griffin: When this first started, I’d say it was complicated, but ultimately, we’re different from NBC News. We put NBC news people on, but they are labeled as as NBC news people appearing on MSNBC. When Andrea Mitchell’s on MSNBC, nobody’s thinking any differently of her than when they see her on the news. They get who she is, they get who Ed Schultz is. The audience is smart, and you can respect both.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 07/24/11

What’s Hot:

News International/News Corp. – The nets turned part of their attention to across the Atlantic as Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, and Rebekah Brooks appeared before a Parliamentary committee to talk about the News of the World hacking scandal and the resultant fallout.

Debt Crisis – The rest of the net’s attention was focused on the debt crisis talks in Washington.

Cenk Uygur Exits MSNBC – And he doesn’t go quietly…

Hazards of Live TV – Was there something in the air? A big uptick in gaffes, goofs, and self-inflicted wounds this week…

What’s Not:

Al Sharpton to MSNBC at 6pm? – Even though I think it’s a big mistake, it appears that it’s going to happen.

The Hazards of Live TV: #25,114

Take one CNN live remote, mix in one Howard Stern fan….

The Case Against Al Sharpton…

John McWhorter argues in the New York Daily News that MSNBC shouldn’t hire Al Sharpton. It’s too bad MSNBC is choosing to ignore the warning signs and will apparently forge ahead with putting Sharpton on at 6pm…

Yet the weight of his past exploits remains considerable, especially when, as an apparent gesture to old-style Black Power unity, he has neglected to apologize for these episodes in anything but the vaguest of terms. Need a cable talk show host have led a morally pristine life? Certainly not; Fox News personalities are not all choir boys, and America quickly got past the initial oddity of Eliot Spitzer’s co-hosting a (short-lived) show on CNN.

However, it is hard not to perceive that Sharpton has a great deal more moral transgression in his past than Spitzer’s seedy extended peccadillo. Besides, Spitzer lent to the job his penetrating analytical skills and longstanding engagement with the issues of the day.

This is something Sharpton, despite his intelligence, does not bring to the table. We classify Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity neither as geniuses nor as impartial, of course, but both are hungry generalists in a way that Sharpton is not and has never claimed to be. They, in other words, are talk show hosts; Sharpton is a race crusader.

Here, the more recent past is instructive, such as Sharpton’s debate performances during his run for the presidency in 2004. Asked his views on free trade, Sharpton responded that “African-Americans are here on a bad trade policy … just because it’s trade doesn’t mean that it is good and it is something that we should support.” Some found this clever, but it also revealed Sharpton as uninterested in the substance of issues beyond ones centered on race. Rep. Charlie Rangel has noted that, in general, Sharpton has displayed no interest in legislation making its way through Congress.

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 on Sunday night…

Talking Head Primetime Invades Daytime: Chapter 11

This one comes courtesy of MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts and is predictably catching fire on the right side of the blogosphere. This is the problematic part…

THOMAS ROBERTS: Well, that is something that affects everybody across this country. It doesn’t have to be – it doesn’t have to be with the LGBT community, it talks about all Americans. But I do want to talk about what GOProud is doing in reaching out an invitation to Michele Bachmann to take a meeting. Where does that stand right now? Has the Bachmann camp gotten back to you? Will they meet with you?

JIMMY LASALVIA: Well, at this point we are having a dialogue with them. And when there’s something to report, I’ll let you know. You know, we’re reaching out to all of the presidential candidates because, frankly, gay Americans are living in the Obama economy too, and it’s important that we beat him next November and replace this failed president. So we’re reaching out -

ROBERTS: But you will replace him with a person that would extinguish you. You’re replacing him with a person that doesn’t believe that that you have a right in this country to get married, that believes you don’t even have a right in this country to be gay because she co-owns a clinic that will convert you.

LASALVIA: Well, I think all the presidential candidates should hear our perspective as gay Americans who, like you, live our lives openly and honestly because we bring a unique perspective to our American experience. And I think it’s important for anyone running for that office to hear that perspective.

It’s not quite to the level of Ed Schultz screaming that the “Republican party wants to see you dead” but it’s in the ballpark. Roberts clearly feels passionately about this issue but more restraint is called for on dayside news. “Extinguish” was an extremely poor word choice on his part. If Roberts wants to take on more of an advocacy role he’s free to do so…on primetime where that kind of vitriolic rhetoric is all too common. It doesn’t have a place on a straight news hour.