Phil Griffin Apologizes for Chris Matthews’ Koch Brothers “Pigs” Slam…But Matthews Won’t…

NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard writes about a pair of phone conversations between MSNBC President Phil Griffin and Mark Holden, VP and General Counsel of Koch Industries, regarding Chris Matthews calling the Koch brothers “Pigs” on the air Tuesday…

On Thursday, during a phone call with Holden, Griffin apologized for Matthews’ “crass language” aimed at the Kochs, and advised Holden that the Hardball host has been talked to about such behavior in the past and even disciplined.

Holden thanked Griffin, but asked for Matthews to also be required to apologize.

Griffin didn’t believe such a thing would happen, but repeatedly asked Holden to get the Kochs to be interviewed on MSNBC.

This prompted Holden to ask if MSNBC was badgering the Kochs in order to get them to come on the air; Griffin didn’t answer.

On the plus side, Griffin agreed to formally correct on the air the inaccurate statements made by Markey during Tuesday’s broadcast regarding Koch’s position on energy subsidies.

With that, Holden again asked Griffin to get Matthews to apologize. Griffin said he’d get back to him Friday.

Unfortunately, Griffin told Holden Friday that Matthews has refused to apologize and that after reviewing the footage from Tuesday’s broadcast, there will be no corrections concerning the inaccurate statements about Koch’s position on energy subsidies.

The Hardball host acknowledged that he shouldn’t have made these comments admitting that he crossed the line while assuring that it won’t happen again. But he’s not going to apologize, and Griffin isn’t going to force him to.

CNBC Election Day…

CNBC announced its election day coverage plans…

CNBC ANNOUNCES COMPREHENSIVE ELECTION DAY COVERAGE PLANS

Special Edition of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” at 5PM ET

“Your Money, Your Vote” at 7PM ET

CNBC’s Award-Winning Reporters Live Across the U.S.

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., November 2, 2012—With the economy the No.1 issue in this election, CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, announces extensive coverage of the 2012 Presidential Election.

CNBC’s election night coverage will begin with a two-hour special edition of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” at 5PM ET anchored by Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Beginning at 7PM ET, CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and Carl Quintanilla will anchor the network’s primetime special “Your Money, Your Vote,” with Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood reporting live from the virtual electoral map room at CNBC Global Headquarters. The primetime special will include real-time results and instant analysis from Washington to Wall Street to the vital battle ground states.

CNBC’s all-star panels of the network’s reporters and distinguished guests will not only provide up to-the-minute election results but push the conversation forward to America’s debt crisis and long-term economic strategy. CNBC experts Larry Kudlow, host of “The Kudlow Report,” Senior Economics Reporter Steve Liesman, Rick Santelli and Tyler Mathisen will offer commentary and in-depth analysis of the impact the election could have on key issues including the economy and health care throughout the night.

Fair and Balanced?

MSNBC announced its election night coverage plans. Did you spot the change in practice? I did. No, I’m not talking about the all non-journalist pundit team behind the desk. That’s long been cemented in stone. No, I’m talking about the new tactic of putting a journalist on the ground at Romney headquarters but a birds of a feather pundit on the ground at Obama headquarters. Fair and Balanced treatment? I report. You decide.

Megyn Kelly Interview

The Miami Herald’s Glenn Garvin interviews Megyn Kelly…

Curiously, letting her own personality emerge proved the most difficult part of becoming an anchor, Kelly says. As a lawyer, the only emotion she showed in the courtroom was ferocity. (“I can’t wait to kick your ass,” she infamously once told an opposing attorney.) As a reporter, she took a just-the-facts-ma’am approach. As an anchor, her bosses told her she had to let go a little bit — audiences didn’t want to spend two hours with an automaton.

“I was putting up a wall,” Kelly acknowledges. “[Fox News boss] Roger Ailes told me, ‘Take more risks, don’t be afraid of being vulnerable, show who you are.’ It wasn’t easy for me at first. When you’re putting up a front … and you get rejected, you can take comfort in the fact that it’s just your professional self. But if it’s your actual self, then they’re actually rejecting you. It’s scarier.”

Kelly accepted the advice, sometimes to a surprising degree. She even agreed to do Howard Stern’s radio show, where she answered questions ranging from the size of her breasts (“my husband calls them Killer B’s”) to the old slumber party favorite of name-association with the phrase fornicate-marry-kill (“Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck.”)

Kelly offers no apologies for that one — “It was a great opportunity to get the Fox News brand in front of an audience that wasn’t very familiar with it.” And she demurs when it’s suggested that, once upon a not-so-long-ago time, a television anchor would have jumped into a volcano before appearing on Stern’s show.

Free for All: 11/02/12

What’s on your mind?

Shannon Bream Profile…

The Charlotte Observer’s Matt Washburn profiles Shannon Bream…

Bream was practicing labor law in Tampa when she got the TV news bug. She talked a local news director into letting her have an internship, then an entry-level job writing scripts on the overnight shift.

When a new news director arrived, he decided to clean house and called in Bream.

“He told me I was terrible. He said, ‘You’re the worst person I’ve ever seen on television.’ He said, ‘I hope you’re a better lawyer than a reporter, and you need to go back to that.’”

Bream had a good weep in a soundproof edit bay, summoned the strength to make a dignified exit and went looking for her next job. She found it in 2001 at Channel 3 alongside longtime morning anchor John Carter.

Carter remembers Bream as smart, poised and hard-working, but most of all funny.

They were doing a newscast from Channel 3’s old Center City studio beside Bank of America when one of the robotic cameras went haywire.

“She’s reading this serious story and the camera pointed at her starts going up and down and sideways, and then spinning around while the video part of the story was running.

“She just lost it laughing and she fell out of her chair. Its was spinning around like nobody’s business, like it was possessed. She was on the floor, and I had to finish reading the story, then we went to commercial.

“From that day on, there was never a day there wasn’t a production person there in case those cameras went wrong.”