What’s Hot/What’s Not: 04/21/13

What’s Hot:

Terrorism at the Boston Marathon – Not since 9/11 have we seen the news networks go to this level of wall to wall coverage of something impacting the USA. It was not uncommon to see some cable news anchors on two of the three US networks spend ten hours on the air.

The Hunt for the Bombers – After the initial incidents coverage quickly pivoted to identifying and finding those responsible for the bombings.

Jumping the gun – In a fluid situation one should expect some fudge factor to creep in to the reporting. It is up to the networks to remain vigilant and double and triple check sources. But sometimes even following the rules won’t protect you. We witnessed several examples of that this week. The optics of this look bad but I’m probably a little more forgiving than others in one regard. It’s one thing to do something stupid like reading something on Twitter and immediately putting it on the air…if you’re going to be that reckless you deserve all the ridicule you’ll get. But if you do your legwork correctly and you are being fed (what turned out later to be) incorrect information by official responsible parties, what are you supposed to do? Ignore it? This is why I’m going to put this under the Hot category rather than the Not Hot category.

BOOM! – Phil Griffin cackles at FNC in the morning…FNC does the PR equivalent of squashing Griffin like a bug in the afternoon.

What’s Not:

That Said – Griffin had a point and FNC’s public response to the criticism of not covering Obama’s public address (or political campaign if you are so inclined to call it that) was weak. Even Guttfeld realized it wasn’t handled well at the time.

Not All Demo Ratings Are Created Equal – MSNBC’s Demo ratings not being able to scale the way CNN’s and FNC’s did for the Boston attack underscored a weakness in its ability to deliver news in the public’s eyes.

Martin Bashir Covering Margaret Thatcher’s Funeral – I wouldn’t have a problem with Bashir doing it except, as Mediaite’s Noah Rothman pointed out, Bashir was none too kind to the Iron Lady after she passed away. Bashir in effect poisoned his own well and should have had coverage duty taken away from him as a result. That MSNBC did not says more about them than it does about Bashir.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 04/07/13

What’s Hot:

Karen Finney – Gets a show on MSNBC weekend evenings…

Ali Velshi – Velshi bolts CNN and lands at Al Jazeera America.

Ari Melber – Melber takes over for Steve Kornacki on The Cycle.

North Korea – Things have been heating up there all week.

What’s Not:

The Point – CNN’s Five/Cycle/View knockoff illustrates that the market is saturated and the well is dry. Hopefully Jeff Zucker has actual rabbits he can pull out of his hat instead of turkeys like this…

North Korea – The coverage from the cable nets has been mostly lame. The analysis, what there is of it, has been almost as bad from a point of view of informing the viewer about what’s going on and how this fits in the recent turbulence in Southeast Asia and America’s new focus in the region. Too bad North Korea isn’t located in the Middle East. We would no doubt be seeing much more focused coverage and analysis. And I’m not done ranting on this subject. Expect a blog post soon after I give my thoughts time to coalesce.

The Return of Crossfire – You can’t go back to your childhood and CNN can’t go back to a format that died as a viable medium over half a decade ago. Well, it can…but it won’t work.

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. And nobody will get bonus points for naming The Point to the Not Hot list. That’s a foregone conclusion.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 03/31/13

What’s Hot:

Tucker Carlson – Gets hired to co-host Fox and Friends Weekend

Kate Bolduan – Tapped to co-host CNN’s new morning show with Chris Cuomo.

What’s Not:

The Anderson Cooper/Kathy Griffin Comedy Hour – Or whatever CNN was meddling with for a pilot. Burn the tapes!

John King – King made a comment about the state of cable news programming in the mornings…apparently unaware that it would take off like wildfire across the internet.

Erin Burnett – Left twisting in CNN’s 7pm wind after Bolduan got hired for mornings.

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 03/24/13

What’s Hot:

Presenting Jake Tapper – The Lead debuted this week. Ratings have been meh…but it’s really early days…

Steve Kornacki – Kornacki gets the Up gig…

Peeling back the veil? Hell, let’s torch it! – Off topic but…this is the best insidery piece I’ve read since Gabriel Sherman’s cable news opus two years ago. Simply stunning…

What’s Not:

Roland Martin Out at CNN – Um…when do we start seeing the new breed of CNN analysts that need to come to replace all those who are getting let go?

The New Face of CNN? – Tapper can’t be thrilled with the target Jeff Zucker just hung on his back…

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 03/17/13

What’s Hot:

Conclave 2013 – It dominated the first half of the week…

Ed Schultz Out, Chris Hayes In – Schultz wanted a lighter schedule…he got it. Hayes now has to show that his winning weekend style will transfer the the most bombastic primetime hour on cable news.

What’s Not:

HLN and Jodi Arias – Yes it’s doing ratings gold but it’s such a shameless ratings ploy…

CPAC 2013 – Four years from the next Presidential election all eyes turned to CPAC. Um, why other than because cable news is hooked on politics the way a junkie is hooked on crack?

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 03/10/13

What’s Hot:

The Erin Burnett Saga – Is she going to mornings? Is she staying in evenings? Who knows. Not even CNN apparently..

Roger Ailes – Zev Chaffet’s book is coming and Vanity Fair had a preview…

Conclave Watch – The media waited for the Vatican to announce the start of the conclave, which it did at the end of the week.

O’Reilly vs. Colmes – Got a lot of ink this week…

What’s Not:

Erin Burnett’s Agent – Having his client’s best interests at heart? Doesn’t look like it…

Oh look…a real Filibuster – The media went ga-ga over a meaningless filibuster by Rand Paul. There was never any doubt of the outcome on the John Brennan nomination. Even Paul knew that. Yet the media still went off the deep end since its been so long since a real filibuster took place. But it was more political grandstanding than serious dissent.

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 02/24/13

What’s Hot:

Soledad O’Brien Out At CNN (sort of) – O’Brien will be leaving the network and forming a production company that will produce specials that CNN will air.

Business News Booking Wars – CNBC has been throwing its weight around and apparently has had some success doing so.

Diving in Palau – Dive, dive, dive all trip long at one of the top 10 dive spots on the planet and you too will come back looking like this…

What’s Not:

Starting Point is still on the air – Take it off now in order to prevent an awkward and potentially destructive change over to the new CNN morning show.

Joy Behar to CNN? – I don’t see the upside…

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 01/03/13

What’s Hot:

Chris Cuomo – Cuomo bolted ABC for CNN. Score another hire for Jeff Zucker…

Mark Whitaker departs CNN – Can’t have too many chefs in CNN’s kitchen I guess…

James Carville, Mary Matalin, and Erik Erickson depart CNN – Will the last person departing CNN please turn the lights out?

Steve Capus – Must be the week to depart news networks or something because Capus is leaving NBC News…

What’s Not:

MSNBC – MSNBC got caught again using edited video in its daytime news operation. MSNBC’s response to this was to not address the matter at all other than to play the whole video.

Starting Point – Can you say “Dead show walking”?

Dining on Ashes? – Leaks (apparently) from Team Starting Point paint a picture of promises unfulfilled by CNN brass.

The Most Trusted Name in Beyonce News – CNN’s decision to cover Beyonce’s press conference live shows the not so invisible hand of Jeff Zucker at work. Up next? The latest on Justin Bieber no doubt. There’s absolutely not truth to the rumor that Zucker is working hard to bring Mary Hart out of retirement. Hopefully…

5 and 1 – No comment.

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…

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 01/06/12

What’s Hot:

The Fiscal Cliff – It dominated the previous weekend and the holidays.

Al Jazeera buys Current TV in order to secure cable and satellite bandwidth – This has the potential to be big for international news consumers and will put pressure on CNN US to be more internationally focused than it has in the past. The one caveat is how many operators that currently carry Current will carry the new Al Jazeera network when it launches? Already Time Warner cable, which is not affilliated with the Time Warner empire anymore, has pulled the plug. But DirecTV and Dish network are still onboard for now.

Palau – Palau is hot…very hot. And so is the water. More on that soon…

What’s Not:

CNBC US – The “World Leader in Business News Worldwide” was the only network to not cover the final House vote on the fiscal cliff. CNN, MSNBC, FNC, FBN, Bloomberg TV, and CNBC World all covered it. To say this was a pathetic display by Englewood Cliffs would be a massive understatement. It was shamfeful…

CNN – Another New Year’s Eve…another reason to tune out of CNN rather than subject oneself to the insufferable Kathy Griffin.

Bill O’Reilly – O’Reilly opining on the state of Hawai’i and speculating about why the state is so liberal shows once again that ignorance of subject matter has never scared the dominant force in cable news primetime from opening his yap and shoving his foot in it. Here’s a suggestion Bill. Go spend some time on Moloka’i or Lana’i and talk to the people there. Then maybe you’ll understand how many Hawaiians really live and feel and you won’t generalize quite so much about a subject you obviously know so little about.

Time Warner Cable – Killing Current the moment Al Jazeera bought it says more about TWC wanting to just drop the channel anyways than it does about any thoughts it may have on the Al Jazeera purchase. Certainly BBC World News is happy about this development as that network recently got added to TWC’s lineup and won’t have to contend with the new Al Jazeera channel’s news competition.

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 2012 Hot Edition…

What’s Hot for 2012:

FBN Overhauls Primetime – The network gutted its current primetime lineup (save John Stossel’s one night a week show) and will replace it with repeats of earlier in the evening business shows. In addition the network is moving Geri Willis to early prime and adding a show for Melissa Francis at 5pm ET.

Larry King and CNN part company? – Word emerged that CNN wasn’t going to be doing any more Larry King specials.

Sarah Palin on CNN for Stupid Super Tuesday – CNN sending a reporter up to Alaska to stake out a specific polling place in the hopes of corralling Sarah Palin was a stroke of genius. Palin is a contractual FNC contributor but has shown occasional tendencies in the past to “go rogue” off FNC’s reservation when a non FNC camera and microphone are shoved in her face. Any normal high profile FNC contributor would have kept their comments to a terse minimum, but not Palin. One could literally feel the frustration emanating from the Avenue of the Americas as executives at FNC watched helplessly as their contributor actually answered questions relayed by the Alaska reporter from John King on CNN’s air. The only thing more surprising than CNN’s extended exclusive with Palin was that she wasn’t banished for the evening by FOX. If I had been in charge she would have been punished for giving CNN all that buzz. She turned up later on with Neil Cavuto where the big scoop for FBN was Palin revealing who she voted for. Too little, too late. CNN had already stolen the show.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 2012 Not Edition…

What’s Not for 2012:

MSNBC shafts Pat Buchanan for the wrong reasons – The issue never was Pat’s incendiary positions. No, those were well known and tolerated at MSNBC and NBC for years. It was placating its Progressive viewing base that was the issue. A precedent had been set; if you’re Progressive and you’re peeved with MSNBC over something it did, you now had a network more willing to listen than before.

Quid Pro Quo? – MSNBC allowed Ed Schultz to participate in a Democrat retreat as a panel guest. Schultz also got an interview with Nancy Pelosi while at the retreat. There may have been no connection between the two but it’s a situation that on its face doesn’t look good.

Rah, Rah, Rah! – CNN getting caught twice showing a staffer whipping up the crowd at its Florida debate raises all kinds of questions about the authenticity of the crowd response to the debate.

CNN to Trademark “Magic Wall” – Four years after it debuted, and after its become a common term of reference in the industry? Good luck with that…

Roland Martin Suspended by CNN – Was it deserved? That question is still being debated…as is CNN’s standards policy vis a vis how it’s implemented (Martin) and not implemented (Dana Loesch)…

Nancy Grace being Nancy Grace – Way to go getting all conspiracy theory over Whitney Houston’s death…

Fuku-what? – The Fukushima catastrophe has significantly altered Japan’s focus on nuclear energy with all but a tiny handful of the country’s reactors being shut down for the moment. One would have expected that the US networks would have devoted significant coverage to this ongoing issue. Well, excluding PBS’s Frontline which this year set the bar incredibly high with a pair of Peabody worthy in depth reports on the disaster, coverage in the US has been woefully inadequate. Not even CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who in the past has shown strong inclination to revisit disaster areas over and over again, has made a journey there.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 12/23/12

What’s Hot:

FNC and Gun Control discussion – Whether FNC discussed Gun Control over the weekend or not (it did) or whether or not it discussed it the way some wanted it discussed (debatable depending on your ideology), this story ran like wildfire over the internet the first half of the week thanks to…

Gabriel Sherman – Sherman has been a thorn in FNC’s side for a while now (and will be even more so when his Roger Ailes book comes out). Twice this week Sherman wrote about FNC and the gun control story. The first article about David Clark’s editorial judgement was interesting (mostly because of how FNC chose to push back on it). The second article about about the spiking of John Lott’s gun control Op-Ed, less so.

Richard who? – Everyone in the industry knew Richard Engel was missing in Syria earlier this week. But just about the only way you’d know is if you read Turkish or Twitter because, as is customary among news organizations when such a situation arises, almost nobody was writing about it except Gawker.

Jake Tapper to CNN – In a surprise move, CNN announced that it had hire Jake Tapper. It wasn’t a surprise that Tapper would choose to leave ABC; not after getting passed over for This Week twice. But it was a surprise that CNN got him. It was easily their best pick up in over a decade.

What’s Not:

The Hollywood Reporter – If you’re going to take what FNC feeds you without doing your due diligence, you should be prepared for fallout.

Target: Gabriel Sherman – The tenacity and venom in the pushback to Sherman’s first story was so over the top, it was suspect. I will wager it had less to do with shooting down Sherman’s story and more to do laying groundwork and poisoning the well for Sherman’s upcoming Ailes book.

Nielsen and Twitter – The two joined up to measure something vague having to do with TV reach on Twitter. I remain skeptical that it will lead to anything substantive.

Do as I say, not as I do – Why is it that news organizations carve out an exception for themselves when one of their own gets kidnapped? In just about every other case, news organizations won’t hesitate to write about a kidnapping or hostage situation if they get wind of it. The old boy network in action I guess…

Ben Sherwood – Whenever Sherwood steps down from ABC it should be noted in the write ups that he was the one who let Tapper slip through ABC’s fingers. He’ll never make as mistake as bad as that the rest of his career.

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 12/09/12

What’s Hot:

Roger Ailes and David Patraeus – The media made much hay over Roger Ailes’ alleged overtures to David Patraeus to run for President.

Jack Cafferty out at CNN – Even more surprising is that Cafferty left before Thanksgiving but it took until this week for the news to get out…

Phil Griffin vs. FNC – Griffin took some shots at his chief competitor this week while trying to distance his network from theirs…

What’s Not:

Jesse Watters’ political donations record – Sure it was dug up to try and embarrass Watters but it was over the line if you ask me…

Jake Tapper – It’s off topic but it needs to be said again…Jake Tapper gets repeatedly screwed by his network. Why is he still with them?

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 12/02/12

What’s Hot:

Jeff Zucker to CNN Worldwide – And now we wait to see what changes…

What’s Not:

Brrrrrrrr – It’s winter time. Why are female anchors dressing like it’s summer time?

Tom Ricks – Whatever point Ricks was trying to make on FNC got lost by how he made it…

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 11/18/12

What’s Hot:

Roger Ailes Speaks – Ailes gave an interview to TVNewser and it was classic Ailes. You can tell how newsworthy an Ailes interview is by how much it gets picked up and regurgitated. This one got heavily regurgitated…

What’s Not:

Ed Schultz – Whether Schultz loses his 8pm timeslot or, worse, his show entirely, is not known. But the fact that it’s out there being discussed is not good for fans of Ed.

Ezra Klein in at 8pm? – One of the Schultz scenarios involved Ezra Klein taking over the 8pm hour. Bad idea. Klein isn’t 8pm material.

Screwjob – FBN got screwed out of a seemingly innocuous interview with Simpson – Bowles. The screwer was Simpson – Bowles PR team but pressure had to have been applied by CNBC. And for what? So that the network could call its interview an “exclusive”?

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…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 11/11/12

What’s Hot:

Cable News Hits the Cycle – We started the week with heavy political coverage due to the presidential election Tuesday. We closed out the week with a high profile government resignation because of a sex scandal. In between there was continued coverage of the fallout from a natural disaster (Sandy). Cable News fantasizes about hitting the trifecta of a big political story, a natural disaster, and a sex scandal. This week, it did.

Karl Rove vs. FNC’s Decision Desk – It was the most interesting thing to happen all election night, coverage-wise.

What’s Not:

Chris Matthews – Matthews shot his mouth off on the air and had to apologize for it.

Donald Trump – Trump shot his mouth off on Twitter but will never apologize for it.

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…