Talking Biz News’ Chris Roush writes about CNBC moving anchor Kelly Evans to Squawk on the Street…
Nik Deogun, editor in chief and senior vice president at CNBC, sent out the following staff announcement on Friday morning:
Read the memo announcing the news over on Talking Biz News…
Remember that Meet The Press high capacity magazine story from earlier this year? Well, it’s still alive…sort of…it’s gone to the world of FOIA requests and lawsuits. The Washington Times’ Emily Miller writes about it…
Mr. Levine’s letter provided new information, such as that the source of the “high-capacity” magazine. “Meet the Press briefly borrowed the empty magazine from a private citizen who lives outside of the District of Columbia and who ‘Meet the Press’ understood possessed the magazine lawfully,” he wrote.
The NBC lawyer also claimed, “The magazine was immediately returned to its owner following the broadcast.”
However, according to a police “property record” document, a Kay Industries 30-round magazine was recovered from Mr. Gregory (at a redacted address) as part of an active investigation. The document is signed on Jan. 9, two days after Mr. Levine said the magazine had been returned to its owner.
The lawyer’s letter also sheds light on the way NBC blatantly violated the law.
On Sunday Dec. 23, Mr. Gregory held up the illegal magazine to illustrate the anchor’s position in an interview with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.
His lawyer’s excuses to the prosecutor were that, “NBC incorrectly interpreted the information it received from [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] and MPD. It believed that the display of an unloaded magazine not attached to any firearm during a news interview would not be objectionable.”
The police documents show there was no confusion. At 4 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 21, a NBC producer, whose name was redacted, emailed MPD this: “Meet the Press is interviewing a person on the show this Sunday in studio -Producers for the show would liek [sic] to have a clip (standard and high power), without ammunition in studio to use on the show. There will be no gun, no bullets, just clips. Is this legal?”
At 9 p.m., someone at MPD — again, the name was blacked out — replied: “No, possession of high capacity magazines is a misdemeanor under Title #7 of the D.C. Code. We would suggest utilizing photographs for their presentation.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s Paul Bond writes about conservative protests at Comcast’s shareholder meeting…
Inside the venue, the first question came from Tom Borelli, an activist shareholder who helped spread the word to conservatives that MSNBC would be targeted at the meeting. Borelli tried to make the case that conservatives were ditching Comcast’s cable service “because of the overwhelmingly biased and misleading coverage by MSNBC.”
“If you sit back and think about it,” said Borelli, “why would a conservative person in any state want their money to go pay for Al Sharpton’s salary? Have you contemplated the damage that MSNBC and its biased coverage is doing to the overall Comcast business?”
Roberts didn’t buy the premise, given all of the distributors – Time Warner Cable, Dish Network, DirecTV, Verizon, AT&T – that carry MSNBC.
“Ultimately, I think, giving diversity of voices has been what cable has stood for all these years, whether it’s one side or another, so I don’t think in the long run it will change the trajectory of Comcast cable,” Roberts said.
Borelli countered that internal polls at FreedomWorks, a Tea Party organization he’s affiliated with, suggests 50 percent of conservatives would consider dropping Comcast services due to its ownership of MSNBC.
Roberts, though, noted that churn at Comcast is better than it is at competing cable and satellite TV services.
“Conservatives may abandon your business. That doesn’t make sense to you to test that possibility?” Borelli asked over an objection from a different Comcast executive that his question was turning into a debate.
“We appreciate the comment. All the management’s here. We heard your point. Thank you very much,” Roberts said.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Michael O’Connell writes about Sean Hannity’s 1,000th show…
THR: Have you ever really feared for your job?
Hannity: In all honesty, I did have a bad haircut and I had no business being on television. I was awful. I’ve said to Roger [Ailes] many times, “Why didn’t you fire me in the first six months? I was god awful.” He said nobody was really watching then. The timing for me to grow was perfect. Today, there would have been articles written about how I did that first night. It’s much more competitive.
FNC had Hannity doing a lot of interviews about his 1,000th show. The number seemed kind of an arbitrary reason for this level of PR to me. Yes, it was his 1,000th but Hannity & Colmes had been on the air nearly three times as long and it never got this kind of orchestrated press attention when it hit its 10 year mark as far as my memory recalls.
But this particular exchange I found the most noteworthy of all of the interviews because it underscores just how much the focus has tilted in the media towards cable news. It’s not just that FNC’s numbers are astronomically larger by comparison to its launch day. It’s the whole ecosystem on the internet that had emerged which is aimed at breaking down every little cable news detail that transpires.
CNN Digital is noting its April numbers…
Record-Breaking April for CNN Digital
CNN.com Takes Top Spot for Breaking News
As the events in Boston unfolded last month, the world turned to CNN on air, online and on the go. Topping every news and information competitor, CNN Digital posted its most trafficked week (536 mm page views) and story in history (87 mm page views, source: Adobe SiteCatalyst). April also marked CNN.com’s second highest month on record for global video starts (162.5mm) and the narrowest margin (15%) ever between the CNN Digital Network and combined Yahoo!-ABC News rollup in unique visitors. A record-breaking month for CNN, April highlights include:
#1 Site for Breaking News
Throughout the week of the Boston manhunt, CNN.com was the most trafficked news and information site online, topping Yahoo! News with an all-time high of 536 million page views:
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CNBC (1)
YAHOO! FINANCE AND CNBC LAUNCH THEIR THIRD ORIGINAL CO-PRODUCTION, “TALKING NUMBERS”
A Successful Franchise on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” Becomes a Fully Integrated Media Experience on Yahoo! Finance
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 14, 2013 – Yahoo! Finance and CNBC launch their third original co-production, “Talking Numbers.” Hosted by CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, “Talking Numbers” is a fully integrated media experience that takes a 360° approach to trading, highlighting the best investment opportunities by analyzing stocks from both a technical and fundamental point of view. But “Talking Numbers” will do more than just tell investors what to buy; it will show them HOW to buy. Watch the inaugural episode on Yahoo! Finance at: http://finance.yahoo.com/topics/talking-numbers/
“Talking Numbers” teaches viewers how to harness both the technical and fundamental data points to become better investors. The daily online show will be divided into three self-contained segments, featuring dynamic discussions between Sullivan and two market professionals: Richard Ross (“The Chartist”), Auerbach Grayson Global Technical Strategist, and Enis Taner, CFA (“The Trader”), RiskReversal.com Global Macro Editor.
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