Newshounds.us: What's larger, the suffering caused by Katrina or our desire to capitalize on it?

Newshounds.us, the Glenn-Close-character-in-"Fatal-Attraction" of news blogs, finds a conspiracy theory even dumber than it is crazy in Fox's coverage of Katrina's aftermath:

12:42pm - FNL went live to a Bret Favre (Green Bay Packers quarterback) "news conference" for his comments about the damage in New Orleans & Hattiesburg, where his family lives. Again, FNL used the split screen with 2/3 video of New Orleans, interspersed with video of Air Force One flying around

1:00pm - to end the hour, Hemmer re-showed video of Air Force One flying around

Comments: Please tell me there is no one out there willing to say that Favre's "press conference" was a newsworthy event worth 14 uninterrupted minutes of air time. And does anyone care to speculate WHERE the video of Air Force One flying around came from? Some of it was obviously shot from cameras on the ground, but plenty of it was equally obviously shot from camerasa in a plane flying above & to the side of Air Force One. If that was a military plane, does the Pentagon have a direct feed to Fox? If it wasn't a miitary plane, what does that say about security for Air Force One?

But Newshounds.us promptly gets its crazy pills handed right back to it by a reader, who posts on the site:

"If that was a military plane, does the Pentagon have a direct feed to Fox?"

Yes, the White House pool of reporters travel with the president aboard Air Force One, this includes Fox News among other agencies. Fox News can pick up the feed from Air Force One, technology is amazing, just look at this website for example, allowing me to disprove your crazy notion in a matter of seconds.

So it's not a conspiracy, I think Al Jazeera is dedicating a text link to this story somewhere on their website if you are skilled enough to find it in the mix.

Posted by: Joe American at August 31, 2005 03:55 PM

TCG note to the very funny and astute "Joe American": email me anytime you'd like to guest-blog on TheCableGame.com!

Katrina: The emotional toll

The NYDN reports on the end of the image of reporters as yuppie scum, Part 2:

"Every street, every building, every store - they all have their own story," Fox News' Steve Harrigan told Bill Hemmer, before relating one about how many people were craving ice and water.

"You feel bad," he said. "Last time I felt like this was actually in Rwanda, where I had water and people outside of the barbed wire fence didn't have water."

The stories were gripping, too.

"How frightened were you?" CNN's Gary Tuchman asked a woman.

"Well, I think I made a few promises," she said. "I've never been really religious. I may be now."

Tuchman hugged her as she held back tears. "I know how difficult this was for you," he told her.

CNN used Jeanne Meserve's Monday reports - and her decline throughout the day - to demonstrate the effects. Early in the day, Meserve was fine, but she broke down during a dramatic call into Aaron Brown's Monday night show.

"As I left tonight, darkness of course had fallen," Meserve told Brown, struggling through her words. "You could hear people yelling for help, dogs yelping. All of them stranded, all of them hoping someone would come. But for tonight they've had to suspend the rescue efforts. ... We are sometimes wacky thrill-seekers, but when you stand in the dark and hear people yelling for help and no one can get to them, it's a totally different experience."

Hurricane correspondents: Reporting from the new Third World

Reuters reports on reporters running on empty in the South:

"The only way we have of communicating with anybody is satellite phones," said Mark Strassman, a CBS News correspondent. "Cells don't work, BlackBerrys don't work."

Network executives spent as much time trying to find ways to get food and supplies to the staff in the field.

NBC has hired a driver who owns a fuel truck to drive fuel, which is scarce throughout the Gulf Coast. Similar efforts are under way at other networks.

Strassman, who noted that his burden was nothing compared to his colleagues in New Orleans, said his crew tried to get to Gulfport, Miss., with two RVs and a satellite truck but found they had only enough gasoline to get there and not to go anywhere else.

"Getting food, getting water, getting gas are as much a part of your daily decision-making as anything else of covering the story," Strassman said.

The era of the stereotype of reporter-as-foie-gras-nibbling-yuppie-scum may have officially come to an end with Katrina.

Miami Herald: Shooting the messenger

Miami Herald reporter Frida Ghitis, dateline Amsterdam, writes disparagingly of the "voyeurism that permeates all disaster coverage":

As Hurricane Katrina spun ferociously ashore on the Gulf Coast, it wasn't just American television viewers who gave in to the morbid fascination of watching that most unnatural sight, a natural disaster unfolding on live television. European viewers, too, found themselves mesmerized by the same ominous images of roof shingles ripped by the wind, metal street signs flying across deserted streets and horizontal bullets of rain hinting at more destruction -- and possibly death -- somewhere else, where the cameras had not yet peered.

On the day the storm struck, European media brought images of exotic danger in a faraway land. By the next day, however, the tone had changed drastically, taking on an air of dread and foreboding.

What? Hurricane Katrina speaks for itself--by its very nature, Katrina is dread, foreboding, and destruction. To a certain extent, Kartina is reporting itself, in the same way it announced itself to the parts of the country that were devastated. If this is the Miami Herald's attempt at media criticism, what it has produced instead is a classic case of shooting the messenger.

Newshounds.us: FNC is covering Katrina's aftermath--the nerve!

The cyber-stalker, obsessed-with-Fox-News site Newshounds.us (their slogan--"We watch FOX so you don't have to"--says it all) bashes FNC for inexplicably covering the hurricane. NewsHounds will no doubt soon be offering similar criticism of, oh, I don't know, every single other news organization on the face of the earth this week:

Tuesday on Fox News Live, Bill Hemmer anchored the last hour of the program. As you might expect, the only "news" being reported was about the aftermath of Katrina. But FNL, always on message, saw fit to interrupt this with 24 minutes of live coverage of yet another Bush photo op/speech.

At 12:27pm Hemmer briefly recapped what Bush had been saying, then FNL went back to all-Katrina, all-the-time.

Geez. Like Katrina is a significant news story or something! Baffling.

Hurricane Katrina coverage: FNC beat CNN and MSNBC combined

FNC beat CNN and MSNBC combined in both total day and primetime Katrina coverage on Sunday. FNC averaged 2,341,000 viewers in total day, up 247% over the same day last year, the highest percentage jump among the cable news networks. CNN averaged 1,086,000 viewers and MSNBC 497,000 viewers.

In primetime, FNC had 4,073,000 viewers, beating CNN’s 2,279,000 viewers and MSNBC’s 1,021,000 viewers combined, making the night FNC’s second highest rated primetime of 2005. FNC again was up the most among the news networks, with a jump of 376% over the same day last year.

I have a theory that the power of news personalities' emotional connection with viewers can't be underestimated. Even a huge story in and of itself like Katrina can't be presented without a level of empathy that's lacking in, for example, the human ice cube tray that is Paula Zahn--pop out a neat, frozen portion of sterile reaction for each story!--and the hold-a-mirror-under-his-nose-to-make-sure-he's-alive Aaron Brown. The anchors and correspondents on FNC seemed to take the impact that Katrina had on people most seriously of all the nets; they treated the story with respect as well as awe. With notable exceptions like Anderson Cooper and Jeanne Meserve, the other network's personalities just didn't connect on a gut level with me, and perhaps most other viewers, and I think that's being reflected in the ratings.

Miles O'Brien's dog day in Baton Rouge

CNN's O'Brien notes that the media have a life--and dogs--too:

"It is truly a dog day in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Journalists covering Katrina were forced to make a lot of personal choices. Some chose not to leave their loved ones behind.

'This dog sat patiently in the halls of LSU as its owner working for WWL-TV was covering Hurricane Katrina."


O'Brien blogs that Katrina took a toll on his family's emotions:

"When I got the first calls from my bosses with my marching orders to Louisiana, I was in the midst of a long drive from Georgia to New York City.

"I was, at long last, moving my family after a summer of weekend visits. Large as it is, the Yukon XL was packed to the gills with my wife, two children, two big dogs and a lot of stuff we just had to bring. In order to keep the natives from becoming restless, I allowed them to purchase some DVDs to play along the way.

"Unbeknown to me, my 12-year-old son was watching a TV miniseries called 'Category 6: Day of Destruction,' which tells a tall tale of three huge storms, a huge power failure, a retiring weatherman, a smart, ambitious TV reporter and a dedicated tornado hunter trying to save Chicago from apocalypse. They apparently fail. Lots of people die -- that's entertainment.

"So you can imagine what went through young Murrough's head [when he] pulled off the headphones and discovered I had been on the phone coordinating a trip to a Category 5 storm. He was by no means a happy camper. I spoke at length about reality versus fiction -- and it seemed to calm him down. But he has not enjoyed this morning one bit. Called him a few minutes ago though, and he sounded relieved."

Washington Post: Harrigan feels the fear and does it anyway

The WP reports that when FNC's Steve Harrigan, hardened war correspondent, says it's scary outside,you better be afraid:

"In a broadcast yesterday, a soaked (and goggle-wearing) Harrigan described the weather conditions, including 135-mph winds, in Gulfport, Miss., as 'scary' -- this from a man who has reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the Afghan and Chechen wars.

"News anchor Jon Scott remarked: 'Steve, I know you've been in places like Afghanistan. When you describe it as 'scary' it's got to be pretty scary.' Harrigan's response: 'It is.' Yikes!"

I'm not the only one making fun of CNN's dippy windbreakers

The AJC reports on CNN correspondents' cute matching outfits for prom season, I mean hurricane season:

"'We don't give reporters outfits to wear,' said Fox News Channel spokesman Paul Schur. 'Steve Harrigan in Gulfport, Miss., has been wearing a pair of sturdy goggles and rubber shoes that grip well in the mud when the wind gets high.'

"Flood levels and power outages are important, sure, but the question on many Hurricane TV watchers' lips is, 'What's that Anderson Cooper is wearing?'

"Answer: A red heavy-duty jacket with a CNN logo the approximate size of a white cumulus cloud emblazoned over the heart area. Visible on-air in even the stormiest conditions, the jacket is part of the uniform severe weather gear that CNN began issuing after Hurricane Dennis in July.

"'The safety of our people is always foremost and paramount,' said CNN spokeswoman Megan Mahoney of the waterproof outfits made by outdoor outfitters Patagonia. 'The colors were chosen because they are the network logo colors.'

Yes, as we all know, a gigantic piece of flying debris will veer off when it approaches the mighty red of a CNN windbreaker. What Mahoney's saying doesn't make any sense or follow logically. Yes, the red will definitely flag the wearer to EMT's/passerby if you've been blown into a tree. Commendable. But what if the network logo color were black and silver? Walking around like a Pittsburgh Steeler would not be cute. And that's why CNN is dressing up its correspondents--to look cute! Solidarity by any means necessary, I guess.

CNN's Situation Room gets the Doonesbury treatment

It's kind of clever how Trudeau triple-edges this particular sword. He's making fun of CNN, plus he's making fun of the Situation Room's Abbi Tatton and Jacki Schechner-hosted "Blogosphere" segment--"What a concept--take the unreadable and make it illegible!" a character says--plus he's making fun of blogs. But here's the genius part--Trudeau is blogging himself. What's an online editorial cartoon but the creaky ancestor of blog commentary itself?

Enter the Blogbudsman

The AP reports that CBS News is starting its own network watchdog blog, Public Eye:

Public Eye "will wade into controversies over how CBS covers the news. Vaughn Ververs, editor of The Hotline, was hired to become the internal watchdog, and his reports will begin early next month.

"While Ververs won't be considered an ombudsman, Public Eye seeks to provide a level of transparency unusual for a large news organization -- particularly one damaged last fall by its flat-footed response to criticism of its story about President Bush's military service.

"Ververs will be expected to monitor other blogs, e-mails and viewer calls to report on disputes over CBS News stories before they boil over.

"Many of the reports may simply be informational, like taking a camera into the network's morning news meeting and posting video on the Web.

"Jeff Jarvis, a leader in the Web log community and author of the Buzz Machine blog, praised the CBS initiative. (Jarvis isn't involved in Public Eye, but said he met with Heyward and Kramer to offer insights into the blogging community.)"

This sounds more like web-based reality television--"Step right up, folks, and watch CBS News be very, very, very professional and serious!"--than self-policing penitence for Rathergate.

Jeff Jarvis blogs his side of the story here:

"I think there’s no such thing as an objective blogger. Or you’re probably not blogging. You’re probably not talking with people, eye to eye. We’re about to kill the myth that journalists can be thoroughly objective; let’s not start trying to accrete that artificial ethic to blogs. "

Mr. Burns, live from Meridian, MS

Anderson Cooper is live in Meridian, MS right now and just said that he's so wet and wrinkled he feels like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. Cute. It's funny, though, that CNN is paying so much attention to Missisippi when they were the only network to blow off Governor Haley Barbour's live press conference this afternoon.

The bright red CNN windbreakers all the correspondents are wearing don't look snappy to me, they look ominious/bad luck-ish: they're a little too hazmat-bright, easy-to-locate-me-under-the-piece-of-debris noticable. But all's well that ends well.

"Citizen Journalist" or witness? Depends on if your stuff gets put on the air

CNN and MSNBC have both been pushing hard for "Citizen Journalist" hurricane coverage submissions on the air today, in a branding move that seems to be the natural extension of cable news use of cell-phone-camera accounts of the London terror attacks, as noted in this July AP story about the bombings:

"'It was a clip that we used no more than two, three thousand times,' joked John Moody, Fox News Channel senior vice president. The video taken by a commuter first aired on Britain's Sky News, a Fox sister station."

CNN's "CitizenJournalist" submission site is bare-bones, to-the-point: "The best stories include details, the more the better."

MSNBC has a much more elaborate "Citizen Journalist" submission form, complete with "Assignment Desk":

"Do you have a Citizen Journalist report?...Assignment 1: Hurricane Katrina. Have you felt the impact of Hurricane Katrina? Send us your stories and email your pictures and video to CJ@MSNBC.com."

FNC has a compilation of contact e-mails and
a forum and email address dedicated to submission of Katrina accounts:

"Whether you’ve evacuated your home, witnessed a heroic action, or want to send well-wishes to those affected the most, we want to hear from you! E-mail us at speakout@foxnews.com

Shep Smith: broken glass in a wind tunnel

FNC's Shep checks in by phone from the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter "It's an incredible scene on Bourbon Street right now--the levee has broken in the 9th ward--the water supply has been breached and is not safe. The wind you hear is ripping apart windows and roofs....the Hyatt Regency down the street just had 1000 windows blown out....a facade is starting to peel off a building across the street. We're at the worst and will continue to be at the worst for about an hour and a half. Imagine a hurricane like this in the concrete canyons of Manhattan, creating a wind tunnel with broken glass coming down the street....that's what it's like covering this hurricane in this city and not at a beach."

Rita Cosby: Hurricane? What hurricane? I'm in Aruba

Inside Cable News is reporting that MSNBC's Rita Cosby will be reporting from Aruba this week.

Jon Scott to Steve Harrigan: "Don't take one for the team"

Steve Harrigan is in Gulfport, MS right now, in goggles, locked out of his hotel and being blown sideways by windspeeds so high he can't even hold onto a cable for safety. Brigitte Quinn and Jon Scott are asking him to go inside and Harrigan just laughed and repeated: "They locked us out of the hotel! The hotel doesn't want people coming in and out! There's a wall we can retreat behind if we need to....Whoah, part of the roof just went!....I'm getting out of here, that big chunk of roof just landed...back in an hour."

Miles O'Brien's blog: braced in Baton Rouge

"8:17 a.m. ET Monday. The wind and rain are picking up significantly.

The latest from Shep Smith, hunkered down in the eye

Shep Smith talking to Jon Scott via phone just now from his 3rd-floor balcony on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter: "Jon, the explosions you hear in the background as I talk are wooden shutters breaking apart, ripping to shreds, and flying down the street. Windows across the street from us are starting to explode. In about one hour there is going to be widespread devastation." In about one hour Shep will still be there.

What the hell?!? Dept.

Aaron Brown and Tucker Carlson are, no kidding, yukking it up tonight as they anchor Hurricane Katrina coverage at CNN and MSNBC. Brown looks like he's losing his mind--alternating incoherent speech with laughing and smiling. And Carlson's sitting there like he just walked into a surprise birthday party that wasn't really a surprise--smirking and grinning at the same time. Carlson and David Schuster--who also has a giggling problem--look like they're planning a 2am beer run. All the nets are showing the same heartbreaking footage of trapped now-refugees and their Hefty Bags of possesssions being rained on, and these dimbots can't even force themselves to pretend to look serious.

Over at FNC, Patti Ann Browne, Julie Banderas and Gregg Jarrett, on the other hand, are all as serious as a heart attack. I mean not a single smile is being cracked, and that's appropriate.

If you can't swear before the meteorological apocalypse, then &*%# it

World Net Daily reports FNC's Shep Smith gets an especially candid response to a question in New Orleans on live TV:


"During Fox News coverage of Hurricane Katrina this afternoon, a man being interviewed by Shepard Smith dropped the F-bomb on the reporter.

"Smith, who was reporting via telephone from the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans, noted that people were still drinking and gambling at video-game machines as the hurricane was approaching.

"When he asked one man what he was doing there at the hotel, the man responded, 'None of you're f---ing business.'"

But God love Shep for being the only correspondent I've heard use the p-word: "poor." Every other net has been calling many of the people who are staying in the path of Katrina "homeless" or "disabled." While that is certainly true, in part, Shep's the only one who has been blunt: in this tragedy it will be, as is tragically often the case in history, the poor who will bear the brunt.

Just now, reporting live from the French Quarter at 6:30pm ET, Shep said:

"Some people cannot afford to leave. One out of six people in this city do not own their own automobile."

Kudos to Shep for having the character to point out some truths that, apparently, other nets consider too depressing or icky for the viewing audience.


But back to the F-bomb. TVNewser's got the vid:

Who cares that a hurricane's about to flatten New Orleans? Late Edition has Trent Lott talking about Strom Thurmond!

CNN's Wolf Blitzer is hosting what's essentially a televised book party right now for Mississippi Senator Trent Lott and his new book, "Herding Cats: A Life in Politics." Lots of footage of the Strom incident and fallout. This is setting a new standard for last century's news.

Isn't Hurricane Katrina supposed to be hitting Mississippi too? Hello, Senator Lott? Hello, Wolf? Too late! Segment's over.

Answer: who cares?

The NYDN takes an interest in the identity of a television news anchor who may be--gasp!--gay:

"Which square-jawed anchor — and not the one at CNN or Fox that you're thinking of — surprised a spywitness recently when he was caught in a clinch with a handsome male companion?"

French existentialists rejoice! RedNova.com has blown the lid off cable news!

RedNova.com bemoans the "fertility cult" of cable news at the expense of coverage of "the decline of Europe." It must be true, Howard Kurtz is quoted.

For a site that calls itself a source for space, science, and technology news and information, it's delving pretty far into its own navel. Also, scientifically-speaking, did you know that 24-hour cable news channels have actually caused a reduction in news reporting?

I'm waiting for RedNova's groundbreaking report on the failure of science news sites to have intelligent opinions on the media.

"Cable news channels have turned out to be a solution without a problem. And in varying degrees they have come to fill most of their 24-hour cycles with something other than what just happened, was happening as we watched, or was about to happen. This despite the relentless overplaying and overreporting (and overspeculating) about real news, especially murder, mayhem and sex.

"The 24/7 cable news hole, as newspaper editors call it, is 24 hours, but there aren't 24 hours of news. Hence a lot of the gaping hole gets stuffed with talking rather than news, debating rather than talking, shouting rather than debating. In the substantial time still left some news is reported as it happens, some is served up bulletin fashion, but most consists of seizing a particular event and covering it from every angle- especially if the story is lurid, in fact or potentially. This pattern of all-news cable-there are now five national and numerous local channels-is having a debasing effect on every facet of American journalism.

"There has been a lot of attention lately to cable news' addiction to the troubles of young white women. The troubles of older women, of men of any age, of minorities, receive passing reference if any. But the Hall of Fame is graced by such as Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, JonBenet Ramsey, and now Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride. So far, in the reams of newspaper copy deploring the phenomenon, there have been hints of submerged racism and at least one invocation of Jacques Derrida. No one has yet called it a fertility cult.

"The space newspapers give not only to the women themselves but to solemn critiques of the coverage shows how the aberrations of all-news cable have suffused American journalism. As Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post has observed: 'The rest of the media, including the Washington Post, feel they have to play along, because the story is creating 'buzz' and no one wants to seem clueless.'

"Serious issues-poverty, nuclear annihilation, climate change, the decline of Europe-are given short shrift, or no shrift whatever.

"So it might be concluded that as a result of the expansion, or explosion, of television time devoted ostensibly to news, the effect has been not to provide more news but less.

Run from the water! Hide from the wind!

FNC's Greg Kelly is in Crawford and was just reporting on President Bush's planned statement on Hurricane Katrina. Kelly sounded refreshingly non-hysterical, with no faked inflections of dread regarding Katrina's impact. I have a theory that once you've been shot at (as Kelly, who covered the Iraq invasion has) you take things like natural disasters in stride. I say shake things up a little and send Kelly to New Orleans. He'd no doubt provide a kind of respectful stoicism lacking in the coverage of what is shaping up to be a hurricane that could easily engender a lot of well-deserved panic.

Anyway, Kelly's tone is in direct contrast to this actual quote, and actual exclamation points, on CNN just now: "Run from the water! Hide from the wind!"

Chicago Sun-Times: cable news coverage of Iraqi nation-building is "Hurricane Ahmed"

Sun-Times reporter Mark Steyn, weatherman:

"Iraqi nation-building coverage is like one almighty cable-news Hurricane Ahmed. The network correspondents climb into their oilskins and waders and wrap themselves round a lamppost on the boardwalk and insist that civil war's about to make landfall any minute now, devastating the handover/elections/constitution. But it never does. Hurricane Ahmed is simply the breezy back and forth of healthy politicking."

Sacramento Bee: Missing persons coverage a "grotesque art form"

In an editorial, the Bee lauds Bob Costas and calls cable-news viewers the lowest common denominator in determining what should be covered:

"What's news? To cable television networks, it seems to be whatever draws viewers, and competition - especially between Fox and CNN - threatens to lower that common denominator. Cable news operations have turned endless coverage of personal tragedies almost into a grotesque art form. Add to Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson the name of Natalee Holloway, a young woman missing in Aruba for nearly three months.

"Bob Costas has reinforced the widespread judgment that he's a class act by refusing to engage in the ghoulish practice of dwelling endlessly on a single event - so far without result.

"Maybe this episode will help CNN - and Fox, whose growing ratings lead over CNN is obviously a source of worry to the latter - decide to draw a line, give a missing person report what it's due but not milk a sad story for everything it's worth and more."

Summertime and the AP is restless

The Associated Press gets a case of the late-summer bananas, as demonstrated by TV writer Frazier Moore's latest musings:

"Summer's nearly over, Labor Day is all too close, and the new fall TV shows are just around the corner.

'In short, this is a good time to confront the season ahead, then boldly make some forecasts for what's to come.

"But why should I be the one to stick my neck out? Your guess is as good as mine. So kindly ponder the following possibilities, then take your best shot.

"- As NBC prepares to unveil its new lineup, word has leaked out that cost-cutting measures are in effect at the fourth-place network thanks to a projected $1 billion drop in advertising revenue. As an additional move to save some bucks, NBC plans to:

"(a) Record all its shows at a slower speed to use less tape.

"(b) Cast each of its series with only one actor, then make him perform all the roles.

"(c) Start airing programs people want to see, eliminating the expense of replacing all those bad shows.

"-Many cable news programs went tabloid in a big way this summer, devoting hour after hour to stories about missing people. Now as fall approaches, we can expect those cable networks to:

"(a) Maintain their current news ratio, which is roughly 10 percent of their coverage allotted to President Bush, the war on terrorism and the economy, and 90 percent to Natalee Holloway.

"(b) Refuse to cover anyone in the news who's present and accounted for.

"(c) Dispatch Greta Van Susteren to look for NBC's missing audience.

"- Robert Novak, a longtime commentator on CNN, stormed off one of that network's shows earlier this month after swearing on the air. He and the network jointly agreed he should take a hiatus. But soon Novak will announce:

"(a) He's coming back to CNN, on the condition that he never speak, just smile demonically.

"(b) He has joined Dave Chappelle in hiding.

"(c) He has signed to be the new host of MTV's 'Total Request Live.'

"- Complaints have raged in recent months that public broadcasting has a liberal slant in its programming. Don't be surprised when:

"(a) Charges are lodged against General Electric that, after hiring conservative pundit Tucker Carlson away from his weekly PBS talk show, the company purposely buried him where no would ever find him ... on the MSNBC nightly schedule.

"(b) The distinguished science series 'NOVA' is joined by alternative science shows, including 'Intelligent Design & You' and 'Exploring Our Flat Earth.'

"(c) On a future episode of 'Sesame Street,' Halliburton lands a contract to rebuild Oscar the Grouch's trash can."

Susan Estrich to Jon Klein: DO NOT START with me, young man

Susan Estrich writes on NewsMax.com that she has had just about enough of CNN prez Jon Klein's public temper tantrums about FNC's programming:

"Greta van Susteren used to try murder cases. She was a defense lawyer long before she was a television anchor. She knows how you put these investigations together and how you don't - what steps have to be taken now or never. In addition to getting great ratings, she has put the Aruban police and investigators to shame. Only a fool would compare the two.

"Or Jon Klein.

"Yet that is exactly what Klein has done, taking it as another opportunity to take his usual public shot at his foot:

"'It's easy, and it's brainless,' Klein said in a telephone interview with a newspaper reporter, explaining why cable news outlets have gravitated to the Holloway story, comparing the case to running "Law and Order" with the same plot every night.

"While Klein has claimed boasting rights for Costas' and his supposed adherence to higher standards of newsgathering, the Jon everyone actually trusts, Jon Stewart, had a field day Wednesday night sampling the serious stories covered by CNN itself, one more ludicrous than the other. There's plenty of junk on CNN, not to mention the efforts of the ethically challenged ex-prosecutor Nancy Grace, whose show Klein apparently doesn't oversee.

"I'm sick and tired of what a Jewish mother like me can recognize a mile away for what it is: whining.

"You'd think this guy didn't control a cable news channel."

CNN: Uganda's new tourist agency, for a fee

Africa's Kampala Monitor reports that the Ugandan government and CNN are getting in bed:

"The Ugandan Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry has struck a deal with CNN to sponsor its half hour current affairs program 'Inside Africa' for an unspecified fee. The show investigates political, economic, social and cultural affairs and trends in Africa.

"Uganda will use the three commercial breaks during the half hour program to showcase its agriculture and tourism opportunities including hotels, people, culture and history, a source said.

"According to Igeme Nabeta, the Minister of State for Trade, the deal was part of a wider effort to rebrand Uganda and sell a different image of the country. 'This is something we should have done yesterday. Other countries, even Kenya, are advertising but we have not. The foreign media sometimes portrays only the negative. We need an opportunity to sell what we have,' he added."

And there's a whole lot of negative to portray, if you're not being paid to accentuate the positive: The NYT reported yesterday that a global health organization had halted $150 million in funds to Uganda to combat AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis over allegations of severe mismanagement. But CNN will, no doubt, include that in its reporting. Right?

Bill Hemmer's long view

Bill Hemmer's hometown newspaper, The Cincinnati Post, profiles the new FNC anchor:


"When Cincinnati native Bill Hemmer debuts on the Fox News channel at noon Monday there will at least be no controversy over his eyeglass habits.He won't be wearing them.

"During his time off this summer, moving from CNN to Fox News, Hemmer had laser eye surgery. In the last few years on CNN, Hemmer took to wearing glasses and some media critics wondered if it was a ploy for Hemmer to add a little age and wisdom to hide his trademark boyish good looks.

"'Some people thought it was a cosmetic thing, but I honestly couldn't see,' Hemmer said. 'I had the surgery this summer and can see now. It's an amazing procedure.'"

"Hemmer said the Fox News gig is a great fit for him. Despite persistent media criticism that Fox has a right-wing bias, Hemmer said his new boss, Roger Ailes, has given him no agenda.

"'What impressed me is he told me Fox programs itself like a newspaper. The news is in the 'A' section and in the back of the 'A' section is where you get your opinion.'

"'Viewers have locked into this network the last several years, but one of the keys I've come to learn is people aren't sitting around on their hands here,' Hemmer said about Fox News, which has become the highest-rated cable news network over the last four years. 'They are constantly pushing it forward to figure the next innovation. How can we make this fresh? Cable news viewers will be gone in a second if you aren't fresh.'"

All this and a good heart too--an old but still relevant profile of Hemmer gives some insight into his insides and the roots of his character: "Hemmer’s parents remain in the forefront of his thoughts as conversation shifts to family, job responsibilities and future goals. He speaks endearingly of his father, Bill, a vice president of a mattress firm, describing him as 'a very humble man. That’s not to be overlooked,' the son stresses. 'He has my full respect, and he’s a great man: his humility, his honesty. He has a general goodness to him.'

"As he looks out at the vast world, though, he has made one conclusion. 'In my humble opinion, the six billion of us on this planet have one main concern: trying to make our lives and the lives of the people around us better.' Inconsequential are the color of our skin and our religious denomination, he adds. What matters is that 'our human hearts beat at the same place, one beat at a time.'”

Rick Kaplan's anger management

FTVLive has the exclusive that MSNBC President Rick Kaplan is not bottling up his feelings these days, especially about Hardball's stumbling ratings. The TV-insider site reports that Kaplan, in what seems to be becoming one of his trademark rages, excoriated Chris Matthews and Hardball executive producer Tammy Haddad over the state of the show's ratings and bookings. (In the 3rd quarter, Hardball is down 41% from last year with 298,000 viewers.)

FTVLive also has the rumor that Hardball may be moved to 5pm from its 7pm weeknight slot.

CNN: My, what large meaningless nonsense you have

Page Six reports that Larry King is running his very own cable news network weeknights at 9. Apparently, the "President" in "CNN President Jon Klein" is more of a, well, suggestion than actual authority:

"Jon Klein should watch his own network before he complains to the New York Times about Fox News Channel being 'meaningless nonsense.' On Monday — the day before Klein was quoted in the Times — Larry King interviewed busty Pamela Anderson. King asked Anderson a whopping 13 questions about her breasts, including, "What size [are your breasts]?" and, 'They expand on camera?' A Fox insider snickered, 'King only got 926,000 viewers, proving that nothing on CNN can get a rating — news or trash. Maybe if she took her top off, they would have had higher ratings.'

"A rep for CNN said: 'Jon believes that Larry has earned the right to pick his own topics.'"

Translation: "Find your own lifeboat, Larry! This one's all mine!"

If Brian Williams really wants to share, he'll tell us what's on his iPod

The NYT has a giant crush on Brian Williams...I mean, the NYT thinks it's really neat that Brian Williams has a blog, The Daily Nightly:

"'There is no better way to say this than to whip out a cliché from the old cliché bag or drawer,' Mr. Williams said in an interview. 'We are trying to lift the veil. We're trying to expose ourselves as a collection of humans grappling with how to spend our precious 22 minutes each night.'

"'I said to my wife,' he added, 'I don't have a therapist. I have my blog.'"

Williams is tall, dark and handsome and a terrific journalist and all that, but the newsiest thing about his blog is the revelation that he too gets singled out for extra security on shuttle flights:

"Now it's back to National Airport where I pray the secret code on my boarding pass doesn't flag me for 'enhanced security procedures' (a full, 30-minute shiatsu-style full-body massage and a thorough review of all of the songs in my iPod)."

Anyway, the most evocative and illuminating reporter's blog out there is FNC correspondent Steve Harrigan's. I've said it before and I'll say it again: he's a modern-day Ernest Hemingway/Ernie Pyle:

'Mexico City--Setting up for a live shot at 6 a.m. here in the main square, up on the roof of a hotel opposite the enormous Metropolitan Cathedral — gorgeous domes and stones. Towards 7 a.m. the sun rises behind it.

"To do live shots sometimes it helps to edit and feed a short report in advance to wrap around. You put the script of the report in the computer. The following script is our encounter with the head of a major armored car factory here:

So, as a joke I said to the head of the armored car factory here, "Since you believe in your product so much, why don't you stand behind the glass?" And now he's going to do it.

It's going to be a 9mm shot. They are loading it up now.

So it's turned into a bit of a debate here. The head engineer is trying to dissuade his boss from getting on the other side of the glass.

Once again it will take just a simple push of the red button.

You want me to pull the trigger? What will be my liability should the bullet go through the glass and into your forehead?

Yes I will pull the trigger.

What, you say your boss is crazy?

You know, I've never really fired a gun at a human being. I'm going to have someone else pull the trigger. I want you to pull the trigger.

Here it comes. Oh.

Let's go shake his hand. Congratulations.

So that was not even the first shot into this glass. You were willing to take the risk on shot number two.

You know, sometimes you think your job is hard.

Nancy Grace to reporter: Make something up or get off my set

In the Columbia Journalism Review today, St. Petersburg Times reporter David Adams makes a point of not jumping on the "Nancy Grace is God" bandwagon:

ADAMS: I was watching Nancy Grace reporting on the pop singer whose boyfriend had gone missing in California -- Olivia Newton John -- and she had this poor guy who's the regular entertainment correspondent on, whose name I forget. And she says to him, "So what's going on, Jim?" And Jim says, "Well you know, Nancy, it's still a bit of a mystery." And she cuts him off and says, "Well, you're going to have to do better than that, Jim." You know, invent something. Speculate. Give me anything.

CJR: But the ratings don't come if you just say, well, it's a developing case, we don't know anything.

ADAMS: I guess, to be fair to Nancy Grace, she knows her audience....print aims at the brain, and TV, especially cable, aims at the gut.