"The problem isn't YouTube, it's CNN."

The problem is CNN? Don't take my word for it--take the word of someone who works for a corpporate sibling to CNN.

This Cable Gamer has always been a fan of Ana Marie Cox, ever since her Wonkette days. Indeed, since she went to Time magazine, I have worried that her distinctive voice, both saucy and fearless, was going to be lost.

But I felt better when I saw this piece of hers, on the Republican backlash to a future debate to be sponsored by CNN and YouTube.

It would have been easy for Cox to heap all the blame on the Republicans, for being killjoys in the face of new technology. But instead, Cox dived straight into the heart of the issue, which is anti-Republican bias.

Her piece was fair, but it included this important graf:

The view from the right was less favorable about the impact of this technological shift on politics. White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that the President had not even watched, saying Bush was "not big on YouTube debates." Hugh Hewitt, a popular right-wing blogger and radio talk show host, got more specific about what conservatives might object to in a CNN/YouTube debate — he alleged that CNN cherrypicked the submissions for biased questions that a "responsible" journalist wouldn't ask: "the CNN team used the device of the third-party video to inject a question that would have embarrassed any anchor posing it." One staffer for a Republican candidate now leaning toward not participating put it this way: "The problem isn't YouTube, it's CNN."

Those last words are worth noting, and repeating, and re-bolding:

"The problem isn't YouTube, it's CNN."

In other words, Republican presidential hopefuls, and the GOP overall, are starting to wise up--CNN is not their friend. In fact, it's an enemy--a bad enough enemy to make some Republican presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, say that they won't take part.

But at the same time, hats off to Cox, because CNN, of course, is owned by Time-Warner, which also owns her employer, Time magazine. So for Cox to put this dig at CNN in print--well, she has made a gutsy and important contribution she has made to the proper understanding of media coverage in the 2008 presidential race. And that understanding includes the fact that two of the three cable news networks, "MSDNC" an CNN, are pretty much openly siding with the Democrats now.

Still, TCG hopes that the Republicans attend the debate, becxause on principle, TCG objects to boycotts, by either side. Why? Because they hurt the free discourse of ideas and thus hurt The Cable Game overall. So I don't want to see the GOP boycott the upcoming CNN/YouTube debate--I want to see CNN play it straight.

Even you, La Anderson Cooper!

And yet it seems as though the boycott mania is spreading, viz. this signficant article from the AP's TV veteran David Bauder, headlined, "Liberals Going After Fox Advertisers." The liberals can't change Fox--because as we know, FNC is fair, balanced, and unafraid.

But liberal boycotts can set loose conservative counter-boycotts, and thus cause an escalating arms race of boycotts, which would be bad for all of us who want a lively Cable Game. So TCG hopes that the GOP plays in the next debate, scheduled for September 17, and that CNN earns back at least a little of the trust that it has lost over the last decade or so.

Money Honey, We Hardly Knew Ye...

Update on the Maria B. vs. Erin B. catfight: On Friday night's "NBC Nightly News," Brian Williams, reporting on the big stock market drop, needed a CNBC hottie to help him with the story.

And the winner was...

ERIN BURNETT!!!

Is it "Money Honey" vs. "Street Sweetie"? Or is it "Maria 2.0" vs. "Bank Skank"?

The star of CNBC's Maria Bartiromo seems to be falling, eclipsed by younger, hotter Erin Burnett. All Cable Gamers grow old, of course--no shame in that. The key question is whether or not they can grow old gracefully. And that's what "The Money Honey" failed to do, as she has humiliated her husband, Jonathan Steinberg, in the course of swanning around with various other married men, including, most notoriously Todd "Taj Mahal" Thomson.

In other words, there's a difference between a TV personality who ages in "elder statesperson" status--like, say, Bernard Shaw or Lou Dobbs--and a TV personality who comes across as cheap and over-used. Like, say, MB, or Chris Matthews, or Julie Chen. Sorry, Maria, just as anybody watching Julie Chen thinks of Les Moonves, a anybody watching you now thinks of you on that long jet ride to China with Todd.

Here's a Page Six item on the cable catfighting, worth relaying in full:

CNBC might not be big enough for both the Money Honey, Maria Bartiromo, and the Street Sweetie, Erin Burnett.

Insiders say Bartiromo is in an uproar over her ravishing rival Burnett, who's begun to upstage her at the business news channel.

An inside source tells Page Six the Money Honey has been fuming that curvy Burnett, in addition to her duties as anchor of "Street Signs" and co-anchor of "Squawk on the Street," is getting substantial airtime on the "Today" show, which gives her a much bigger audience. "Maria is like, hey, why isn't it me on the 'Today' show? She's very jealous of all the attention Erin is getting," our source said.

Burnett's star is certainly skyrocketing. Broadcast & Cable magazine called the petite, blue-eyed brunette CNBC's "secret weapon" in its upcoming battle with the soon-to-launch Fox Business Channel, which is owned by News Corp., The Post's parent. Adding insult to injury, the trade journal quoted CNBC senior VP Jonathan Wald as gushing about Burnett, "She's a natural. She's both energetic and solicitous, but she never appears fawning."

Bartiromo is also said to be riled at a July 15 Post profile of Burnett which crowed that in less than two years she has blossomed from a relative unknown into Wall Street's sizzling media darling. Earlier this year, Burnett handily won a poll of the hottest financial news anchors on Wall Street gossip blog Dealbreaker.com. She got 37 percent of the votes while rival CNBC anchor Becky Quick came in second with 22 percent. Bartiromo only got 13 percent.

Some of Burnett's fans have even labeled her "Maria 2.0," while Bartiromo has acquired another nickname, "The Bank Skank."

Not only is Burnett nine years younger than Bartiromo, she also comes with less baggage. Last year, Bartiromo got caught up in an ethics scandal for globetrotting on Citigroup's private jet with its then-wealth-management chief Todd Thomson, who later got the ax.

CNBC rep Kevin Goldman denied any rift between the women, noting that Bartiromo has appeared on "Today" twice this week as well as once on the "NBC Nightly News." He said, "Maria is a major television star." And Burnett? "We like Erin, too . . . There's no issue." Meanwhile, Bartiromo will be feted as the cover girl of Hamptons magazine Monday night at the Friars Club.

Keith Olbermann Can Relax. Is He Finally Getting Some Relief? Or Did He Finally Write A Check?

Here's an item from today's "Page Six":

KEITH Olbermann's one-night-stand nightmare is over. For the past year, the MSNBC blabbermouth has been tormented by the blog of a comely Cuban lass who claimed he courted her, bedded her, then told her to get lost. She even once complained about how unsatisfying their sex was. But the bitter babe, who calls herself Karma Bites, just posted a final entry saying she's letting bygones be bygones. "[I've] closed it down for good . . . It will not make headlines and it won't contain posts about certain newscasters." Olbermann did not return our calls.

TCG wonders what the full story is here. Did Karma Bites really get tired of posting on Olbermann? Or did she get paid off somehow?

Hey, Cable Gamers! Any good dish?

Marvin Kitman on La Anderson Cooper--Look Out Wolf Blitzer!

Here's a bunch more of Marvin Kitman's cutting take on the CNN/YouTube debate, starring the reigning diva of The Cable Game, Anderson Cooper--or, as I like to think of His Preeningness, La Anderson Cooper:

Cooper's main job is as the host of Anderson Cooper 360. He was hired in the waning days of the Walter Isaacson- Jamie Kellner administration's attempt to glitz up the news. Cooper was the major plank in the effort to youthanize the news at CNN, which was perceived as the old fart news network.

Coop was 27 with "the ardent look of a Gap model," as one reporter said of his appearance on the scene in 2003, ignoring the fact that he was undoubtedly wearing Gloria Vanderbilt-designed outfits. He was the glamorous son of two celebrities (Gloria Vanderbilt and Wyatt* Cooper), somebody who could appeal to a new generation of news viewers. CNN managers forgot that 18-34s traditionally did not watch news, as his show's early poor ratings proved.

Ouch! But it gets worse:

Cooper had immediate impact. One target audience at the 2003 homecoming of recent graduates at Lock Haven University voted Anderson Cooper the best looking and dumbest newsman of the year.

And Kitman goes on to predict that Wolf Blitzer will be chased out of CNN by Jon "our gimmick is news" Klein.

*Editor's note: Kitman mistakenly wrote "Gary" here--but the famous actor, who died in 1961, was not the father of Anderson, who was born in 1967.

CNN: The Most MIStrusted Name in News

It's taken TCG awhile to make up her mind about Monday night's YouTube debate. But she does know what the American people thought about the debate, at least as they were watching--or not. As we shall see, the Nielsen Verdict was a big thumbs down, despite all the YouTube hoo-haw.

But first, The Cable Gamer was amused by Cal Thomas' syndicated column in which he jibed, "This was not a real debate. This was a boring version of 'American Idol,' or worse, a political rip-off of 'The Price is Right.' (How much do you think each candidate is worth? Come on down!)"

And TCG also got a kick out of Marvin Kitman's scathing commentary in, of all places, the left-leaning Huffington Post. Kitman, the esteemed former TV critic for Newsday, let it rip:

While all eyes were on that pathetic non-debate on CNN Monday night, and all ears were listening to the network's smarmy self-congratulations for staging the You Tube non-debate the rest of the week, another more important debate is going on in the smoke-filled rooms at CNN headquarters in Atlanta. I'm talking about Blitzer vs. Cooper. Who should be the moderator-general for the remainder of Campaign 2008?

TCG will return to the issue of La Anderson vs. The Wolfman, and who will smack down (or bitch slap) whom, but for now, I have been mulling over the ratings.

Specifically, TCG wishes to parse this assertion, from CNN's own press release:

"CNN continues the trend of record-breaking debates with Monday night's CNN/YouTube Debate posting the highest P18-34 delivery in cable news history."

This, however, is not a true statement from "the most trusted name in news." CNN did not make cable news history. In fact, the debate was actually rated 9th in 18-34 for cable news. For the record, Fox News had the absolute highest rated debates, ever, back in 2004. So, CNN's claim isn't correct, and its spin is well, false. Other than that, I suppose, it's OK.

Indeed, CNN is down in ratings (P2 25-54 and 18-49) from their last debate, which took place just last month, on June 3rd. And that was also a Democratic debate, too, so it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

From 7-9 pm, CNN had 2,552,000 viewers in P2+, down six percent from that 6/3 Dem debate. In the 25-54 demo, CNN had 831,000 in 25-54 (down 21 percent). In the 18-49 demo, CNN got 663,000 (also down 21 percent).

In other words, CNN 25-54 and 18-49 demos are significantly down compared to their last Dem debate--despite all the YouTube hype and promotion.

Bill O'Reilly Shows Some Class...

...more class than Paula Zahn deserves, frankly.

This is from his closer on Wednesday night:

"Time now for the most "ridiculous item of the day." One of our competitors -- CNN's Paula Zahn is leaving that network and I'd just like to say that Ms. Zahn did a nice job with her program. It was very professional. CNN, in stark contrast to the dishonesty at NBC News, is generally a classy outfit and we enjoy the competition because it is honest. I hope good things happen to Paula Zahn. If they don't, it would be ridiculous."

That's O'Reilly for you: always compelling and interesting, even when I don't agree with him!

Matt Groening, Fake Hero

The Cable Game loves "The Simpsons," and can't wait for the movie to open tomorrow. But TCG is less impressed by millionaires who get rich thanks to corporations and then pretend to be anti-corporate subversives. One such pseudo-hero is Matt Groening, who pretends to be brave speaker-of-truth-to-power while, in fact, he just weasels around.

A case in point is Groening's claim, "We love biting the hand that feeds us," which he said on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" last week. "We love attacking Fox," he said, as the audience cheered.

Well, Marisa Guthrie of Broadcasting & Cable went to the
source: Fox itself.

“It's urban legend,” says a Fox News spokesperson. “While Matt likes to tell that story, it simply never happened. We thought the parody of FNC was funny.”

And TCG can confirm this, from her own sources. Groening is a great creator of fiction, and a funny guy, too.

A Dead Racoon's Last Bounce--So Long Paula Zahn. We Know That You Won't Miss Us.

To this Cable Gamer, Paula Zahn always epitomized what was wrong with TV news--the old model of news, in which liberals could pontificate from the back of limousines.

She was richer, better looking, and thinner than the rest of us--but that's OK, because it's understood that performers have to suffer for their art. If you wish to present yourself to the world, you have to uphold an aesthetic ideal, willing to sacrifice for grace and graciousness. That's the story of anyone, especially any female, who wants to be in the public eye--the camera makes you look fatter anyway, so you have to be ruthless on yourself, diet-wise. But the point of graciousness is not to let everyone else know that you are better than them for having suffered. The point is to be graceful and easygoing about it, to wear your superiority with the understated poise of, say, Queen Elizabeth.

But not Paula. She was better, and she wanted everyone to know it--that was why she could never get ratings than a "dead racoon," as Roger Ailes said about her when he finally got rid of her. Indeed, watching Paula over the years that she was at CBS, then Fox, then CNN, I always had the feeling that she knew that we knew she was of a higher order of being, and that she expected us to bow down to her. So our fandom was't a gift that we could bestow on her, it was tribute that she expected from us. Well, it don't work that way, lady, not in a world of cable choice. So TCG was pleased when CBS let her loose, surprised that Fox picked her up, briefly, and not at all surprised that she has been failing ever since 2001 at CNN. I can still remember that she wore a lime-green outfit as she covered 9-11 for CNN. If she had been at Fox, they would have put her, right away, in dignified and respectful black.

The real problem with Paula was tha she icier and smugger and more obviously liberal than the rest of us. I always got the feeling that she was condescending to be with her audience. Yes, she would be on TV, but only for the purpose of instructing us out of our prole ways--or at least reminding us that she didn't share those prole ways. So when I read, in David Bauder's wrapup for the AP, that she had deliberately moved left in recent months, I wasn't surprised--it made perfect sense, as PZ seeks to emancipate herself, once and for all, from red staters. Here's the way Bauder put it:

She and veteran executive producer Victor Neufeld had found a niche in recent months reporting extensively on issues of race relations, and Zahn said she was proud of that work.

The above passage tells us everything I need to know about her exit strategy from CNN. Zahn knew that she was on her way out--it's been in the rumor mill for a year now--and so she and Neufeld must've figured to themselves "Why not go out with our noblesse oblige heads held high? That way, once again, we can look down on fat-armed Americans? Thus we can pick up the John Edwards guilty-white liberal constituency, and so tell ourselves, when we finally get cancelled, that we were just too far ahead of the prolish, trollish American people?" That was a great plan for being a heroine in Manhattan, the Hamptons, and Martha's Vineard--which, of course, is all that Paula ever cared about. So CNN cut her loose, but don't be surprised if she soon has a gig with PBS and WNYC--or maybe the Pew Center for Media Liberalism or the Harvard Academy for Instructing us Dopes on Being Green.

Yet the decisive,in-your-face reminder that she was different--and held herself to be different--came during the controversy over Pale Male ,, the wonderful red-tailed hawk that roosted in Paula's building on (where else?) Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park. Here's Paula, this big liberal, and her husband, Richard Cohen, trying to destroy this wonderful bird,, which had the audacity to try and live in the same city as her. In other words, she was a total hypocrite when it came to putting her liberal ideals in practice. (And her marriage to Cohen didn't last, either--I guess he, too, failed to live up to her high standards.)

So now PZ is free--free to perfect herself all the more, to become the rich social x-ray that she always was, without having to lower herself to our level. So we, the rabble, can eat cake, while she sips on celery soup.

She wins by being finally rid of us, and we win by finally being rid of her.

Bye bye NBC-U? And you know what that means, MSNBC and CNBC.

The New York Times' Nelson Schwartz is too good a reporter to overplay his news, but nonetheless, Schwartz dropped a major bombshell in his big piece on the front page of the Sunday Times business section. And likely to get hit by the shrapnel from that media-explosion are NBC-U and its Cable Gaming sub-unit, CNBC, and the even subbier MSNBC.

Under the headline, "Is G.E. Too Big for Its Own Good?" Schwartz highlighted a recent report from Citigroup analyst Jeffrey T. Sprague, which called for a breakup of GE, the legendary conglomerate founded by Thomas Edison and led for two decades by Jack Welch. GE is a big enchilada, that's for sure--it's got a stock market value north of $420 billion. And yet let the stock is down 30 percent since Jeff Immelt took over the company, from Welch, back in 2001. (See chart above, which shows how GE has underperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the last five years--GE is in blue, the Dow is in red.)

But here, let Schwartz tell it like it is:

So if the heat is on, why not break up the company? Or at least sell off noncore units like NBC Universal or the consumer finance unit, GE Money, which would not only raise billions but also make this colossus a heck of a lot easier for one man to manage? After all, Mr. Sprague says, “when you visualize G.E., you’re thinking about the meat and potatoes: power, aircraft engines, energy. You might get comfortable with GE Money, but hardly anyone is buying the stock because of GE Money.”

And the same holds true, of course, for NBC-U--nobody buys GE stock because they think that Jeff Zucker is going to make them money. The sad truth is that GE's purchase of NBC, and then the acquisition of Universal, were always vanity efforts, aimed at giving Welch crony Bob Wright a glamorous post from which to operate.

That is, the entertainment purchases never made sense for GE, for the most basic of reasons--as Sprague says, GE is an industrial company, not an entertainment company. There's no shortage of Bob Wright-type engineers who want to go to the Oscar party, but there is a shortage of Wright-type engineers who know how to profitably run an entertainment biz. But that doesn't stop them, right Bob? They are happy to have fun, at the expense of their shareholders. Right Bob?

Yet for as long as Welch was CEO of GE, shareholders barely noticed that the media properties were dogs--cuz GE stock rose an astonishing 4000 percent during Welch's two decades. But as noted, GE's stock is down by a third under Immelt. So now the knives are out, for Immelt, and for his over-extended empire.

Nturally Sprague and other Wall Street analysts--not to mention all those unsentimental hedge funders and hard-nosed private-equity boys--are closely examining non-core businesses. That's what happens in corporate restructuring: You figure out what has to say, and what should go. So now GE is under the hot lights, just as were other underperformers, such as Daimler-Chrysler and Cadbury-Schweppesm both of which sold off big assets.

And so, as Schwartz puts it, in the course of a long and superbly reported piece, "G.E. must continue to cut costs at struggling divisions like NBC."

But of course, they've already cut NBC back in prime time--and seen ratings tumble. Nice work, Jeff Z! So what to do with CNBC, which is profitable but underperforming--especially in prime time? (Remember John McEnroe's show? And hey, does Michael Eisner still have a CNBC program? How 'bout Donny Deutsch? Cable Gamers know that it's never a good idea to give no-talents their own show, even if they are buds.

And what to do with MSNBC, which has always been a loser, for 11 years now? Will GE shareholders continue to lose money so that the Democratic National Committee can have its own pro bono cable network?

Here's a Cable Game prediction: Immelt won't be able to protect any of those nets for much longer. He'll have to sell them off, to keep Wall Street happy. Yes, like Wright before him, Immelt will hate to lose the star-bleeping opportunities that come with being an entertainment mogul, but he'll value his job more.

So NBC-U, CNBC, and "MSDNC" will all be on the auction block soon enough. And TCG wouldn't be surprised to see Rupert Murdoch snap up CNBC--perhaps into some sort of merger with the forthcoming Fox Business News--even as someone puts MSNBC out of its misery.

And oh, by the way: Time-Warner, owner of CNN, might well be next to face de-conglomeration.

"The major flaw looming over the two-hour telecast was that it wasn't a very good telecast."

The Cable Gamer isn't always a fan of The Washington Post's Tom Shales, but when he's hot, he's hott. And his review of the CNN/YouTube debate is a smoker. The whole piece is well worth a read, but here's the good stuff:

Not every candidate was asked every question, so the format was inherently inequitable. At one point Cooper said, "Our next question is for Senator [Joe] Biden," immediately followed by a video in which a man began, "Hello. This question is for all of the candidates."

Cooper was obsessed with the candidates' keeping answers brief, frequently interrupting them or cutting them off. This impulse, supposedly designed to curb long-windedness, leads to "debates" that are just collections of quotes and sound bites, like political commercials, and is precisely the kind of thing that has helped trivialize issues and discourage voter interest.

"CNN's Hype Machine Goes Overboard"

That's not The Cable Gamer saying that--that's the headline from Matthew Felling's post at CBS News' "Public Eye" blog.

I report, you decide, about Felling's lede:

So have you heard there’s going to be a Democratic debate tonight? And one with normal people like you and me posing questions via streaming video? You haven’t? Just turn on CNN. Chances are you’ll find out before the next commercial break.

And he continues, citing the words of Jon Friedman of MarketWatch, as Friedman made the case that Wolf Blitzer was fishing for sensational soundbytes and trying to grab a few extra eyeballs, at the expense of a probing interview:

Lately, CNN has stretched the definition of news to a nearly incomprehensible level. What has genuine news value and what is a thinly veiled ratings grab? CNN may have plenty of company here, but I expect a lot from this network.

That was Friedman. Now here's more from Felling:

I wasn’t quite with Friedman back then, figuring that a conversation about health care was about as good as you’re gonna get in the dog days of summer. But today’s advance coverage of CNN’s YouTube debate hasn’t just jumped the shark – it passed that marker an hour ago – it’s gone all-out “Buckwheat is Shot”

A bit of background, there was a skit on “Saturday Night Live” back in the 1980s satirizing the media’s overkill following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. In the skit, they had Eddie Murphy’s Buckwheat get shot, with the point of the skit being that the media was so enthralled by the footage, that they’d look for any attempt to replay it – going so far as to ask the doctor operating on Buckwheat “Excuse me, Doctor. Have you seen the video of Buckwheat getting shot?”

Thus far today on CNN and its affiliate Headline News (as I write this at 10:34am, EDT) there have been 44 reports about the YouTube/CNN debate, according to TVEyes.com. (>DING< there’s another one with Tony “It’s groundbreaking!” Harris interviewing someone who posed a question – we’re up to 45 now.) They’ve got a countdown clock in the corner and everything.

As noted, I transcribe, you decide.

MSNBC to Smack Down CNN for Second Place?

The New York Daily News' juicy gossip columnist, Ben Widdicombe, updates Cable Gamers on MSNBC's effort to gain second place--or at least spin its way into the perception of second-placedom through aggressive flackery.

Bottom line: It looks like good news for CNN's Lou Dobbs; he is likely to move to prime time with Campbell Brown, formerly of NBC.

And it looks like bad news for Paula Zahn, who seems destined to get the axe.

But as TV Newser observes of all this Cable Game to-ing and fro-ing, "That said, Fox News still beats them both, no matter how you define it." That site also usefully updates us on NBC's plan to shuffle folks from headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan to the boonies of Secaucus, NJ. What's that joke? Something about deckchairs?

An interesting updating to get our week going. And oh, did I mention that Ben Widdicombe is juicy?

Yea for Paul Francis Baier!

TCG just became aware of a hot new gossip site,
"Yeas and Nays," by Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin, which appears in The Washington Examiner.

It's full of juicy and nasty stuff, but here's one that's sweet and happy, about Bret Baier, ace White House correspondent for FNC:

Congratulations to FOX News Chief White House Correspondent Bret Baier and his wife, Amy, who recently welcomed a new baby into their lives. Paul Francis Baier was born at 12:34 p.m. June 29 at 6 pounds, 12 ounces.

Paul underwent extensive heart surgery last week at Children’s National Medical Center, but due to Dr. Richard Jonas and the care Paul received at Children’s, he is on the road to recovery, and the Baier family said they are excited to bring him home on Friday.

It’s the first child for the Baiers.

Hey Maria Bartiromo! Todd Thomson Might Need You Again--And You Might Need Him

Remember Todd Thompson? He's the former Citigroup exec who had the closerthanthis relationship with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo. Interestingly enough, Thomson got pushed out, while Bartiromo has moved on to her next "get."

TheStreet.com caught up with the T-man. It seems that Todd has been on safari in Africa with "his family"--who must be tolerant, indeed. And he has formed a company, called Headwaters Capital. I assume that that's an inside joke, between Todd and his old flame, in terms of Ms. Bartiromo's legendary capability to give a licking and keep on ticking. You go, Maria--The Cable Game needs you!

Thanks to TCG reader A!

MSM Bias Against the Bull: Why America Needs the Fox Business Channel

Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly went above 14,000, to close today at 13,971. That means that the DJIA has almost doubled since it hit a low of 7700 in 2002, amidst post-9/11 uncertainty.

Which is to say, the bulls are back, even if few are paying attention, as we shall see.

Indeed, the stock market has picked up 1000 points in just the past three months. For purposes of comparison, it took almost 90 years--from the first publication of the Dow index, in 1884, through 1972--for the Dow to gain its first 1000 points, and now it gained that many points in just a quarter of a year. And all this in the middle of wars, terror threats, and super-high oil prices--now that's hott!

So where and how did this news play on the MSM? "CBS Evening News," with Katie Couric, buried it, giving it just a passing mention. "NBC Nightly News" led with the story, but Brian Williams emphasized the undercutting questions of "who's benefiting," and "who's being left behind?" TCG didn't see "ABC World News," but as of 10:30 PM ET on Tuesday, the DJIA story ranked 12th on the ABC website; the buoyant news was weighed down with this heavy-snarky headline: "Market Booms, But Do You Own Any Duds?"

The truth of the matter, of course, is that when the stock market goes up, everybody wins--from stock-option-holders to pension-fund beneficiaries to all of us who simply benefit from job- and wealth-creating economic dynamism. So that should've been the news, that America is richer than ever. But it wasn't--not tonight, George. Not ever for you, George W. Bush.

This Cable Gamer is old enough to remember when things were different--when the MSM were excited about the bull run. That was back in the 90s, during the Bill Clinton years, of course, when the MSM were happy to give credit to a Democratic president. Back then, the papers were full of articles about how great Clinton was, and how great his treasury secretaries were--especially Bob Rubin.

But now, noting that the market has gone up is the same as giving the incumbent Republican President, George W. Bush, credit for the economic boom. Well, TCG thinks that 43 does deserve a lot of credit. But the MSM won't give him any--the good news about the economy has simply disappeared.

I'm not surprised, of course--nor will a lot of Americans, who are now fully aware of the distorting tricks that the MSM play in order to cast credit on their favorites and cast discredit on enemies. But it matters to the rest of us, because a lot of us know that one of the reasons that the economy has done so well is because the Republicans have cut taxes. I realize that tax cuts, like any economic policy, are controversial, but let's have the debate. But to have a debate, you have to show both sides. And that the MSM simply won't allow.

The MSM joke has been on us, at the expense of we the people, for these past decades. But now an outraged citizenry is wide awake; we will get the last laugh. We watch Fox News as much as we can, and we will be watching Fox Business News when it preems on October 15.

Fox Business News Beefs Up

FBN continues to take shape. The Cable Gamer will predict that FBN has the same seismic shift on business news that FNC had on regular news.

Here's the latest hire:

John McCann has been named Vice President, Advertising Sales for FOX Business Network (FBN), announced Paul Rittenberg, Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales for FOX News. In his new role, McCann will oversee all advertising sales efforts for FBN, which is set to debut on October 15th, while also continuing to manage sales endeavors in Washington for FOX News.

In making the announcement Rittenberg said, “McCann has played a key role in helping the network achieve growth and profitability. He is an asset to FOX News Channel and I am confident that he will continue to excel in his new position at the FOX Business Network.”

McCann joined FOX News in 2001 as an Account Manager, where he was instrumental in helping to increase advertising sales at the network. Prior to FOX, he served as a Senior Account Executive at CNBC. He also previously held the position of New York sales manager at MMT, where he oversaw the national sales efforts for 17 MMT stations.

Meet Alexis Glick

The Cable Gamer will predict that Alexis Glick will emerge as one of the bright stars of cable news in the next year.

Actually, it's not such a daring prediction--just have a look, above. And also check out this "Hot List 2007" profile in the authoritative TV Week.

Fox Business News is going to change the Cable Game--and that's not even counting The Wall Street Journal acquisition. I am curious as to what CNBC and Bloomberg will do--what can they do?

Fox News Then, Fox Business News Now--What a Difference 11 Years Makes!

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Ace TV scribe recalls the days then, back in 1996 when Ted Turner (remember him?) said that CNN would squash Fox, "like a bug"--and and the times now:

What a difference 11 years makes. When Fox News Channel launched Oct. 7, 1996, New Yorkers couldn’t see it because Time Warner Cable and Fox News were locked in ferocious talks about carriage of the channel. It took an 11-month battle royale that included a threat by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to air Fox News commercial-free on a city-run access channel to break the logjam. Last week, when Fox announced that the long-awaited Fox Business Network will launch Oct. 15, it noted prominently that it will be available on expanded basic cable in the Big Apple, financial capital of the world. An industry insider told Blink not only does Time Warner Cable NYC wants Fox Business Network, it wants the new network so badly it will convert the FBN signal from digital to the quaint and all-but-obsolete analog format in order to lodge it on the expanded platform. Fox News made carriage of FBN a must as it negotiated new distribution deals—which already add up to 30 million subscribers for FBN—with cable operators, who also are anteing up subscriber fees that will rise by as much as a third over the course of the new contracts. But as FBN begins its assault on CNBC and Bloomberg Television for eyeballs on Wall Street and Main Street, it is critical that the so-called "influentials" in the advertising and financial worlds be able to see the channel. A TWCNYC spokeswoman said she was unable to confirm the analog conversion plans.

GUPTA-GATE! How Vinod Gupta Became a "Friend" of Bill, Hillary, and the Democrats -- And Pollster to CNN!

Should CNN's presidential pollster be the same guy who is a notorious FOB, FOH, and FOBDD? That is, Friend of Bill Clinton, Friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Friend of Big Dog Democrats (such as Terry McAuliffe)? The polling company in question is Opinion Research, which, thanks to plucky bloggers, is finally being revealed as the scandalous conflict of interest that it is. To put it bluntly, no news network should have such a tight financial relationship with a company controlled by someone so closely connected to one party.

Opinion Research is owned by Vinod Gupta, pictured above, with one of Big Friends, the Indian-American businessman from Omaha, Neb. Gupta has bought his way into friendship with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Oh, did I say that? Well, it's true.

As Mike McIntire of The New York Times details, Gupta spent, literally, many millions of dollars wooing the Clintons and other top Democrats, plying them with campaign donations, "consulting" contracts, etc. Indeed, he just hired, to take the latest example, one of Nancy Pelosi's sons. No doubt he was the most qualified person, anywhere, for the job!

The Times makes a passing, but telling, reference to Gupta's wheeling in politics and dealing in media: "Because of those close links with Democrats, he stirred conflict-of-interest questions by buying a company that does presidential polling for CNN."

If the media were doing their job right, the Clinton's overall relationship with the Indian business community would be a huge story--maybe even a scandal-story, with millions of dollars coming to Dems from India, and in return, millions of American jobs going to India.

As it is only a few have taken note, including, interestingly, A the Barack Obama campaign, which jibed at Sen. Clinton as "D-Punjab"--recalling a joke that she herself had made at an Indian-American fundraiser. But although Obama was raising legitimate points about outsourcing as an issue, he was quickly shouted down by the MSM. Now, Obama seems content, to run for an honorable second-place showing in the '08 primaries, in hopes of being picked, maybe, as Hillary's vice president.

And so in the meantime, only a few other observers, such as Jim Pinkerton of Newsday,and "Fox News Watch," have called this Clintons-Indian relationship into question.

Maybe the media--MSM plus the blogosphere--will eventually get to the bottom of the Clintons' relationship with Gupta and India. Surely it's as least as interesting a topic as, say, Jack Abramoff.

But in the meantime, we Cable Gamers should keep asking why CNN has made itself into a willing sidebar to Gupta-gate.

Hey Jerry Levin! What do you do after you "vaporize" $200 billion?

That's the question posed by Seth Stevenson in his profile of ex-AOL Time-Warner (parent company of CNN) CEO Jerry Levin in New York magazine.

Under the headline, "The Believer," the profile teases:

Former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin dropped out of sight after the disastrous merger with AOL. Now he’s back, selling brain painting, equine therapy, and soul communion with the dead.

And so the divorced-and-remarried Levin--having "vaporized," as Stevenson puts it, $200 billion in shareholder value--is now the co-proprietor of the Moonview Sanctuary, a spa in (where else?)Santa Monica, CA. The piece describes--maybe I am being harsh here--how the much-younger Laurie Perlman lured Jerry away from his then-wife, leading one Levin associate to muse:

"The merger drove him to reinvent himself because it was such a public failure,” says a former colleague, who knew and worked with Levin for many years. “After that, he left his job, his industry, his city, and his marriage.”

Of course, no profile of Levin can be complete without mentioning the tragic death of his son, an idealistic young man who was brutally murdered by thugs in 1997. Without a doubt, that event affected Levin deeply, and we should all offer our condolences and perhaps pray, if we wish, for the soul of Jonathan Levin, who seems to have been an exemplary young man.

But now, back to Jerry Levin, who obviously has made some enemies in the business world. Here's more from Stevenson's piece:

“No one has ever left a company more disliked than he was,” Fuchs tells me. “He didn’t have one friend in the company. Or one friend outside the company. Nor has anyone left such a powerful company in worse shape. He killed everyone in the way of keeping or getting his job. We called him Caligula.”

Ouch! I might need some brain-painting if someone called me that, even though I don't have the $175,000 a year one needs to be a client at Moonview.

Stevenson, obviously an emerging star at New York, shows a great ability to get inside the head of the reader, to articulate what the reader might be thinking:

I’ve sensed only genuine love and devotion between them, but it’s clear to me that their relationship could be construed by some as distasteful, or perhaps even sinister. Cast in the coldest, most cynical terms: Laurie sought a meeting with a wealthy man and, after laying a bit of groundwork, told him she’d communicated with his tragically murdered son. The wealthy man believed—no doubt wanted to believe—in her supernatural tale, and within months, he became both her lover and her business partner.

Then he gives the two lovebirds, Jerry and Laurie, a chance to refute the allegation--very fair & balanced of him. But next comes this--I report, you decide:

Despite Jerry’s protestations about how “unique” these circumstances were, I was struck by something odd that happened in the midst of one of my interviews with Laurie. She suddenly interrupted the conversation. “Is there a connection that you have with Ian Schrager?” she asked. I told her I’d spoken to the hotelier once for a story. Oh, and I’ve stayed in his hotels on occasion. “So you have spoken to him, and he’s someone you’ve connected with,” she nodded, latching onto an inflated notion of our relationship. “I think you’re a link to help me get to him. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Ian because if Moonview expands, I felt like we could do something as a partnership.”

A few weeks later, I brought this exchange up with Laurie. She told me that Ian Schrager’s brother was a friend of hers in high school and that Schrager’s dead mother has “come to” her over the years. “Blanche came while you and I were talking,” Laurie explained to me. “I felt my energy pulled, and I knew I was having a simultaneous conversation with the other side. So I felt compelled to ask you about Ian. I felt I was meant to bring it up."

Laurie is also writing a book, and attempting to file a patent, regarding “the way a corporation or an endeavor can be founded using ‘the other side’ as your partners. You’re bringing in souls past and present.” As Jerry describes it, “Organizations can consult the guidance of an unseen realm. The metaphor is that it gives off into the ether, and it’s always there, like a television signal. Everything that’s ever been broadcast is somewhere out there.” Laurie says that during the planning stages for Moonview, she personally consulted Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. She says Moonview as a whole consulted “Christ, Buddha, and doctors who’ve made breakthroughs.”

OK, The Cable Game will just leave it at that, because I need to get back to solid ground. You, fellow Cable Gamer, can decide what to make of Laurie, her technique, her book, her hoped-for patent--and her husband, the man who helped make CNN what it is today.

And if you have $175,000 you don't need, and you get to Moonview, please drop me a line and tell what it's like--I won't get to know what it's like there otherwise!

Howard Kurtz -- Stenographer to the Beltway

Is The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz too close to the Inside-the-Beltway mentality? Has Kurtz come to embrace the value system of Powertown--such that he no longer speaks truth to power, as journalists should?

As The Cable Game observed recently--on July 5, to be exact--Kurtz is a good reporter who has a leetle beetof a bad habit of sucking up to his sources. That is, if, say, Joe Scarborough of "MSDNC" gives Kurtz good access, then Kurtz will give Scarborough good ink. It's a fair trade, in Beltway terms, but any transaction that takes care of the K Street Crowd and the Georgetown Set is likely to leave the rest of us out of the loop--and out of luck.

But here, let Ken Silverstein, who pens the "Washington Babylon" blog for Harper's, tell the story himself:

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post has faithfully parroted the talking points of the two lobbying firms I embarrassed in this month’s Harper’s, but APCO and Cassidy & Associates have had less luck with other journalists. The story exposed how the firms offered to polish the image of Stalinist Turkmenistan when I approached them, claiming to represent a shady energy firm that allegedly had a stake in that country’s natural gas sector.

The lobby shops attacked my ethics and Kurtz dutifully supported them in the Post and in a commentary last Sunday on CNN’s Reliable Sources, saying during the latter, “When you use lying and cheating to get a story, even a really juicy story, it raises as many questions about the journalist as his target.” Encouraged by Kurtz’s parroting of the lobbyist line, APCO has been sending out a press statement denouncing me to other journalism experts.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Kurtz can not only blast his enemies in his Post column, he can only clobber them on his CNN show, "Reliable Sources," which critiques the media--except, of course, when it's too busy massaging the interests of lobbyists.

So there you have it. A journalist goes undercover to smoke out creepy sleazy behavior among lobbyists--and "media watchdog" Kurtz sides with the lobbyists!

To repeat: the Post/CNN man takes up the cause of the poor picked-on lobbyists, the Gucci Gulch crowd. So much for the public interest, so much for a vigorous free press. Say hello, instead, to the Beltway-ocracy, may it be in power forever, untroubled by snarky investigators, getting in the way of cozy deals with corrupt and even evil foreign governments. You can be darn sure that Kurtz's attack on Silverstein will scare away some would-be muckrackers, although evidently not Silverstein himself. Go Ken!

Kurtz criticizes the undercover technique. That's a hoot. Remember when "60 Minutes" did this all the time? I don't remember Howard Kurtz complaining when it was the Eye Network taking on some corporate sleazoid--or maybe an alleged corporate sleazoid who was innocent, there were plenty of those, too. And just this past week, NBC's ultra-cool, ultra-brave Middle East reporter, Richard Engel, went undercover in Syria to get footage (tastefully handled, I might add) of under-age hookers in Damascus.

But when lobbyists are caught red-handed, looking like, well, lobbyists, Kurtz rushes to their defense.

As the pundit Michael Kinsley has observed, In DC, the real scandal isn't what's illegal--it's what's legal. And yet you'd never know that from ol' Howie,that good buddy to the Beltway, continuing, as he always does, his remarkable streak of journalistic "good gets."

Of course Kurtz gets the big ones. Because those big enchiladas know that Kurtz will faithfully record their words, all the while covering up blemishes, like a loyal and discreet secretary.

Howard Kurtz, meet Rosemarie Woods.

Rudi Bakhtiar out at FNC

OK, so Inside Cable beat me to the story of Rudi Bakhtiar's departure from FNC. Oh well.

The Cable Gamer was never a big fan of hers, either when she was at CNN or when she was at FNC, but she sure had a lot of fans out there, that's for sure. Not that this girl is jealous or anything!

What kind of fans? It seemed to lean heavily toward horny males, who weren't much interested in her journalism. Instead, they were interested in, well, her... her Bakhtiars. These were the sort of horndogs who who posted items, like this, from Free Republic back in 2003, with headlines such as: "Rudi Bakhtiar's See-Through Blouse on Headline News NOW!"

Other fans have told me--not that I would ever notice!--that of all the female anchors out there, she always seemed to be one of the most suggestive. Schwing!

It's a subtle business, of course, and there's nothing wrong with being sexy, and even using It on the air, but it has been interesting to see Bakhtiar building a cult following that way, over the past few years, such as this "shrine" site, here. (If you scroll down a ways, you'll see some excellently lascivious lip curling moves of hers--pretty hot stuff for TV!)

Sorry guys. Rudi may be gone from FNC, but she will surely turn up somewhere else in the cable world. Maybe back to CNN? Nah, their "gimmick" is, uh, hard news these days. MSNBC? Nah, their gimmick is Bush-bashing. Or maybe straight to the Playboy Channel?