New York Times Slams Wolff Book! But Wait, There's More!!

Michael Wolff, author of that nastily inaccurate book about Rupert Murdoch, has crossed swords with David Carr, the media writer for The New York Times. And now Carr has published a scathing review of Wolff's book, right there on the front page of the Sunday Times Book Review:

Wolff, who has the columnist’s tic of being far too struck by the fragrance of his own prose, draws attention to the Boswell at the expense of the Johnson.

That is, Wolff the biographer of Murdoch thinks that he, Wolff is a more interesting subject.

In fact, Wolff and Carr have had their contretemps in the past, which Carr alludes to in his review.

As a sidenote, Carr said something amusing in that spat, from June, which actually squares with something that The Cable Gamer has always thought:

Carr later showed surprising tech savvy, dwarfing that of Wolff or Erick Schonfeld, who both unabashedly plugged their online startups.

“News is the killer app on the web,” said David Carr. “Nothing beats it. Maybe porn, but nothing else.”

TCG is not a fan of online porn, but Carr's point is still well-taken: "news is the killer app on the web."

"This was CNN at its unprincipled worst, grossly skewering its coverage of a complex event and deceiving its viewers."

Michael Oren is a well-known Israeli/American journalist/author, who has posted this unsparing critique of CNN's coverage of the recent Gaza Strip fighting. The headline above is the penultimate sentence of this extended passage below:

CNN International's coverage of yesterday's fighting in Gaza concluded at midnight with a rush of images: mangled civilians writhing in the rubble, primitive hospitals overflowing with the wounded, fireballs mushrooming between apartment complexes, the funeral of a Palestinian child. Missing from the montage, however, was even a fleeting glimpse of the tens of thousands of Israelis who spent last night and much of last week in bomb shelters; of the house in Netivot, where a man was killed by a Grad missile; or indeed any of the hundreds of rockets, mortar shells, and other projectiles fired by Hamas since the breakdown of the so-called ceasefire. This was CNN at its unprincipled worst, grossly skewering its coverage of a complex event and deceiving its viewers. Yet Israel should not have been surprised.

Indeed, as a casual scan shows here,here, and here,there's nothing new about such accusations against CNN.

CNN's Rob Marciano Should Know More About Cameras, and What They Can Do

The Cable Gamer has always liked CNN weather guy Rob Marciano, who seems pleasant enough on the air, and is a skeptic of global warming to boot.

But speaking of boots, I wonder if he'll get the boot for these pics, which first appeared in a website called The Dirty, and have circulated around through the usual gossip-suspects, such as Jossip and then Gawker. That's Rob on the far right, having a little trouble keeping his eyes open, despite the eye candy on his left shoulder.

Marciano's entitled to have some fun, and the rest of us are entitled to have our fun, too--especially if we have cellphone cameras! And this seems pretty harmless. But TCG can't help but wonder if the Al Gore-type enforcers will use these awk pix as an excuse to get rid of him.

For TCG's part, these pix, which Rob posed for, and then some, are much more incriminating.

Wolff's Murdoch Takeout Gets Taken to Cleaners

Huffpo gets the story about Michael Wolff's bomb of a book:

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reported last week that Amazon sales for Michael Wolff's much-hyped biography of Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Owns The News, were "disappointing," and that its publisher, Broadway Books, "was set to pull back expenditures on its publicity."

This week, Nielsen BookScan data estimates the sales to date at just 6,000 copies (though BookScan does not include sales from Wal-Mart, Sam's, BJ's , airports or libraries). Further, as of Friday afternoon, the book ranked 2,586 on Barnes & Noble's website and 2,072 on Amazon. According to a source within Broadway Books, the imprint is not happy with the sales numbers and expected the book to sell dramatically better than it has. Executives there, according to the source, are blaming buzz about inaccuracies in Wolff's reporting for the lackluster sales numbers.

There's a great book to be written about Murdoch, just like there's a great book to be written about Roger Ailes and Fox News--or maybe by Ailes, about Fox News.

But obviously Wolff is not the guy. His book of a decade or so ago, "Burn Rate," was entertaining, but on this book, he simply burned himself.

A CNN Holiday Special: Trashing Religion.

In years past, TV networks developed their own traditions for covering New Year's Eve. The Cable Gamer can fondly remember, for example, New Year's Eves with Lawrence Welk.

And now CNN is developing its own holiday tradition: New Year's Eve with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, Just saw a promo for it on its air.

Griffin, of course, is famous as an blue-humor comedian; you can watch her bash Catholics here, and read the Catholic reaction here. Such "humor," of course, gives Griffin a cult following among critics, so naturally she won an Emmy in September 2007. At which time, she once again delivered for her audience, declaring that whereas some recipients thank Jesus for their awards, she was not going to do that. Jesus had nothing to do with her award, she proclaimed. And lest anyone miss her point, she concluded here acceptance speech with, "Suck it, Jesus!"

Soon thereafter, Larry King--how could CNN not have her on to carry its religion-bashing message?--asked her if she had the whole thing planned, she laughed as she answered: "I love it. Larry, I have had the best week of my life. As a comedian, I live for this."

Larry, always quick on the uptake, shot back in his own signature way--by asking the same question again: "So you planned this?"

And Griffin responded, "Of course I planned this!" Regaling Larry further with her achievements, she even volunteered, "Bill O'Reilly called me a 'pinhead'!"a

Griffin will no doubt be admired, among the chattering classes, for her "courage." But of course, if she had really wanted to be courageous, she could have insulted Islam, not Christianity.

And obviously none of this controversy stopped CNN from pairing her with AC on New Year's Eve, 2008--indeed, it probably inspired Jon Klein & Co. Last year was a tasteless yuckathon; according to one threader, "Kathy Griffin is beyond disgusting. Anderson Cooper tried to keep his dignity, but he failed. Water boarding jokes, drag-queens, the kitchen sink."

But evidently, it got good ratings, so AC + KG are back together again. What an Item they are.

"NBC News Chief: Matthews Isn't Running." Steve Capus: Is That Your Final Answer? Could It Change? "I Don't Think So."

"NBC News Chief: Matthews Isn't Running"--that's the seemingly dispositive headline in The Hill newspaper today, picking up on an interview with NBC News president Steve Capus that appeared in Broadcasting & Cable. But interestingly, B&C chose not to put Matthews in its headline, which read "No one in television had a more eventful year than this NBC News chief." So maybe not so fast, The Hill! The Cable Gamer still has a few questions about Matthews, and so should all Cable Gamers.

Prompted with a question from reporter B&C reporter Marisa Guthrie, about a possible Matthews for office, here's how Capus answered:

Capus: "[Chris Matthews] is not running for office."

Guthrie: "He's not?"

Capus: "I don't think so. Well, look, if he were running for office, he wouldn't be on TV."

OK, fair enough. Good on reporter Guthrie for getting the interview. But The Cable Gamer can't help but notice that there are plenty of unanswered questions concerning Matthews' political venturings. For example, by all accounts, he has been seriously looking at the 2010 US Senate race in Pennsylvania for at least six months; his looking included trips to Pennsylvania and many hardball-y conversations with top Democrats. So what was MSNBC/NBC policy during that six month period? I mean, we know the answer, from the record: Matthews was free to do as he wished, exploring his options, while pulling down an estimated $400,000 a month in salary.

But now Capus says that if Matthews were running, "he wouldn't be on TV." Well, Steve, he has been on TV. During that time, of course, Matthews has distinguished himself with his slavishly pro-Barack Obama coverage, and his slashingly anti-Hillary Clinton commentary. The cartoon above, from a popular political blog, sums up the prevailing view of Matthews these days. Such an embrace of Obama might not be popular everywhere, but it would surely help Matthews win a Democratic primary.

And Matthews may feel the need to push on to new things. In a fierce piece, TV Week's Marianne Paskowski, declared that she has had enough of Matthews: "I stopped watching the bloviating, biased anchor of MSNBC’s 'Hardball' months ago." Reflecting a purely TV perspective, Paskowski hopes that Matthews does run for the Senate: "I hope this Keystone Kop returns to the Keystone state to bully Specter instead of his viewers." So there's a TV industry voice, saying, "Go, Chris, Go!"

But if Paskowski, a close observer of TV, considers it still to be an open question as to whether or not Matthews is running, maybe The Hill shouldn't have been so sure in stamping "fini" on Matthews' Senate ambitions.

Indeed, even now, Capus, after stating NBC's presumed policy against running for office while appearing on TV, the NBC man still gives himself some wiggle room, answering the question about Matthews running with "I don't think so." Kind of a weak verb, "think," wouldn't you say? So does that mean that it's still possible that Matthews might be running?

And what does that say about NBC policy toward Matthews? And toward Democrats? Is it fair to describe Capus as a pliable "yes man" for big-dog Dems? Yes sir!

h/t on photo: bigheaddc.com

MSNBC: All The World's a Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances.

Don't argue with that wisdom; it's from from Shakespeare's "As You Like It."

The idea that we all play our parts on the great stage of life--and that such a format translates naturally into TV--seems to have informed a piece from the always interesting Allesandra Stanley writing an interesting take on "Morning Joe" in The New York Times:

‘MORNING JOE’ This MSNBC early-morning political klatch is oddly addictive, even though its hosts at times come off like a cable news version of “American Idol.” Joe Scarborough is Simon Cowell, the Randy Jackson role is divided between Pat Buchanan and Mike Barnicle, and Mika Brzezinski is Paula Abdul, always seeking to say something nice about politicians the others mock. Willie Geist is their Ryan Seacrest, only much funnier.

What Stanley gets at here is that the best shows on TV are family shows--in which the show is the family, which opens its home to your family. That's what makes "The Today Show," work, not to mention any number of sitcoms and local newscasts.

And what makes "Morning Joe" stand out from most of the MSNBC lineup is that the characters are appealing--no humorless ideologues, no domineering talkathon-ers, no smarmy trashtalkers.

By contrast, the "Morning Joe" team is ideologically heterodox: Joe Scarborough is a former conservative Republican Congressman, now getting paid by MSNBC to take whacks at Republicans, but even so, he seems relatively even-handed. Mika Brzezinski is hard to place, but she has an appealing vulnerability to her--literally, as we saw in her much-discussed mugging attack in DC. As for Pat Buchanan, he is always refreshing, always honest, willing to go wherever his conservative ideology takes him, including in fierce opposition to the Bush administration's foreign policy. And as for Mike Barnicle, who flamed out as a Boston newspaper columnist because of plagiarism, he seems to me to be the weakest link. Back in Boston, he seemed to have a set role: to be the working class guy who would translate the upper-class liberalism of the Kennedys and Kerrys down to the proles. In other words, it was Barnicle's job to explain why the working class should support liberalism, welfarism, school busing-ism, and so on. And he did pretty well at it. But he's still a stooge for The Man--the Liberal Man. Of which, of course, there are plenty at MSNBC/NBC.

But still, it's a mixed bag on "Morning Joe." Just like any family.

CNBC: Give.Me.A.Break. Jon Stewart, Here's Your Next Target!

Did you ever notice how for a while, all TV anchors would cross their arms for their promos, all the while looking purposefully into the camera? Sometimes the Mad Men wannabes who do these promotions would add a little slow-mo video, just to give the otherwise Mt. Rushmore-like pictures a little bid of life.

It was a silly idea, masked by the utmost faux-seriousness. And of course, the folded-arms look was ripe for parody.

Enter the great Jon Stewart. He and his gang at "The Daily Show," started doing the same thing, mocking it all the way. And so while there are still plenty of media folk still crossing their arms, we at least know to burst out laughing--or at least utter a chuckle--when we see it.

Now comes CNBC, with its "I Am CNBC" campaign, or, as it appears in your browser window, iam.cnbc.com--take a look!

All this self-importance--more actually proclaimed portentousness--is, once again, ripe for parody. That's your cue, Jon Stewart!

But interestingly, in yet another sign that the Cable Biz News Wars are heating up, Fox Business News is already doing its own parody: Liz Claman, having some fun at CNBC's expense.

A few killjoys don't approve of La Liz's spot, but where's their sense of fun? The whole point is to get media talking heads to take themselves less seriously. They are, after all, just little tiny people living in a little tiny box.

And print critics--well what are they?

In the meantime, we will just hafta wait till Stewart does the ultimate takeout on CNBC's.Silly.Promo.Series.

What Will Ted Turner Say? How Long Till CNN's Chad Myers Recants On His Global Warming Heresy?

Jeff Poor, writing for The Business & Media Institute, a sister organization of the Media Research Center, the conservative-leaning media critique operation, quotes CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers (pictured above) as dismissing global warming concerns, calling such concerns a form of "arrogance":

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”

Wow! Myers is running counter to the sacred orthodoxy of modern eco-liberalism, as promulgated by folks like Ted Turner, the founder of CNN. The visionary-but-crazy Turner was long ago pushed out of his cable creation by the bean-counting suits at Time-Warner, but his hard green spirit still lives in CNN and most of the rest of the MSM.

Now interestingly, Myers spoke out on a CNN show, "Lou Dobbs Tonight," hosted by Lou Dobbs, who has a unique status at CNN, having been sort of grandfathered in as a conservative-populist. But Myers doesn't have that sort of clout.

So what will happen to Myers for flouting this conventional wisdom? I mean, we know that the mere truth is no defense.

The BMI's Poor provides some perspective, by recalling the apostasy-followed-by-contrition of another CNN weather man:

Another CNN meteorologist attacked the concept that man is somehow responsible for changes in climate last year. Rob Marciano charged Al Gore’s 2006 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” had some inaccuracies.

“There are definitely some inaccuracies,” Marciano said during the Oct. 4, 2007 broadcast of CNN’s “American Morning.” “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming.”

Marciano also said that, “global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we’ve seen,” pointing out that “by the end of this century we might get about a 5 percent increase.”

His comments drew a strong response and he recanted the next day saying “the globe is getting warmer and humans are the likely the main cause of it.”

So here's betting that Myers will issue a "clarifying" statement soon. Or else.

Convergence, The "Advertising Depression," And What To Do About It

Influential advertising/media blogger Jack Myers predicts a "depression"--or, more precisely, an "advertising depression," over the next three years. Yikes! And Dow Jones picked up Myers' grim forecast, too, under the header, "Advertising Outlook Grows Dire As Industry Faces Shakeout."

Actually, Cable Gamers might be interested to know that while Myers predicts some huge fall-offs for some advertising categories, such as newspapers, and small fall-offs for most categories, Myers actually predicts a gain for some other categories, including cable TV. (Although the biggest winners, in percentage terms, are in such new-new media categories as online video.)

OK, so we're all getting inured to bad news, even if we don't really know what to do about such news.

But this week also brought some fresh insight on these issues,, from Slate.com's Jack Shafer, the 'zine's always interesting media columnist, who explained how the key issue was "interopability," from one media platform to another:

Perhaps the most prescient of all digital prophets was scholar W. Russell Neuman, whose 1991 book, The Future of the Mass Audience, saw how the Web would overturn the existing order before the public World Wide Web even existed. The media—newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, cable, motion pictures, games, music, books, newsletters—all resided in separate "unique, noncompetitive" analog silos. Translating and transmitting from one format to another was "an expensive, labor-intensive endeavor," Neuman writes.

By introducing these varied—and often monopolistic—media to a "single, universal, multipurpose network," the digital Web destroyed the old barriers and created new competitive pressures. For end users, viewing last night's Dave Letterman monologue or cruising Craigslist or scanning today's headlines or reading one's inbox or listening to the Timbaland/Cornell collaboration now happens inside the same space. In other words, CBS, the Times, Universal Music, Verizon, Blockbuster video, and anybody else who wants your media attention is fighting for your attention (mindshare and dollars) in the same kiosk. It only stands to reason that in today's environment, the daily newspaper—that wonderful, crusty old beast, which I love with all my heart—would take a beating.

And so, as TCG has argued many times in the past, it all boils down to a battle of the screens. Which screen will prevail? It's hard to know for sure now, of course, but the key variable is that each successful player in this media environment has to have a screen. Hence the battle of the screens--TV vs. the Net, with some synthesis of the two destined to win.

Thus the challenge, and the opportunity: create the best screen, that can go anywhere, across all technological platforms (although, of course, all platforms will be digital, and digital can go anywhere.)

Recent history tells us, If you build it, they will come. The audiences, that is.

Fox Biz--Still #2, But Better at Buzz

Fox Business News got off to a less-than-stellar start a year ago, but the folks at FBN keep plugging away, tortoise-like, while the hares at CNBC seem to be confident that they can sleep on their lead forever, taking time out for puff-coverage, which one well-placed critic Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider, likened to a "blow job."

Meanwhile, FBN went live on the auto bailout in Congress when CNBC (and Bloomberg) were running reruns and informercials. And so while the greeting card pictured above might not get ratings straight away, it will get buzz.

FBN's buzz-topic was a favorite target, the invincibly incorrect Jim Cramer, who become the butt of a song parody based on "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch":

“You’re a mean one, Mr. Cramer; You rant and rave every day; You told us all that Bear was fine, there’s nothing more to say, Mr. Cramer; Take your money out of the market right now is what you said on Today!

“You’re a mean one, Mr. Cramer; You put fear in your viewer’s minds; You said to buy Wachovia, how can you look ‘em in the eye Mr. Cramer; Can’t believe you told us all to — buy, buy, buy!

“Now FOX Business is the place to be; We’ll make sense of it all for you; We don’t believe in fear mongering, we only stick to the truth, unlike Cramer; FOX Business Network — is your place for business news!”

OK, so that's a little hokey, but it's also buzzy. And buzz is what got the Fox News Channel going in the 90s--billboards making fun of CNN, getting people talking about FNC, even if they weren't yet watching.

H/T to Talking Biz News, although, of course, TV Newser, too, had the story.

Convergence Updates: Politico Extends Its Brand, And Net Neutrality, RIP. Or, Who Will The Octopus Squeeze?

In the not-so-distant future, there won't be any hard-copy newspapers. The latest findings from Gallup about news consumption show that the only winners in the news biz these days are cable news and the Internet--both of them appearing on screens, albeit different screens, typically.

OK, so news consumers will get their news from a screen. What sort of screen? Put it this way: it won't matter, because they'll all do everything. Right now, my big screen TV is a Dell--and while I haven't figured out exactly how yet, I can use that screen as a computer screen. Convergence!

In that sort of environment, the announcements that Politico is now a) offering a wire service, and b) teaming up with Reuters is interesting. The Politico is nominally a newspaper, and it still distributes freebie copies all over the place in DC, but all my Beltway friends tell me that it is really an online publication--that's where everyone reads it. So the hard copy of the paper was a sort of benign Trojan Horse--just a way to help Politico gain "street cred," as it were, to compete with AP and all the other old-line wire services.

The Cable Gamer wishes Politico well--it's a lively and interesting product, without the obvious preachy liberal bias of, say, AP. (Although it is an ominous sign that Politico is teaming up with Reuters.)

And of course, if screens are the new medium--as opposed to hard copy--then it will be incumbent on all the screen operators to make the best product possible. Will the new screen just be print and maybe a picture or two? Of course not. The news screens of the future will be alive with movement, color, graphics, video--anything that people can think of to make the news more compelling. It will be an exciting time for Cable Gamers and for all news junkies.

At that point, I will probably change the name of this blog to The Convergence Game!

But of course, there are plenty of technical issues to be wrangled along the way. We can all have screens, and content providers can be "agnostic across platforms"--to use some jargon concerning the indistinguishability of TV, computers, cell phones, etc.--but there's still the issue of getting the content from the provider to the consumer.

Broadly speaking, content moves through "pipelines," which are either fiber optic, or wireless (through the air)--anything but an actual pipeline.

And so the question of who controls those pipelines--who builds them, who profits from them, who regulates them--is about as important as anything in the 21st century US economy. Control of the pipelines tomorrow is as important as control of the roads today, or control of the railroads yesterday.

TCG can remember, many years ago, reading The Octopus, a 1901 novel by muckraker Frank Norris, in which the railroads were portrayed as the bad guys. The issue was, at bottom, simple: if the railroads had a monopoly on transport, they could rip off farmers and others who needed transportation to survive. So do the pipeline owners--Verizon, AT&T, Comcast--play a similar role today? Not really, because the telcos and cable companies are heavily regulated--they are legally prohibited from playing favorites, in terms of, say, letting one category of traffic go faster than another. That's "net neutrality."

Indeed, some might ask, "Is the government, and all its regulations and red tape--is that the new octopus?" And that's an interesting question--the federal government being 10 times the size, as a percentage of GDP, as it was in Frank Norris' day.

But in the meantime, the picture grows ever more complicated: According to the Journal this morning, big Net companies, including Microsoft and Google, are losing interest in net neutrality, as they seek to carve out better deals for themselves. They say that they are doing this in the name of serving customers better.

We shall see.

What we will also see, again and again, is a revisitation of the oldest questions concerning the allocation of scarce commodities--and yes, even the Internet is a scarce commodity, especially at "fat pipe" speeds.

"It's Time for NBC to Fire Ben Silverman" Sorry, Jeff Zucker!

Somebody finally has the guts to say it fire Ben Silverman from NBC. Now!

That somebody is Jeff Bercovici, ace media blogger for Conde Nast Portfolio, whose blog posting appeared under the headline above.

Bervovici began by outlining some of the reasons why NBC's just-announced plan to move Jay Leno to 10 pm was unlikely to succeed. But even if it does work, Jeff continues, the Leno move still undercuts the rationale for keeping Silverman in charge of NBC "entertainment":

It's still a sign that the time has come to fire Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment.

Of Silverman, The Wall Street Journal's story on the Leno move says only that it could give him "a smaller canvas to work on, and could signal a diminished role for him at the network." The New York Times doesn't even mention Silverman in its story.

That's striking, but fitting. The Leno maneuver wasn't about creating new programming; it was about playing defense -- "safety first," as NBC Universal chairman Jeff Zucker said over and over at the UBS media conference yesterday. It's meant to accomplish two things: keeping Leno from jumping to a rival network and diminishing NBC's programming costs in primetime.

NBC didn't hire Silverman to play defense. It hired him because he was a hit-maker -- the mover behind the American versions of The Office, Ugly Betty and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? But a year and a half after his arrival, Silverman has failed utterly to produce any fresh triumphs for NBC -- failed so utterly that now the network can only see the downside of the time slot where mega-hits like ER and CSI are born.

At the UBS conference, Zucker was asked, as he has been in the past, if he's lost confidence in Silverman. Zucker said he hadn't, noting that NBC is far from the only network to show ratings declines this season. If performing only a little worse than its peer group is truly NBC Universal's new metric for success, that says a lot. But at a time when the conglomerate is laying off hundreds, even from its divisions that are thriving, there's no justification for keeping someone like Silverman -- an expensive reminder of the network's shriveled ambitions -- on the books.

And so a rendezvous with TV destiny is coming for the aforementioned Jeff Zucker. LA does not seem to be big enough for Zucker AND his unnaturally strong affection for Silverman to coexist. TCG readers will recall my post of October 28, in which I called attention to a quote from Richard Siklos' Fortune profile of Silverman, which included this telling quote from Zucker:

"He's young, single, wealthy, and beautiful. There are a lot of reasons to be jealous of Ben before you even put him in this job."

"Beautiful"? What's going on here? No wonder Silverman thought he had job insurance, despite calamitous ratings. But now that the wolves are circling NBC, and now that the Other Jeff, Jeff Immelt, is looking to make some changes to save his own hide at parent GE, The Cable Gamer is betting that Zucker will come to understand that his own career matters more to him than his infatuation with Benny Boy. In the media biz, love of self usually trumps all other loves.

And lest anyone think that I am suggesting that Zucker is gay in any way, let me refute that absurd allegation by pointing out that Zucker is married with children. I am sure that there is some other explanation for Zucker's loyalty to Silverman.

Obviously GE Needs That Bailout--And Maybe More, Just For NBC

"Zucker says NBC may scale down programming hours"

That's the bad-news-bear headline atop AP's sum up of Jeff Zucker's appearance at an investor's conference in NYC.

And although there's plenty of, uh, uncreative destruction at NBC, it's a continuing mystery to TCG why Ben Silverman seems immune from criticism, to say nothing of replacement.

Or maybe it's not a mystery, as I have noted here in the past. I guess J Zuck really does have a crush on Ben S.

But in the meantime, so long as MSNBC can keep the bailout gravy train chugging GE's way through GE Capital Zucker can continue with his party.

"Senator Matthews, D-MSNBC?"

It seems a shame to waste Howie Kurtz's brilliant headline in The Washington Post, so TCG is noting it, above.

But according to some reports today, Chris Matthews has re-upped at MSNBC.

We shall see soon enough.

Chris Matthews Update--Still Bleeding!

Jossip opens up MSNBC's bleeding wound a little bit wider.

And the nastiest comments about Chris Matthews' windmill-tilting seem to be coming from the Left. Here's Democratic strategist-author David Sirota, writing in The Huffington Post:

The sense of entitlement that this blowhard personifies is truly stunning…It's a cynical insult to Pennsylvania voters - as if none of the state's 12 million residents are qualified for the Senate, as if those 12 million poor souls need the Great Chris Matthews to swoop in from his mansion in Washington, D.C. to save them. What a joke. Let's hope Matthews does run and the Democratic primary makes him the punchline.

Which is to say, Matthews could have a tough--maybe impossible--time in the Democratic primary, to say nothing of the general election against the Republican nominee.

Unfortunately for Chris, as Politico's Michael Calderone has noted earlier this week, if he choose to stay at MSNBC, he will have to take a huge pay cut. He'd still be making millions, of course, but his ego might not permit it. But then, Matthews' ego has always been his problem.

Let's Face It: Liz Claman is Hott. But Even More, She Is Also a Hard Worker!

The always valuable TV Newser tells us FBN's Liz Claman is getting an exclusive with Warren Buffett tomorrow night.

Which reminds me: Miz Liz of the Biz is keeping bizzy. The Cable Gamer knows, of course, that Claman has a big following on the Net, in particular, Google Images, but she is getting a lot of more traditional journalistic attention and doing a lot of serious journalistic work.

For example, she was was profiled in The Bergen Record, did a Q&A for a Northern New Jersey magazine, and was also named a contributing editor at The Los Angeles Times' L.A. Magazine, where she interviewed Magic Johnson for a cover story.

And finally, this revealing piece, which appeared in the Beacon-Journal, in Akron, OH, of all places, which was very entertaining--one imagines that Claman felt a little more unguarded chatting with a paper outside of the NYC pressure cooker:

On starting out in the news business:

“I had to kick, scratch, and bite for every opportunity,” she [Claman] says.

On moving to FBN:

“They play to win,” she said, “They are gutsy…they never say ‘why?’ They say ‘why not?’ “

On the newness of FBN:

''We're never settled in. That's when you run into trouble. We're shuckin' and jivin' and moving and zigging and zagging. I don't sleep. I lie in bed thinking about the next thing we can do.''

"Shuckin' and jivin'"? "I lie in bed thinking about the next thing we can do"? Yikes! Watch out, Mr. Buffett!

"Chris Wallace In The Liberal Lion's Den"

From the sound of Jim Pinkerton's blog report tonight, Chris Wallace showed real courage tonight. Standing up in front of a Liberal Establishment audience in DC, Wallace stood up for George W. Bush, at least in response to those who would liken Bush to Richard Nixon. Here's the good stuff from the "Frost/Nixon" preem:

But then “Fox News Sunday” anchorman Chris Wallace, braving the liberal wind, asked a question, which was actually more of an accusation. “To compare George W. Bush to Richard Nixon is to trivialize Nixon’s crimes and is a disservice to Bush,” Wallace said. Recalling that 3000 people were killed on 9-11, and noting that there hadn’t been any attacks on U.S. soil since, Wallace suggested that something had been done right. That’s why, he said, “we are all sitting here tonight so comfortably”—and not afraid of another terrorist attack. Moreover, Wallace said, “Richard Nixon’s crimes were committed solely for his own political gain, whereas George W. Bush was trying to protect the American people.” To suggest otherwise, Wallace insisted, “was a grave misrepresentation of history, then and now.” And, amazingly, Wallace received a smattering of applause.

Seemingly not wanting to get into a fight with the TV man, Dallek answered that we knew full well of Nixon’s criminality because of the Watergate tapes, but that no similar documentary record existed yet for Bush. Only when such information comes out, Dallek suggested, would the full horror of Bush’s presidency become visible. Which, of course, proved Wallace’s point: It was not fair to equate proven facts about Nixon with mere allegations about Bush.

“You make suppositions on no facts whatsoever,” Wallace concluded.

UPDATE: Wallace will be on "The O'Reilly Factor" Tuesday night.

"Day 3 of Mumbai Held Hostage, and MSNBC is a no-show"

That's the headline from Aaron Barnhart, the great TV blogger:

On Thanksgiving Day, the fine TV critic of the Baltimore Sun, David Zurawik, and I quarreled politely over whether MSNBC was adequately covering the Mumbai terror situation on Wednesday.

Well, that was before a violent attack turned into a three-day ordeal. Unfortunately, by the time the killing in Mumbai was over, one network had decided to save some money and send everybody home for the Thanksgiving weekend, and I was feeling like an idiot for defending MSNBC. Take a look:

Yes, indeed, please do.

Politico's Michael Calderone Finds His Footing. And The New York Times Says Wolff Book "Full of Falsehood."

Michael Calderone seems to have come to his senses about Michael Wolff. His latest posting for Politico, on the inaccuracies in Wolff's book shows some solid reporting--for a change.

On Friday, The Cable Gamer noted that Calderone was hopelessly misreporting the "hot stuff" in Wolff's new tell-it-all-wrong book, The Man Who Owns The News, ignoring the fact that the best item--that Rupert Murdoch dislikes Roger Ailes--was simply wrong.

Now, Calderone seems eager to report the various additional refutations of Wolff's book:

During the Dow Jones takeover, in June 2007, the New York Times embarked on a multi-bureau investigation of Rupert Murdoch, led by managing editor Jill Abramson.

According to Michael Wolff’s forthcoming Murdoch biography, "The Man Who Owns The News," the Times had planned to publish more than the two front page pieces on the media mogul, written by Jo Becker and Joe Kahn. But criticism from Gary Ginsberg, News Corp.’s executive VP of Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs, helped clamp down the paper’s efforts, according to Wolff.

Wolff wrote:

“The Times turns out to be quite an inept attack dog. Its team of reporters has, at great expense, failed to turn up anything new. What’s more, News Corp.’s own response — in a statement drafted by Ginsberg — so cows the Times that it cancels the rest of its planned series. All this supports Murdoch’s view of the Times: While it is, in this attack, “using its news pages to advance its own corporate agenda,” it cannot even do that well. So what will become of it?”

Abramson, in an e-mail to Politico, said “the idea that we canceled the ‘rest’ of the series is nonsense. There were not more than two pieces scheduled to run.”

As for Wolff’s characterization of the Times’ reporting, Abramson wrote the following.

“I do care, as you can imagine, that Wolff's account is full of falsehood. Our pieces turned up lots of new things. Surely they would not have evoked as loud a howl from Ginsberg otherwise. And, as is true with all our news coverage, the series was driven by the news, not any so-called corporate agenda.”

So The New York Times declares to Calderone that Wolff's book is "full of falsehood," and Calderone puts it in his piece.

For Calderone, that's a big change from his admiring tone of just three days ago. So what might account for the change? Two possibilities: First, maybe getting slapped around by the Cable Gamer knocked some sense into Calderone. Second, and more likely, Calderone was keeping a commitment to Wolff: Say something nice about the book, in return for a sneak peek. But now that transaction has been completed, so Calderone can go back to saying what he really thinks.

"CNN Pitches a Cheaper Wire Service to Newspapers" -- New York Times headline

Can the (self-proclaimed) "Most Trusted Name In News" break into a new line of news?

Yesterday in The New York Times, Tim Arango and Richard Perez-Pena raised the curtain on a whole new venue for Cable Gaming: a new CNN wire service for the digital age. Here's the top of the Times:

CNN, in the afterglow of an election season of record ratings for cable news, is elbowing in on a new line of business: catering to financially strained newspapers looking for an alternative to The Associated Press.

For nearly a month, a trial version of CNN’s wire service has been on display in some newspapers. But this week editors from about 30 papers will visit Atlanta to hear CNN’s plans to broaden a service to provide coverage of big national and international events — and maybe local ones — on a smaller scale and at a lower cost than The A.P.

“The reality is we don’t have a lot of relationships with newspapers,” said Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide. “We have relationships with TV stations around the world.” Mr. Walton said the meeting this week, which CNN has billed the “CNN Newspaper Summit,” is “kind of a get-to-know-you.”

With its CNN Wire, the company is going up against the largest news-gathering operation in the world in The A.P., and it must convince editors that it can offer something that is well outside its broadcast expertise — which may not be a tough task given the dire circumstances newspapers face. In addition, a number of newspapers are unhappy with the cost of The A.P., a nonprofit corporation that is owned by the 1,400 papers that are its members. Some newspapers have even given notice that they intend to leave The A.P.

Will it work? Can CNN move from TV to the Internet to newspapers? The Cable Gamer thinks it's possible. In fact, it's actually not as much of a transition as it once would have been, given that all forms of news content are Converging into a Digital Unity, a oneness of content that is "agnostic across platforms," to use some tech jargon.

So what are CNN Wire's prospects? On the one hand, the news biz is not exactly robust these days. But on the other hand, this is the information age, and so an outfit with savvy and a strong brand might well be able to muscle out a larger piece of a shrinking pie--that will probably be expanding again in the future, albeit in new forms. So if the Times further noted:

CNN Wire could offer columns written by some of its high-profile personalities, like Anderson Cooper. It also plans to offer text versions of its major investigative pieces for television.

“The CNN system is set up so we use content across all our networks and platforms,” Mr. Walton said. “It’s not unusual for Anderson Cooper to appear online or on CNN International.”

What has yet to be determined, of course, is whether CNN can pull it off. It probably doesn't help CNN that Ted Turner has chosen to rear his crazy head at this time, with a new book that will remind everyone that CNN was founded by a man who was, well, loco.

But of course, Turner is only a memory at CNN. And so while CNN is still identifiable liberal, that hardly makes it different from most of the rest of the MSM. Perhaps now CNN has found a way to better monetize all of its talent. And when I say "talent" I don't just mean La Anderson, and all the others who might put their byline on someone else's work. Instead, I mean those who would actually do the reporting and writing--the material that will actually appear on someone's screen. And without a doubt, in a place such as CNN, there are plenty of non-famous folks who know a lot--a lot more than will ever find its way on air.

And so CNN has the opportunity, now, to make sure that all of that talent, and the content it can generate, will be extruded to more places: whether that content goes in a teleprompter for a talking head to read on TV, or a website, or a newspaper, or--who knows?--an avatar.

But as noted, the distinction between CNN and its rivals, AP, Reuters, etc. is mostly a matter of business competition--competition among likeminded rivals. So the big question is whether a genuinely different voice will jump in. Such as, say, Fox, which could bring a whole new fair-and-balanced style to a wire service.

So stay tuned, 'Gamers!