"[O]ne ABC employee acknowledged that Nightline, the late-night ABC News show, has been talked about as a future 10 p.m. possibility," wrote Carter and Stelter. Its a weakly presented nugget—it comes from an "employee" of ABC rather than an executive or someone described as a well-placed source, and it's hedged to within an inch of it's life. ABC News executives are professing ignorance of the proposal.

The main beneficiary of such a move would be our friend Jimmy Kimmel, who would then be free to start at 11:35 and go head-to-head with Conan O'Brien. Carter wrote in January that ABC was considering replacing Nightline with Kimmel as early as this year, a notion that ABC News executives aggressively shot down. In either scenario, of course, Kimmel comes out on top. (Wait—he's an employee of ABC, right?)

Expanding Nightline to an hour and moving it up to 10 p.m. actually makes economic sense—the marginal increased costs of producing a second half-hour would be outweighed by the potential gain in doubling the show's ad revenue. And there are more viewers to attract at that hour. The question is whether it can make more profit—and provide a better lead-in for its affiliates' local news operations—than Lost or Private Practice or any of the new dramas it's launching at 10 p.m. next season. NBC's Leno move might open up space for dramas on other networks, making them a better proposition. Or it might herald an audience shift toward light-weight programming at 10 p.m. If it's the latter, moving up Nightline would be easy and smart.

But really—does anyone care anymore? Carter's January story about Kimmel taking Nightline's spot was cast in the breathless language of a battle between entertainment and news values. That was the case back in 2002, when ABC tried to lure David Letterman over to replace Nightline. But it was the case because Ted Koppel was hosting the show at the time, and Nightline was serious and designed to actually gather and distribute valuable information about the world. The fates of Martin Bashir and Cynthia McFadden may be interesting from a business perspective, but the battle between entertainment and news values was lost long ago.

• Ted Koppel—he spent 42 years at ABC before leaving Nightline for good in 2005. Then he went to Discovery. Now...?
• Dan Rather—Anchored CBS Evening News for 24 years before being run out of the network in 2005 in the wake of his story on incriminating George W. Bush military records which turned out to be fakes. Now he has his own show on HDNet, which may be great, but which is also little-watched. Spends the balance of his time and money suing CBS for making him leave.
• Tom Brokaw—Spent more than three decades at NBC, ending his run as anchor of the NBC Nightly News in late 2004. And surprisingly, his career hasn't taken a sad downward turn! He's been filling in as the anchor of Meet The Press, which is a thoroughly respectable gig, although someone had to die in order for him to get it. And NBC pretty much lets him step in and do pieces whenever he wants. He is the model for anchor semi-retirement.
• Peter Jennings—Anchored ABC's World News Tonight for 22 years, right up until his sad death in 2005. Maybe he is actually the model for anchor retirement? Only for the morbid.
• Connie Chung—Briefly hosted the CBS Evening News in the early 1990s. She's worked at just about every network there is! Now she's chilling out, married to Maury Povich. Not too shabby, I guess!

• [Pic via PublicRadio.org]

The day on which the Thank God We're Working Summer TV Press Tour got its start was one of singular euphoria. ...

So thrilled were the critics with the whole still-employed/Beverly Hills/expense-account thing, they generously overlooked TV One following its first session, on racism in America, with one that kicked off with homophobic remarks made by a guy who appears to be one of the new co-hosts of TV One show Black Men Revealed.

And, hours later, they also graciously let it slide when Florence Henderson — born 1934 — slipped in a reference to herself as being part of the baby boom generation...

*GUNSHOT*

And this is one of the good items — a self-effacing glimpse into the abyss of modern culture, where ex-SAG president Ed Asner predictably wheezes on behalf of an actors strike, the Hallmark Channel cannibalizes the very bones of cable television and Ted Koppel fakes what little funk remains beneath his ever-thickening species of wig. Sign us up, seriously. How did we ever overlook the credentialing process?

We think we know, actually: Having proven its irrelevance after nobody — not readers, not viewers, nobody except perhaps the overextended networks and publishers who pay for it all, and certainly not us — even noticed when the WGA strike necessitated its cancellation last January, the TCA press tour is but a holdover of entitlement and uselessness, all but invisible, little but dead. Which is to say: Make it stop. Dogs, ponies, shows — drown them all, pocket the money, make better TV and hire back the swaths of critical dead who gave half a fuck before polishing network turds became the law of the land.

Or just call it even. We don't even care at this point as long as the publicity reach-around in TV, film, politics and pretty much any measurable media ecology makes so few people happy or even remotely intrigued. Just make it stop. Katherine Heigl doesn't need your defenses, Chandra Wilson. Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira's "romantic tension"? Kill yourselves. Mark Cuban on day-and-date film releases for the trillionth time? He can afford to be wrong for 20 lifetimes, but beat writers fall for it year after year after year.

So, TCA press tour attendees? Hello? We love you as people, support you as peers and just want to see you happy. Really. And we know your editors will take it rough, but they'll get over it, and anyway, it's time: Put this dog down.

• That Sputtering Sound You Hear? Another Press Tour Revs Up [Washington Post]

Catmoe's new line beat out the original, "Give! Give That To Ted Koppel At Once!"

In the Sheraton's ballroom, the Napoleonic head of CNN, Jonathan Klein, was wearing a tux and chatting with some other old white dude. Bob Schieffer of CBS chatted with Ted Koppel, who was to receive a lifetime achievement award. An unusually and quite frankly scarily tan Mike Wallace spryly circulated from small circle to small circle. We looked for Wolf Blitzer and Brian Williams—they were both "working."

We were sitting at the press table. Because the press talk so much, we heard that it was probably someone from the Business desk that started yesterday's Times fire: "The fire was on the second floor. That's where business is. And Science and Escapes and Sports!"

Matea Gold from the LA Times was there in a smart pearl necklace. She sported a slim ivory shiny digital recorder and didn't eat dessert (chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup). Across the table, looking like a fairy godmother (because she is), was TV Week's Michelle Greppi. Onstage, Tim Russert was giving this "Lock arms, brothers and sisters" speech. He then introduced Dan Rather as "soon to be the star of his own reality TV show on Court TV with Les Moonves." So true!

Dan Rather's most notable quotable: "News matters."

We were right next to a huge television screen that flashed clips of Frontline documentaries (the series was honored) and other news reports—lots of footage of dead and dying people. How is one supposed to enjoy an already rubbery steak while having to watch Marines dying or starving Darfurians?

That said, PBS programs , which swept the awards, are totes replacing "The OC" seasons 1-4 on my Netflix queue.

Then Mike Wallace won an Emmy for his interview with Iran's President Ahmadinejad and took to the stage. He put the Emmy on the ground and rambled on for about 15 minutes, speaking almost exclusively in haiku. "Me. You. This Room/Ahmadinejad./We didn't know."

Huh? What now? Soon enough he was replaced by Soledad O'Brien. She looks and speaks like a Sarah Silverman caricature of herself, drawing out the ends of words like a rabbi.

It was surely time for more white wine. But when I asked for another, the old waiter asked whether I'd like to open a tab.

No one is more responsible for the prestige of the Sunday slot than perennial political talk powerhouse and Saturday Night Live muse John McLaughlin and his "McLaughlin Group." After 25 years in the game, he is pretty much the founding father of network political pontification. The thing is, McLaughlin is like one of those college professors who's all serious and respected and schedules their classes first thing in the morning. He and his distinguished panel are up every Sunday at the crack of dawn, in their suits, and off the air by noon. Is this because they are consummate professionals? No. It's because they are very, very, very old, and along with eating dinner at three in the afternoon and being incontinent, early rising is what old people do.

I spent the weekend alternately nursing and nurturing a massive hangover, so I missed out on McLaughlin and his geriatric gang of early rising intellectuals. I was left with the rest of the Sunday talk show crop, "Hannity's America," and Tim Russert's "Meet The Press."

Predictably, both shows spent a ton of time analyzing the recent verdict in the Scooter Libby trial, which Russert quietly noted was "A trial which, I was involved in, regrettably."

Russert is an amiable, awkward, buffoon whose huge head and asymmetrical moon face make him look like a Picasso rendition of Family Guy's Peter Griffin. His "Meet The Press" is the follow-up to McLaughlin where he struggles to seem like he's asking tough questions to an impressive roster of policy makers and media luminaries. In this episode, he asked U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, to "strip away the diplomatic speak" and did not blink when when Khalizad responded by continually characterizing the Persian Gulf as a "neighborhood."

This week Ted Koppel was on Russert's panel pimping his new special "Our Children's Children's War" and I couldn't help but notice how unimpressive his current credentials (Managing Editor, Discovery Channel) seemed to be. How the hell did this guy go from "Nightline" to sharing prime time with "Croc Hunter" reruns? I guess I must have missed his Dan Rather moment.

The "Meet The Press" panel described Bush's recent diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran as a major change in policy in response to Americans losing patience for the war in Iraq. The discussion allowed Koppel to outline the main idea of his current project which is, that the War On Terror is a conflict that has been going on for 24 years, is happening around the world and in places we didnt even know about, and isn't likely to end any time soon. Damn. Now we see why Koppel has fallen so far off the radar. The dude's a real downer.

You don't turn to Tim Russert and "Meet The Press" for a good time. As much fun as it is to watch Russert's facial expressions as the gears grind in his head each week, "Meet The Press" is largely a solemn affair, an appropriately stodgy follow-up to "The McLaughlin Group." If you want more fast-paced Sunday talk fare you have to wait for the evening to spend some time in the special place on Fox News called "Hannity's America."

Sean Hannity's America is a nation that rocks. You know this because he always begins the show with an intensely patriotic country song. On "Hannity's America" this week, that was followed with Sean's analysis of something far more pressing than "Meet The Press'" depressing War On Terror coverage, truly hateful media whore and frequent Hannity guest Ann Coulter is out being truly hateful yet again.

Hannity predictably feels his fellow talking head is being unfairly criticized. He alleges that the "liberal media" ignores controversial comments made by left-wingers while persecuting conservatives like he and Coulter. To prove this point he presented a top ten list of "liberal hate speech" history lessons for members of the "mainstream press."

I have always wondered how Fox gets away with touting their ratings success at the same time that the majority of their on-air talent relies on the perception that they're doing some sort of pirate radio broadcast. That point aside, Hannity's highlight reel did have some funny footage of Alec Baldwin screaming about stoning someone to death, as well as crazy with Joe Biden and Robert Byrd. Perceived left wing hypocrisy continued to be a major theme on "Hannity's America" throughout "2 on 2," Sean's blatantly partisan spin on the standard Sunday talk show roundtable, but it was a lot less interesting without the funny YouTube clips (even though it had it's moments, such as when Hannity described Roger Clinton as a "prominent democrat").

The show continued with features on child Palestinian suicide bombers and a theme park where Mexicans pay to cross a fake version of the U.S. border. At first I wondered why these segments, which were filmed in foreign countries, were on a show titled "Hannity's America," but than I realized that they kind of made me scared of minorities, and nothing is more American than that.

Hannity's unique apple-pie-and-ice-cream brand of xenophobia was further evident "Enemy Of The Week," which marked the President's visit to Latin America by contrasting Hugo Chavez's "repression" with George W. Bush's "agenda of peace and prosperity."

Hannity closed out his weekly romp through this great nation of ours with a bizarre man on the street segment where he interviewed couples in Times Square about their sex lives. In one final, attention-starved "only in America" moment, a man proposed to his girlfriend with Hannity and his cameras standing by—leaving Hannity to close the hour of war-mongering, stereotyping, and partisan politics with the absurd line: "bringing people together."

First was the announcement last week that he'd be joining the Discovery Channel as its managing editor, bringing a crew of Nightline vets with him to produce a slate of longform, documentary-style program. Now comes the news that he's also joining The New York Times.

He'll have the new title of "contributing columnist," which means he'll contribute to the op-ed page on an occasional basis.

This is, we imagine, good news both for Koppel, who gets a prestigious outlet for his writing, and for readers, who get a new and interesting columnist in the mix — a Jewish guy from suburban Maryland who likes globetrotting, talking with foreign leaders, and reporting on international affairs. Which means it may be bad news for one guy: If we were Tom Friedman, we'd be watching our back.

Ted Koppell to Join The New York Times as Contributing Columnist [NYTCo]

"The ten of us [from Nightline] are enormously excited to be at a place that wants nothing more than to produce the kind of television journalism that focuses on issues that matter to the largest number of people," Koppel said. "We look forward to creating quality programming that provides the in-depth information for which Discovery Channel is known."

Koppel then added that he was "totally stoked to work on a ridunculous segment about that face-eating tumor shit."

Koppel Named Discovery Channel Managing Editor [Romenesko]

Mr. Koppel recently was a guest on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360 ," a nighttime news program that is the un-"Nightline": Mr. Cooper jumps from topic to topic at top speed, everything from grisly true-crime stories to interviews with the likes of Nicole Richie.

Take it away TVNewser: "But Cooper hasn't interviewed Richie, at least not on the first two weeks of 360, a review of CNN transcripts demonstrates."

Could someone please teach this woman how to use Nexis?

With Little Fanfare, an Anchor Says Goodbye [NYT]
Note to Alessandra: Anderson Cooper Didn't Interview Nicole Richie on 360 [TVNewser]