• 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]

McCain and Obama had their revenge in the end, showing Brokaw to be useless without his teleprompter. That minor embarrassment aside, CBS News' Bob Schieffer should impose similar discipline at the final debate next Wednesday. That would be an excellent way to get the White House press corps off on the right, confrontational note with the future subject of its coverage.

(Click the video at top to watch all the fireworks.)

As we all know, NBC news, because of MSNBC, has been taken over by lunatics. Left-wing fanatics like Keith Olbermann and, uh, Rachel Maddow, and just-plain-crazy people like Chris Matthews. The Olbermann-Matthews ticket briefly covered the conventions as if they were real newsanchors and not circus sideshows! This outraged everyone, because they are intemperate and say what they think too much (especially Matthews, who says literally every thought he has, out loud). And no one was more outraged than Brokaw, who politely pulled rank and made his bosses give the serious news back to the serious people.

He had to! John McCain and the Republicans were in open revolt against NBC (and the rest of the media, as always, but "NBC" was what they chanted when they called for media blood). And Brokaw is friends with John McCain! Well, not "friends." It's complicated!

Last week during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, Mr. Brokaw said, he spoke briefly with Mr. McCain, who has not appeared on “Meet the Press” since Mr. Russert’s death. While Mr. Brokaw said he and the Republican nominee are not personal friends, he did say they are “friendly” and “always had a great relationship.”

Which means, yes, they're friends. In much the same way that the serious-minded people of Washington are all friends with the other serious-minded people of Washington, once they've been there long enough to establish their serious-minded cred. This serious-minded fairness is what makes Brokaw basically useless, of course, but in that he's no different than Matt Cooper and Joe Klein and Richard Cohen and David Broder and Candy Crowley.

He's the sort of guy who'll only say what he feels—or even say what he knows to be true—when the cameras aren't rolling (or when they are, but he's off the air). He reportedly couldn't stand Bush (not only an arch-conservative and a buffoon, but also an impolite interloper into Washington, like the Clintons eight years earlier), but as the consummate professional he and his news organization made sure to give the president the benefit of the doubt, over and over and over again. And honestly, on television at least, that era of simple-minded fairness is over. People want to know when something is bullshit, and Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilley will tell you when something is bullshit, even if it's not.

The odd thing then is you have a Russert or a Brokaw, two steadfast educated liberal coastal elites, who'll bend over backwards to give a fair shake to the Vice President selling a war with obvious lies, because the Vice President is a serious-minded Washingtonian, like them, and they're all doing their jobs.

And McCain? The ultimate in respected elder statesmanship! He is intemperate, increasingly unhinged, and his gaffes and lies are an embarrassment to anyone who wants to take him seriously, but Brokaw remembers that Senator McCain was the independent maverick who never bullshitted the press back in the day (only the voters, remember), and he is a man to be taken seriously. So he apologizes for the wayward unseriousness of his network and promises McCain's camp that Keith and crazy Chris aren't in charge anymore.

"One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, 'If it's an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won't go,' " Mr. Brokaw said. "My name came up, and they said, 'Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw.' "

See? Then everyone wins! Except you, the viewer. But it's your fault for not being born in the Greatest Generation, and for not experiencing the 1960s, the most important decade ever.

The "Top Shit" is all pretty Lol, but be sure not to miss
1.The Entire GDP Of China, Inside My House

2. Loan To Retarded Brother And Sister-In-Law

3. Tom Friedman ha ha and (seriously)

4. Worst columnist ever Michael Gerson

From Brokaw:

- A pawn shop in Reno, Nev., has an excess supply of eight-track cassette players, flower print shirts, broad white belts and Wayne Newton tapes, having gambled that the '70s would come roaring back. The owner pleaded for a Treasury take-over, arguing, "How can the government stand by and let such a rich part of our American culture simply fade away?"

- The owner of an NFL poster shop in Green Bay, Wis., reports that he has given up on divine intervention and is now asking for Treasury to take over his business in a last-ditch effort to preserve the notion that whatever our differences, we're all Americans.

Asked how his business got into trouble, Karl Andursen of Muledeer, Minn., said he met a man who specialized in printing Minnesota Viking and Chicago Bears posters. Mr. Andursen said the man was willing to bundle his posters and sell them at a discounted rate to anyone who would take over the Green Bay territory.

Mr. Andurson said in the back of his mind he knew that could be risky since Green Bay is sacred ground for Packer fans who wouldn't cheer for the Vikes or the Bears if they were promised a fleet of new snowmobiles and lifetime hunting rights on Brett Favre's farm.

But, as he said, everyone was in the NFL merchandise game and he figured he'd take the territory and after 30 days flip the franchise for a big profit. A year later and he's not made a sale, not one, but who knew?

He's offered his complete inventory of Go Bears! and Vikings Rock! posters for 20 cents on the dollar or $500,000 in 30-year Treasury bonds.

(Personally, everything I ever buy is liquid so I don't have much to add to this list. But I hear Jezebel editor Dodai is moving this weekend!)

Now word was spreading at MSNBC day side: Edge was out, caution was in. “Every day-side anchor, every producer, everybody was told the word on high is that no more edge,” said our source. “Be especially careful not to inject any sort of opinion or ridicule or anything like that. Play it straight down the middle. If you say something is not true, you have to say who’s claiming that it’s not true. The managers were saying, ‘Go for boring. That’s all we care about right now, be boring.’”

Oh, a brilliant maneuver! You are attracting attention and buzz, you say? Angering some partisans and pleasing others? Just like Fox did when they started? You'd better immediately start being boring, lest people begin to care about your third-place network.

But who is really to blame for all this? Who may be more at fault than Griffin, Capus, and Zucker? You'll never guess!

“After Russert died and Brokaw appointed himself the custodian of the Russert legend, he began beating on Steve Capus and Jeff Zucker and Jeff Immelt that MSNBC was an embarrassment,” said the aforementioned source familiar with the inner workings of the newsroom. “It wasn’t a platform that Brokaw found dignified enough for his presence.”

Boo-hoo! Let Brokaw keep up his "elder statesman of respectability-through-longevity" routine on the network news and keep him off our cable shout-fest. Hell, bring on Dan Rather if you want an old-school anchor—he's got moxie. Crazy, crazy moxie. Which is what you need, MSNBC, in this time of strife.

Hard Fall: What Happened to NBC? [NYO]

In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. “MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,” one senior staff member observed. “They’re living from fix to fix and swearing they’ll go into rehab the next week.”

...According to three staff members, Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, and Steve Capus, president of NBC News, considered flying to the Republican convention in Minnesota last week to address the lingering tensions.

Olbermann, by the way, told the Washington Post he never really wanted to be an anchor in the first place:

"Phil and I have debated this set-up since late winter/early spring (with me saying, 'Are you sure this flies?' and him saying, 'Yes, but let's judge it event by event') and I think we both reached the same point during the RNC," Olbermann said by e-mail.

[Times, Washington Post]

“Andrea Mitchell, myself, all of us in the Washington bureau—Morning Joe has become a staple for us,” Russert told me...

Russert had chuckled when I brought up the recent partisan critiques of NBC News. “That’s nothing new,” he said. Besides, with someone like Scarborough, “it’s not as if people are trying to present him as a news anchor. He’s not. But even though he’s a conservative Republican, he’s not afraid to criticize his own party. And I think people find that refreshing.”

Then there's this from Time editor Mark Halperin:

“I was totally skeptical, and now I’m totally won over,” says Time editor-at-large Mark Halperin, a political analyst at ABC News. “I was a huge fan of Imus, but Joe has taken that real estate and turned it into something—and I say this without hyperbole—revolutionary. There’s no other show that does what they do. They’ve really found a new form.”

And from former NBC evening news anchor Tom Brokaw:

Tom Brokaw summed up the consensus opinion when, a week or so later, he poked his head into Griffin’s office and said, “Scarborough. Who knew?”

So there have been two basically glowing profiles for Scarborough in as many months. Perhaps his shot at helming Meet The Press is not as weak as it initially appeared, assuming he even wants the job.

[New York]

"'Some of my best memories from covering the last several presidential elections have included working closely with Tom,' MTP Executive Producer Betsy Fischer said, 'so I know just how lucky we are to have him step in as moderator for Meet the Press. His intellect, focus and calming presence is exactly what we need to move forward smartly and remain the No. 1 public affairs show on television as we head into one of the most pivotal elections in our nation's history.'

"Brokaw is quoted in the release as well: 'I've been appearing on Meet the Press since the days of Watergate when it was moderated by Lawrence E. Spivak right through the distinguished tenure of my great friend, Tim Russert, so I feel right at home. Tim made Meet the Press the center of the universe for informative and lively discussions of public affairs, particularly the exciting 2008 campaign for president, and I intend to continue that commitment to our viewers.'

"The program will continue to be produced and taped at the NBC News Bureau in Washington, D.C." [MediaBistro]

More here.

• The Daily Mail takes a nice long look at why Jodie Foster left her lesbian partner of 15 years, and sets the stage with his description of lesbian Los Angeles: "the words 'mid-life crisis' were heard being whispered over expensively whipped hot drinks and wholemeal muffins in fashionable coffee shops across Hollywood." (Photo via Daily Mail)
• Page Six would like you to please be outraged that this hedge fund manager is unable to renew his Knicks season tickets because they were in Tom Brokaw's name. What's outrageous is that there isn't a phone recording or something where we can listen to the plutocrat lose his precious seats. [P6]
• Kirsten Dunst said she did not check into the no-doubt-pricey Cirque Lodge rehab facility in Utah over drugs, but instead went there to cure her depression. Her depression about being out of drugs, maybe? [E!]
• Rob Lowe's ex-nannies are pissed that the actor is no longer suing his ex-chef, because now maybe the chef will testify against them in their sexual harassment case. Lowe had accused the chef of having sex with strangers in his bed and stealing from his medicine cabinet, but apparently it was all just "a big mistake." Just your run-of-the-mill false accusation.
• I'm trying to imagine thousands of French people shouting "Are you talkin' to ME?!" at Robert De Niro. [P6]
• Always, always bear in mind "the violent propensity of the inebriated Eddie Griffin." [TMZ]
• Woody Harrelson is going to starve himself for 40 days on a remote island in order to "see how it affects his brain." [Hollyscoop]

Let's start with that rascal king of the New Yorker David Remnick, who seems to know a thing or two about media empires. He has a certain industry reputation to uphold, so it's no surprise to see him assuaging the fears of the children at Princeton: magazines are doing just fine! Totally fine! Seriously! Too bad the kids were too busy looking for ways to sell their voting rights on eBay to believe this bullshit.

(While we're here, am I allowed a non sequitur Tina Brown reference? Tina told the totally-not-made-up-newspaper the Indian Express that The New Yorker needs a redesign. Burn, Remnick, burn!)

Meanwhile, Newser daddy Michael Wolff phoned in his Vanity Fair column this month, hoping that someone would blurb it with trite usage of the word "eviscerating." Like this: Michael Wolff's eviscerating critique of cable companies, record labels, and your mama is enough to leave you with a cold sweaty feeling of media desperation. You're welcome, Michael, consider this an early Festivus present!

Breaking: Tom Brokaw has another book to promote. It's called Boom! Voices of the Sixties. Everyone hold your breath and hope he says something profound by mixing equal bits of nostalgia and futurism. Done: "Ten years from now, will [the Washington Post] be here?' I don't know. Probably ... if you would do a hardcore analysis - probably not. It'll be probably digital 10 years from now." He probably meant it too, probably.

Meanwhile, someone over on 41st Street seemed to cut a virtual ribbon and declare that the new Times building is officially open for business. In an also-totally-not-made-up company video called "The Integrated Newsroom," Digital Editor Jim Roberts exclaims, "Here we have web producers sitting right next [not really my emphasis] to the print news desk." Quickly thereafter, Deputy Editor Jon Landman extols the virtues of shared cubicles: "When something pops into your head, you can very easily assemble the people to do it. When you were five blocks apart, you couldn't do that." Someone needs to show NYT editors this amazing new technology called IM.

And finally, Amazon announced Kindle, its digital portable media reader this week. While Jeff Bezos would tell Charlie Rose that the book reader's name was a reference to igniting the imagination, one couldn't help suspect he was actually invoking the visions of fascism found in Fahrenheit 451. We didn't start the fire. It's been burning since the world's been turning...CUT!

• Real estate magnate Sam Zell will probably buy Tribune, which would be nice because it'll finally put an end to this fucking story. [LAT]
  
• Alexandra Wallace, new executive producer of NBC's "Nightly News," promises better ratings, looks for places even more dangerous than Iraq to send Brian Williams. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
  
• Kurt Eichenwald is just a generous soul, and that's the story he's sticking with. [AP]
  
• Absolute fucking genius designer Chip Kidd soils himself in our eyes [Ed. Note: Eww? In your eyes?] by working with Jann Wenner. [NYP]

• Pulitzer Prize winner gets lands on Free Parking courtesy of story subject, does not pass go, does not collect $200. Cool! [Willamette Weekly]
  
• Joe Dolce is a survivor. Bonnie Fuller? Remains to be seen. [Ibid]
  
• This article on the advent of content ratings for new media in Britain contains the saddest photocredit we've ever seen. [Guardian]
  
• NYT predicts 30% growth in 2007 online revenues. Also world peace, bigger cock, flying cars, etc. [MediaPost]
  
• Black-hating dude somehow thinks playing the Tarantino card will make him more sympathetic. [Fox News]
  
• Good news: If Jon Friedman is covering Ann Coulter, 46, it means her period of relevance is coming to an end. [Marketwatch]
  [Image via]
  
• Tom Brokaw snaps up the late Barbara Epstein's UWS pad, possibly for his daughter. [NYO]