• 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]

Burnett is depicted as the naive, bright-eyed boarding school popular girl who never had to pay her dues because Maria, the elder elegant Brooklyn-born street hustling Italian trailblazer, did it all for her. Maria doesn't really try to understand the "kids today" or their slutty outfits, as we learn through this admittedly awesome anecdote:

[Maria] turns to climb the stairs to CNBC’s mezzanine studio when a Fox correspondent rushes up to her. She is wearing towering heels, tons of makeup, and a scarlet dress so tight you can see her underwear line and unbuttoned to expose her black lace bra. “Hi, Maria!” she shrieks. Maria’s eyes pop open, but then she smiles and kisses her. It’s only later that she says she was “taken aback.” The Fox reporter is a friend, and insisting that her name not be published, she says, “I did tell her, ‘Don’t ever show up here with your skirt up your butt and your shirt down low like that.’ I said, ‘It’s a distraction, it’s ridiculous, and it’s not what you want.’ I don’t know who’s telling her to do this, [but] there are a lot of women doing that.”

Ha ha, "skirt up your butt." Okay, well:

The story leads on September 15, the Monday Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the day that touched off the two weeks that shook capitalism and every last assumption the country held about the viability (not to mention virtue) of the current system. We learn that Maria finds all of it "truly wild" between takes relaying the frantic news flow with her Brooklyn accent and "enormous smoky blue eyes."

Oh yeah, and remember all that gossip news about how Maria fucked ousted Citigroup executive Todd Thomson on that private jet home from Beijing? Yeah, it was a totally unfounded nugget of scurrilous nothingness probably planted by the guy who ousted Thomson to begin with, but now people think it was actually good for her career. She's a "survivor," etc. etc. Meanwhile we learn Burnett played field hockey and finds it hilarious that so many Americans spent their stimulus checks on internet porn. Hey, I find that hilarious too! And sad, and so telling. That's like an anecdote straight out of some Mike Judge satire of Late Capitalism, huh? Whatever, the story takes it as an example of Burnett's irrepressible, uncensored weirdness, and moves on: hey, there are other hot CNBC anchors too! They just don't dress as skanky as the Fox Business anchors. Even Maria's old assistant is a hot business reporter for one of the networks now! Goodness, why are they all so hot? It didn't used to be this way, did it?

Who knows? Maybe it did, who cares? More importantly, is there a more embarrassing example of this new tiresome brand of "meta-sexism" whereby the media, in decrying all the horrible sexism of the media and the media coverage of said media, completely ignores the Actual Story About How, you know, we're experiencing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and these lovely ladies who have been paying attention for the past decade probably have some insight into that but we're not paying attention because they are so very very pretty and also, oppressed by sexism? Oh, probably, but at least they feigned interest when Lara Logan wanted to talk about the war.

*Bartiromo looks better though. Who gelled the hair on Burnett?

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.

*Because it is sort of overpowered by the logic of "CNBC cannot tell everyone to put their money in Yen because the Bank Of Japan is not going to buy all their advertising slots duh." Actually, if they did tell their viewers to put all their money in Yen the Bank Of Japan might pay them just to stop, but that is a whole nother story.

David Carr got in trouble for being all sexist about Katie last time he wrote about her, and in this piece he once again reminds everyone that she is "perky" (almost!) and "America's Sweetheart" (almost!). But he also says: "Ms. Couric is a highly skilled interviewer, and people tend to tell her stuff."

Of course CBS is still in third place and the fact that MSNBC has sucked all the coverage away from Katie is good, sort of, but also means that no one is talking about Katie and CBS. So she can do all the surprisingly good work in the world, but it won't attract the attention of a Chris Matthews meltdown on a third-place cable network.

In other words, we figure she's enjoying herself as anchor for the first time since she started, mostly because she's still going to quit soon, so why not have fun. (Of course she still needs to make sure she's getting that payday before she hands the reigns back to Bob Scheiffer.)

[Photo: HuffPo]

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]

Fox may have lost a step, but it still draws the largest number of viewers; and whenever Lou Dobbs, CNN's sole flamethrower, unleashes another screed against brown people, it's ratings gold.

CNN's ratings are up because they are better than evil Fox and self-righteous MSNBC! Of course their biggest moneymakers are still vile 21st-century Father Coughlin Lou Dobbs and old softballer Larry King, so let's dispose of them without further comment.

But, Dobbs aside [900 pound gorilla aside! -ed], CNN couldn't bring itself to adopt the same strategy. Instead, it doubled down on even-handed, data-heavy political coverage. On a commercial level, the result has been an improbable ratings resurrection. On a watching-from-home level, the result has fluctuated wildly: The coverage can be nicely informative one moment, then bland, pedantic, and painfully hackish the next. And yet, when compared to grumpy Fox and self-righteous MSNBC, CNN's election coverage may well be the least of three evils.

Positively ringing.

On Pennsylvania night, CNN's panel of consultants was on the verge of breaking into a juicy, heated exchange on the differences between Pastor John Hagee and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, when Campbell Brown intervened and said, "Wait, wait, wait; I've got to go Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican." It was obviously an insane thing to do—a real-time glimpse into how banal and clipped responses have triumphed over a brand of discourse that might, in some small way, approach honesty. But the decency in her request—there should be some nod toward even-handedness in election coverage—points directly to the biggest challenge facing CNN: How does it make balanced conversation interesting?

"Decency" is so pleasant, isn't it? Let's forget that whole "honesty" thing!

As we've said, MSNBC is over the top and crazy, but you know what you're getting. There's an honesty to their occasionally blatant partisanship. Just like Fox's cheerful propagandizing is it's own form of twisted honesty—as long as you correct for built-in bias, you're getting the story straighter than you do when Bill Bennett lies for two minutes followed by equal time for Paul Begala and then some funnies from Dana Milbank, while your objective moderator, Wolf Blitzer or Campbell Brown, just shrugs the fundamentally incompatible worldviews away as the simple inescapable reality of partisanship.

• Ratings Are Up "MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions," Brian Stelter points out. Though they're still in third place, building an audience does actually take time, and their demographic numbers are great.
• This Won't Make Conservatives Shut Up. MSNBC is embarrassed that Republicans are holding up MSNBC as a prime example of liberal bias, and tying poor NBC News to the crazy rantings of its cable arm. Hah, yes, and David Gregory, the guy who became famous for abusing Bush spokespeople, will fix that! Remember how conservatives have spent 100 years decrying the liberal bias of CNN? The CNN that is now represented by the apolitically moronic Wolf Blitzer and the inoffensive cuddly unicorn Anderson Cooper? Both of whom are useless and boring at covering politics? This won't shut up any critics, at all. Show some fucking backbone.
• Matthews and Olbermann Are Smart We already called Blitzer a moron, and we meant it. The man's journalistic expertise is limited to an ability to stand up for a long time and babble at length without too much dead air. Matthews and Olbermann are blowhards and egomaniacs, yes, and they're far too pleased with themselves when they do something like reference some 70-year-old Capra movie, but they actually know a lot about history and politics.
• The Bitchery Is Great Television Duh! Bickering and barely concealed contempt are the stuff of high drama! No one talked or cared about MSNBC, except as a third-place loser joke of a cable network, until Olbermann and Matthews began making headlines by pissing people off. Matthews, remember, spent most of the primary campaign pissing off liberals, even though he's clearly an old-school conservative Catholic Democrat himself. But it created buzz! Which is the only point of cable news, really—entertainment, not edification.
• Now We Have to Watch Fox. Because if we can't crack up at the clashing egos of MSNBC's crazy mascots, we'll have to go back to cringing and cackling at the unrepentant assholish coverage of Brit "Sick of This Shit" Hume and his all-star team of interchangeable white dudes and blondes, plus Bill Kristol looking like a weasel and giving you a preview of the next day's Republican spin on everything.

So, MSNBC President Phil Griffin, be a fucking man for once and hold your ground against Zucker and NBC News President Steve Capus and even Original Blowhard Tom Brokaw (seriously, why did the act of "retiring" bestow respectability upon that hack?). If people wanted Brian Williams and David Gregory to cover everything quietly and politely they'd actually watch your evening news. Scarborough, Olbermann, Matthews, and Maddow are the best of cable this year, because of their unique ability to annoy the shit out of each other and also to generally know what the fuck they're talking about, which is basically unheard of on television, let alone cable news.

Couric: And do you believe Roe V. Wade should be overturned?

McCain: No. no.

Couric: No. Why not? Your husband does.

McCain: No. I don't think he does.

Couric: He believes it should be overturned. That's what he told me, and that it should go to the states.

McCain: Well, in that respect. Yes, yeah, I do. I understand what you're saying now. It's a states issue.

Couric: So, you believe it should be overturned or shouldn't be overturned.

McCain: I believe it's a states issue. That I do believe.

Oh dear. OH, DEAR. The campaign later clarified that Cindy McCain does not believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned, even though, you might know this already but, it was the express purpose of the Roe decision not to let abortion become a "states issue."

Anyway, none of this probably matters because no one watched, CBS is still a pathetic third in the ratings, and most people on Wednesday night were busy watching Sarah Palin was yammering on about all those responsibilities she held as mayor of a town the size of a small community college to process the ignorance of anyone else associated with the McCain campaign. But Couric, ya done good. If the Sarah Palin ratings bonanza doesn't quite make up for your massive salary, at least you've reminded your colleagues in the liberal media that at the end of the world day, we're still in this together.

• She owns "five or six" dark pantsuits.
• She met her longtime girlfriend "when Ms. Maddow showed up to her house on a landscaping gig"!
• MSNBC was staying at the same hotel as the white supremacists who wanted to kill Barack Obama.
• She is awesome: "'I'll be upstairs, peering out the window, looking for any open bar within walking distance,' she said by way of good night."

But will her show be good? Sure, why not. This sounds funny:

Mr. Wolff suggested a segment called “Just enough,” or maybe “Rachel Ray.” As in, “Rachel: Re.” “It’s a homonym,” said Ms. Maddow.

Rachel Ray! Hah!

Keith, stentorian wiseass and former sportscaster, is clearly a raving egomaniac. When his ire is directed outward at figures deserving of his scorn, it's incredibly watchable television. But you cannot ever escape the obvious fact that the man, admirable moral center or no, is a smug jerk in private and public life. Which is a plus in televised punditry, but it's exhausting.

Maddow, smart and cool, is now poised to make the most of an Obama presidency. She presents a perfect liberal alternative to a Bill O'Reilley or Sean Hannity: not because, like them, she's a bullying cheerleader for Obama and his party (that's a little more Olbermann), but because she's principled enough to fight for the Democrats when they're right and criticize them when they're wrong, without engaging in the partisan horseshit of official party mouthpieces like Carville and Begala. (This, by the way, is the important difference between the liberals of MSNBC and the liberals of CNN: Olbermann and Maddow are angry constituents, not party operatives.)

In other words, she's an idealized version of her theoretical audience (educated urban liberal), much like O'Reilley is a caricature of his own (enraged suburban/exurban male). And mark our words, we'll soon be seeing her on the front page of the Times Magazine or Newsweek as THE NEW FACE OF CABLE PUNDITRY and then will come the longer psychoanalytical think-pieces in New York and The New Yorker (she's slightly less suited for that Olbermann-profile treatment in Esquire but you never know). Which, it could be worse. We like her!

Plus, as the 2000s have taught us, Americans are totally willing to and love out lesbians on their televisions (thanks Ellen!) as long as they're not really annoying (sorry Rosie).

(And in the [totally likely!] event of a McCain presidency, Maddow might actually do even better, as advocate-y liberals always operate best in opposition—which is why they always undermine the Democrats so effectively.)

[Photo: dipdewdog]

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, has been named as the “other woman” in a Texas couple Joe and Kimberly Burkett's bitter divorce.

Burkett’s wife Kimberly, 32, was so distraught with his cheating that she took an overdose of Valium

Kimberly Burkett's attorney Susie Chmielowiec told The ENQUIRER, “Kimberly believes Lara stole her husband – and now they’re trying to steal her little girl."

And in a twist that’s as shocking as any story Lara has covered, sources are charging she also had another affair, and her two lovers got into a brutal battle over her in Baghdad!

Sources charge that the Emmy winning Logan began her affair with 36-year-old U.S. State Department contractor, Burkett in war-torn Baghdad.

And yet another scandal brews in the steamy mix: Lara’s reported romance with a star CNN correspondent – whose jealousy exploded in a battle royal with Burkett in a Baghdad “safe house.”

“Not only is Lara having a torrid affair with a married man – she apparently has more than one lover!” Chmielowiec charged to The ENQUIRER.

When CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric heard about Lara’s sexual shenanigans, she blew a gasket!

What is your favorite part of that story? Katie Couric blowing a gasket is good, but we particularly enjoy the bit where an affair is "as shocking as any story Lara has covered." Because, like, she reports from war zones, where people are fighting wars and stuff.

Of course none of this is really shocking at ALL because foreign correspondents basically all sleep with everyone they can. It's stressful work and adrenaline runs high. Though some war zones are more conducive to this sort of thing. It depends on heat, relative humidity, and availability of showers.

Update: SO the print Enquirer further claims that Logan's second affair is with CNN reporter Michael Ware, and that Ware fought Burkett over it in Baghdad.

Then the contractor dude who announced in court that he's having this affair with Logan told his wife that he killed people in Iraq. Which is maybe not true?

Finally, Lara was "entertaining" some people in Baghdad when Ware came in and then him and Burkett fought for HOURS and even ended up in the CNN safehouse! It's amazing they had time to cover the war, what with all this drama.

Lara supposedly "sputtered" something when an Enquirer reporter inquired about her husband, and her husband is said to have had no comment. Whee. We're still not clear on how Katie Couric is involved?

CBS NEWS LARA LOGAN DIVORCE WAR [Enquirer]

Because yes, you can be fat and not-pretty and host a television news show, if you are a dude. (Poor Candy Crowley has been at CNN for 100 years and they still won't let her sit down in a studio for an hour.)

Or maybe you could've been back when Tim got his job? Look at the current crop of TV newsanchors—even the genial ugly old dudes of yore are gone. Whither Walter Cronkite? Now it's Brian Williams (BriWi!) and Anderson Cooper. Chris Matthews is reportedly losing favor over at MSNBC to lantern-jawed demo ratings favorite Keith Olbermann. The days of the ugly male anchor are rapidly receding. Now the unrealistic standards are slowly being applied to everyone!

(This is because The Gays run the Internet, maybe?)

So R.I.P. Tim Russert, and R.I.P. ugly fat guys with their own news shows. They will probably replace Katie Couric with Zac Efron.

[USA Today via Doree]

Gregory generally came off as awkward when trying to lighten up during his gig guest-hosting Today—he also did quite a bit of dancing. He also once called in to Don Imus either terribly jet-lagged or comically drunk. And some people claim he's hated by his staff and, uh, mouths off to the help.

He might well be hated by his staff and mean to wait-staff. He's smug, self-important, and largely humorless despite his on-air geniality (it's almost like he's in television!). But we bummed around DC for a little while doing not much of anything in particular and from what we heard at the time, from people who might happen to know him, he's not Chris Matthews bad.

We could be wrong. Anyone work with or for the man? Or served him dinner? tell us how it went.

Dagen McDowell

Are you a spender or a saver? Recovering spender. Emerging saver

Alexis Glick

What was the one thing you regret buying? No regrets! Every choice good or bad teaches you something about yourself. Mistakes are worth taking. Life without risk is not an option for me. Follow your passion, do what you think is right and trust your gut. Dream with your eyes open!

Jenna Lee

What was your first job? My first job was working in an apple orchard. My brothers and I were paid based on the number of bags we could fill.

Sandra Smith

She was a trader at Hermitage Capital, where she executed U.S. equities and options orders, conducted portfolio analysis, prepared commission reports and serviced clients.

Shibani Joshi

Joshi has also served as the host of ImaginAsian TV's The Pulse variety show, contributed to ABCNews.com and ABC News Now covering technology and business stories, and was a co-host of American Desi's Point of View talk show.

[Women shown may or may not be single.]

Stein says in his conclusion:

Watching money shows is largely a men's game. Men watch CNBC and the other business outlets more than women do. Someday it may change, and then maybe a magazine like Cosmopolitan will ask me to write a piece about money hunks. But for now, it's us pig men watching the money shows, in general, and we want to see women.

The first part of his statement is correct—men make up the majority of biz show viewers. The second part is partially correct—men like to see pretty women. But those facts together don't really explain anything.

Major sports broadcasting is dominated by ESPN, which is dominated by male personalities. Former professional athletes know that sports broadcasting is one of the sweetest gigs they can get when they retire, and they fill the ranks of the shows, from ESPN to the networks to smaller cable channels, from football to baseball to basketball to golf. Lots of sports shows and coverage of games trots out a token female—usually, yes, a beautiful woman called on to speak about the weather or chat with coaches at halftime or something equally irrelevant. There certainly are respected female sports broadcasters who have made their way through the ranks based on talent alone, but they are a decided minority. On the other hand, many of the most high profile male ex-athlete broadcasters are stone cold idiots.

I won't waste the space here arguing the point.

But as Stein also points out, that is not the case in business news. Fox Business and, to a lesser extent, CNBC are dominated not by crusty old retired male hedge fund managers, but by vivacious young attractive women. If it were simply a matter of broadcasters appealing to horny men like Ben Stein, there would be nothing but pretty women on both sports and business shows.

None of this implies that a network couldn't, if it wanted to, fill both its sports and business shows with an even mix of truly talented men and women. Rather, it implies that networks pander to what they perceive their audience wants.

The evidence points to one inescapable conclusion: Men take sports more seriously than they take business. Logical? No. True? Yes. American men would revolt if they felt that their sports broadcasters weren't sufficiently informed about the intricacies of the line stunt, the pick and roll, and the knuckle curve; but Wall Street men have no problem getting their business news—which could decide the fate of millions in investments—from women chosen primarily for their beauty.

Are there women on TV who are beautiful, intelligent, and well-informed about business? Yes. Maria Bartiromo comes to mind. But nobody can seriously argue that Fox combed the highest echelons of the finance community with only business acumen in mind to pick their broadcast team (you can scroll through here).

So, American man's warped perspective: Sports, important, Wall Street, whatever. At least as far as TV concerned. I'm glad that my own personal perspective is far more balanced, and if you don't pick Memphis in the tournament you are a fucking fool, so suck it Dick Vitale!

It wasn't a rousing affair—it was a largely low-key and intellectual and kinda literary exploration of the entire race situation in America, with only one heart-warming story, at the end, but the most impressive thing about it is that it has briefly allowed the carnival barkers on TV to talk about race in a vaguely reasonable way (except for Pat Buchanan). Some of these people are actually intelligent, so it's nice that Obama gave them permission to briefly stop bullshitting.

The thesis of the speech: many black people are resentful of America, with good fucking reason. Lots of white people are also resentful of America, also with very good reason. And sometimes they blame the wrong people for what's wrong! These shockingly obvious ideas are generally left unspoken on the TV, so it's nice to have them clearly explicated and taken seriously. Now we get to wait and see how the pundits will twist a thoughtful and lengthy speech into a couple platitudes.

(Wolf Blitzer has already found a GOTCHA moment, because Barack Obama CONDEMNED Reverend Wright's controversial remarks but then said he didn't condemn Reverend Wright himself, or something. Jesus.)

But the source of the bugs was not determined until the exterminator inspected the homes of about 20 employees. Mr. Vandeveer said the exterminator later described one employee's home as having "the worst infestation he had seen in 25 years in the business."

The important question here is, of course, who had the infestation? We always thought Shep Smith looked like he slept in a pile of bloodsucking insects, but obviously there's no way for us to say authoritatively, short of spending the night with Shep Smith, which would require quite a good incentive. So we ask you: Which employee was it? Guesses in the comments, or email us with actual info.

In the last six months, cable news ratings have risen, but network news ratings in our key demographic have fallen. CBS is down 21%, ABC is down 14%, and NBC is off 10%. The conclusion? Those shows are on too early for youngsters!

One reason is that the traditional newscasts air too early in the evening, when a lot of younger people are still working or on their way home. Others are in school. Or they're eating dinner or picking up kids from after-school activities.

They simply never got into the evening news habit. Their TV watching comes later in the evening.

Also, there's the internet. Nightly network news still puts up big numbers relative to other TV news shows, but their figures are on a downward slope that doesn't show any sign of reversing itself. Of course, every new form of media is put on a deathwatch when a strong challenger arises—they thought radio was dead when TV was invented. Instead, mediums usually adapt and settle into a more specific audience base.

So what can Katie C, Brian W, and Charles G do to connect with coveted viewers like us? Move the shows to midnight, crack lots of sarcastic jokes about stuff, and make enough appearances on the nightlife scene to be perceived as a credible object of sexual desire. Consider this free advice from the generation that will soon, scarily enough, be running things.

[via Media Life Magazine]

CBS sending Couric to Iraq, Syria [Variety]

TV Journalist looking for a part time Personal Assistant to help with a variety of tasks including: running errands, organizing, managing speaking database, managing online website.

This would be an ideal job for a college student. Must be super organized. Up to 12 hours a week and the hours are flexible (can do most work from your home). Please respond with cover letter and resume pasted in body of email as attachments cannot be opened.

Job location is NYC
Compensation: $10/hr
This is a part-time job.

Part Time Personal Assistant For TV Journalist [craigslist]

Do you think Middle America cares about gay anchorpeople? S.C.: Wow. I don't know if they think about that. I know I don't.

But what about the weathermen? Do they care about the weathermen?

Breakfast With Champion [NYM]

Earlier: How To Dance Around The Issue

ONE OF the nicest and most attractive men in television is having the last laugh. I do mean Sam Champion going big-time from local weather reporting to one of the gang on ABC's "Good Morning America." When Sam was up for this job in the past, executives were nervous about putting him on a national show. He was too good-looking. His clothes were too perfect. People might view him as lightweight. Now they've had to eat their words and ask - very nicely, too - this talented guy to come onboard. Sam's addition to the mix is a big plus for "GMA."

Yeah, it was definitely the looks. TV people hate talent with good looks.

DUBYA'S RATHER TESTY LATELY [NYP]

Even if you don't give two shits about burnt sienna weathermen, this is still exciting news. If Champion can make the leap to national network news, then maybe someday the Coop can, too. Pave that yellow brick road, Dorothy!

GMA's New Weatherman: Sam Champion? [TVNewser]
Sam Champion Leaving WABC in 2 Weeks [TVNewsTalk]
ABC Names New Morning News Anchor [NYT]

Beyond that, there's the already tired appeal to technology ("Americans get their information all over the place, from Comedy Central's "Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and ESPN to the BBC and the Russian newscast "Novosti," and they can download it to cellphones and iPods") There's the stating-the-obvious fact that, you know, television exists ("News briefs are shorter than ever, but weightier reports are still featured on network news and on specials. ABC's "Nightline" is hanging on even without Ted Koppel. For every inane segment on "Dateline" or plodding thumb-sucker on PBS, there is a smart, innovative documentary elsewhere."). And then there's the very weird assertion that Cronkite's reputation for his coverage of the Kennedy assassination is unmerited ("He informed and consoled the nation with stoic grace, but it's hard to imagine that anyone in that chair, at that moment, wouldn't have been just as memorable simply because he was there."), which would explain why you can't turn around without seeing a documentary about Chet Huntley or Ron Cochran, who were also anchors at the time.

Finally, there's this gem: "It's just that modern viewers are more discerning about an anchor's limits. However inured we have grown to anchors personalizing the news Edward R. Murrow-style — posturing on location and occasionally letting their emotions gush like Dan Rather or CNN's Anderson Cooper — viewers expect anchors at least to feign objectivity," which goes a long way toward showing why Fox News does so poorly in the ratings.
We're not sure how much more discerning viewers today are about an anchor's limits, but we do have a sense that they're a bit more discerning about a critic's.

And that's the way it is.

From One Voice to Many, a New Golden Age of News [NYT]

On average, only some 630,000 viewers a night tune in to Anderson Cooper 360, to watch Anderson Cooper do his professional duties....

Many nights, Mr. Cooper doesn't even do as well as his predecessor Aaron Brown, the ice to his fire, the old-fashioned, bespectacled anchor who was booted in 2005 to make room for Mr. Cooper....

[I]n June, Mr. Cooper has occasionally been outperformed by his own substitute host, John Roberts, the salt-and-pepper CNN national correspondent who was dumped by CBS News this year. He loses 20 to 40 percent of his lead-in from Larry King Live.

And he is routinely trounced by his head-to-head Fox competitors, Greta van Susteren and a rebroadcast of Bill O'Reilly.

And yet somehow Greta hasn't ended up on the cover of Vanity Fair. Can't imagine why.

NYTV: The Cooper Enigman [NYO]

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Kaplan Out at MSNBC [B&C]
President of MSNBC Steps Down Abruptly [NYT]
Rick Kaplan Out at No. 3 MSNBC [WP]
NBC News President Steve Capus' Memo [Romenesko]
Earlier: Rita Cosby: MSNBC Snags Well-Fed Blonde

Ms. Stahl asked Ms. Couric if she has settled on a signature sign-off message, a la Walter Cronkite's "And that's the way it is." Ms. Couric said she hasn't and joked, "Thought maybe, 'Peace out, homies.'"

Cute, but there's no way she'll be that original. Any guesses?

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Couric Ready to Take Solo Reins [TVWeek]