Get ready for a media blitz tomorrow. With Super Tuesday merely hours away, every television station in the country is getting ready for a full on press of political coverage. Forget about the half hour nightly national news. On ABC, Charles Gibson will anchor a whopping 5 hours of political coverage with Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. Katie Couric and CBS will be on the air 2 hours, and Brian Williams will anchor an expanded version of his "Nightly News," plus a one hour update... Read Full Story
Hum. Always a question of conflict of interest. That is a big deal, viewers don't want to feel like they're being douped or tricked or manipulated. Did Vieira really have to do the interview herself? Kind of a sticky situation. From David Bauder at the Associated Press : NBC's "Today" show concluded a three-part series Wednesday that featured anchor Meredith Vieira interviewing her husband and the subjects of his new book on living with chronic illness. While one expert questioned the... Read Full Story
Mis-predicting the New Hampshire primary: Monday's New York Post had Hillary Clinton down, and Newsweek was glued to Barack Obama. (New York Post) Really interesting article. Makes me think twice about why I do what I do as a journalist. Not to believe all the hype, the polls and the commentators. To look at BOTH SIDES of the story. By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tom Brokaw , like virtually everyone on television, went on the air Tuesday night expecting Hillary Clinton... Read Full Story
Anna Nicole Smith By Roger Friedman, Fox News If 2007 was shaped by anything, it was the scuffle to pay for information about Anna Nicole Smith . Before her death on Feb. 8, 2007, I had rarely, if ever, thought about Smith. I certainly had not written much about her. The birth of her baby the previous September was not that interesting. The death of her grown son was, but not that much. He wasn’t a celebrity. She was a Grade D personality, a buffoonish comic strip, a Marilyn Monroe pretender... Read Full Story
By Rem Rieder It's a shame the Betty Ford Center isn't bigger. Because the idea of shipping the entire national news media out there for some serious therapy is very attractive. Well, maybe not the entire media. Just every news organization and every journalist with any connection to presidential campaign coverage. The media's addiction to polls and to predicting the future is obviously not new. Critics have railed against it for years. The compulsion to be ahead of the game even... Read Full Story
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer He's become the target for critics who think a backlash against the media played a part in Hillary Clinton's surprise win in New Hampshire. Chris Matthews laughs off that idea, and insists he has a lot of respect for her. The MSNBC "Hardball" host had more explaining to do after Clinton's victory when he said that the reason Clinton is a candidate for president "is that her husband messed around." "I do like the fact that 'Hardball' is a heat-seeker... Read Full Story
By Paul J. Gough Dec 28, 2007 Related: India's media in blanket coverage of Bhutto NEW YORK -- When word came of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Thursday, the news had special meaning for "Today" co-host Ann Curry. It was just two months ago that Curry interviewed the former Pakistani prime minister about her return from self-imposed exile and her drive toward the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections to help bring the country back to democracy. Looking back Thursday afternoon while... Read Full Story
Chris Matthews was in hot water for saying the Lewinsky affair fueled Hillary Clinton's political career. (By Carlos Osorio -- Associated Press) By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Under pressure from feminist groups and his own bosses at MSNBC , Chris Matthews apologized yesterday for remarks about Hillary Clinton that he now admits sounded "nasty." For 10 days, the "Hardball" host had doggedly insisted he was just reciting a bit of history when he said on the air that "the... Read Full Story
By Paul J. Gough NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - After a couple days off for Christmas, TV journalists on the campaign trail are hunkered down in Des Moines through New Year's and the Iowa caucus on Thursday. Although it seems as if the 2008 presidential campaign has been going on since November 2004, next week is the first time voters will get to pick from among the Republican and Democratic candidates. For the past several weeks, the caucus has been the subject of a full-court press by the... Read Full Story
Ask MSNBC, and they'll tell you Barak Obama has more delegates. Over at Politico.com, Sen. Hillary Clinton is winning the delegate race. And The New York Times says Clinton has more than one hundred fifty more delegates than Obama. Welcome to the confusing world of the Democratic nominating process. While the process has always been mind boggling, this year, the stakes are high and the audience is large. While media outlets try to break down the process, viewers sit at home frustrated... Read Full Story
