network news

Before Walter Cronkite (or TV news of any kind), there was Douglas Edwards. Last night, the CBS Evening News ended with a segment celebrating the pioneering TV news career of Edwards who would have turned 100 today. His and TV’s first newscast aired in 1948, It was, he would say, put together “with spit, bailing wire and high spirits.” Edwards gave way to Cronkite in 1962 and died in 1990.

Compared to the same week last year ABC’s evening news was down 4% in viewers and down 12% in the demo; NBC was down 7% in viewers and down 19% in the demo; and CBS was down 11% in viewers and down 29% in the demo.

Dana Klinghoffer, who spent her entire professional career in the Fox News PR shop, is joining NBC News. She will oversee public relations for Megyn Kelly‘s new 9 a.m. hour of the Today show, as well as other PR duties.

In late May, it came out that after six years as anchor of the CBS Evening News, Scott Pelley would be vacating the chair. In an employee town hall Thursday, CBS News President David Rhodes was asked if he thinks the rocky transition has hurt company morale. “I absolutely do. And I’m concerned about it,” he said, according to someone who viewed the event.

CBS News said it would launch a new, limited-run primetime TV series based on reports prepared in the style of its streaming-video news outlet, CBSN. CBSN: On Assignment will air on four consecutive Monday evenings starting July 31 at 10 p.m. ET, and attempt to bring a more on-the-ground perspective to an audience more accustomed to CBS News mainstays like 48 Hours and 60 Minutes.

ABC News has reached a settlement with a South Dakota meat producer that filed a $1.9-billion lawsuit against the network over its reports on the company’s lean, finely textured beef product that critics dubbed “pink slime,” the TV network said Wednesday, adding that the terms of the deal are confidential.

Marion Goldin, one of the most respected and prolific producers at CBS’s flagship newsmagazine, 60 Minutes, died on June 15 at her home in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 76. Goldin, after beginning her career in television news during the tumultuous 1960s, began working with the veteran journalist Mike Wallace in 1972, forming a successful if combative partnership that would last 15 years.

The anchor of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt will be honored for a lifetime of achievement and service to the profession of electronic journalism at the Excellence in Journalism 2017 conference on Sept. 8.

The NBC O&O in Hartford, Conn., won’t be airing Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, which includes Kelly’s interview with Alex Jones. The interview has come under intense scrutiny over the last week, no more so than from the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre. Jones, a controversial talk show host, had claimed that the mass shooting at the elementary school in December, 2012 was a hoax.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said on his Infowars website that the full interview he recorded with NBC’s Megyn Kelly will counter Kelly’s upcoming report, which he labeled a “fraud.”

The perfect illustration of the power of broadcast news when it is operating at peak efficiency — and what most will remember as the image of Wednesday’s congressional shooting — came within about an hour of the first call to police, when CBS News aired video footage of a wounded man on a stretcher being wheeled by first-responders to a medical evacuation helicopter that had just landed on the baseball field. With armed police escorting him, the man, Rep. Steve Scalise, was then loaded into the helicopter and flown to a hospital to receive further medical assistance.

The three major broadcast networks will send their evening news anchors to Washington to host their nightly news shows closer to the location of Wednesday morning’s shooting at a congressional baseball practice.

Bob Horner, who launched the network’s affiliate news service NBC News Channel nearly 30 years ago, and has run it since, is retiring On July 1. Sharon Houston, who has been with News Channel for 26 years, has been named president.

The signs about Megyn Kelly’s one-on-one NBC interview with the despicable conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have been bad from the start. The situation now is a mess. Here’s the way out: Kill the planned segment as a one-on-one interview, and use the material as one piece of a no-holds-barred investigation of Alex Jones and others like him. Don’t leave it up to Kelly, but pull in one or more of NBC’s top reporters.

ABC News chief James Goldston on Tuesday made a surprising admission about the U.S. leader during a keynote address to the Banff World Media Festival — Trump has overseen a renaissance of journalism in America. “This [Trump] administration has given us a true clarity of purpose about what we do as journalists every day. He has single-handedly shaken up journalism, he has reinvigorated journalism,” declared Goldston, before adding, “It feels like a new golden age.”

Renewed interest in the greatest political scandal in American history is already spurring a rush in the TV business to revisit the era. Watergate gives networks a familiar title to help draw big ratings as well as burnish their news legacies. Both ABC News and MSNBC have primetime specials on Watergate airing this weekend to coincide with the anniversary of the break-in of Democratic National Committee headquarters at the complex.

NBC News changed the name of every broadcast of Lester Holt’s newscast last week, to NBC Nitely News. Not on the screen of course, because that would be poor spelling. But in Nielsen’s books, so none of NBC News’ evening newscasts would be included in Nightly News’ season average. In NBC’s defense, due to sports, only one day last week would all three of the broadcast evening newscasts have been rated.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is asking NBC to remove local TV ads and digital spots from Megyn Kelly’s NBC newsmagazine until after her interview with Infowars founder Alex Jones airs.

Megyn Kelly is defending her upcoming interview with Infowars’ Alex Jones amid criticism that she is giving a platform to a conspiracy theorist who has called the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School a hoax. “POTUS’s been on and praises Alex Jones’ show,” Kelly tweeted, hours after she previewed the interview on her show on Sunday. “He’s giving Infowars a press credential. Many don’t know him; our job is to shine a light.” She called the interview a “riveting exchange.”

The NBC correspondent’s rise at the network mirrored that of the presidential candidate she covered and occasionally battled with. If ratings are any indication, she’s a hit. All cable news networks are scoring big gains across the board since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Her 2 p.m. hour has jumped 69% in total viewers since 2016, according to recent Nielsen ratings provided by MSNBC.

In a rare move, the major networks upended their daytime schedules to air live coverage of former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it paid off. ABC, CBS and NBC — along with the three big cable news networks — pulled overnight ratings of 14.3 for the Comey testimony, which began about 10 a.m. ET and ran for about three hours.

Broadcast networks cast aside regular schedules for three or four hours yesterday to cover former FBI Director James Comey’s Senate testimony. So did cable news networks, bracketing Comey’s first public appearance since being fired by Trump with hours of their own talk. His plain-spoken answers to questions from alternating Democratic and Republican senators offered quotes for each side to latch on to. And  there was no rest for partisan spinners.

Websites excitedly reported that the NBC anchor was wearing a short velvet dress to interview Vladimir Putin. But they were wrong.

For news media executives, the White House’s decision this week not to block testimony from former FBI Director James Comey may have felt like a movie studio greenlighting a big budget action flick. It certainly has the feel of a blockbuster. Or perhaps “spectacle” is a better word. Call it what you want, one thing is clear: when Comey is sworn in on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning, he will deliver the most anticipated congressional testimony in years.

On Thursday, TV news networks will present live coverage of former FBI Director James Comey‘s testimony before the Senate Intel Committee about his interactions with President Trump related to the FBI’s investigation into claims of Russian meddling in the U.S. election. Here are their plans.

Scott Pelley’s removal from the CBS Evening News anchor chair, a shift in the works for months and confirmed May 31, reveals not only frustration at the perpetual third-place broadcast news division but also questions facing the continued viability of nightly half-hour newscasts.

Scott Pelley is back from his reporting trip for 60 Minutes and will finish up his anchor and managing editor role at CBS Evening News a week from Friday.

ABC and CBS will break into their daytime programming on Thursday to cover James Comey’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. NBC News has yet to say whether it will carry the hearing live.The decision to break into regularly scheduled programming for a congressional hearing is unusual for broadcasters, indicating the incredibly high level of public interest in what Comey may or may not say regarding his interactions with President Donald Trump.

The highly anticipated proceeding gets underway with Beef Products Inc. telling jurors that the broadcaster killed much of its business with a series of reports in March 2012.

CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC spend much of their prime-time hours dissecting President Donald Trump’s every move and people on all sides of the political spectrum can’t seem to get enough. Ratings are up at all three networks. Even with the same material to cover, the ABC, CBS and NBC nightly wraps were down a collective 4% in viewership for the season that ended last month. That fits a typical pattern, where news ratings generally rise during an exciting election year and fall when a new president becomes immersed in the day-to-day grind of governing.

The Baltimore Sun‘s David Zurawik: “Megyn Kelly didn’t get much out of Vladimir Putin, but she did get the interview that was screaming to be done. And you have to admit she did ask tough questions after hearing her quiz him on whether he had some kind of ‘damaging’ evidence on President Trump and how he responds to allegations that he kills unfriendly journalists.”

A journey to South Dakota to hear arguments over whether preconceived negative spin in the media should result in massive punishments.