JOSSIP REPORTS
Laurye Blackford, one of Shelley Ross’ hires and one of the notorious “mean girls” at The Early Show, told bosses yesterday that she’s quitting. She submitted her two weeks notice, Jossip hears, in protest of Zev Shalev being named executive producer of the A.M. show, following Rick Kaplan’s exit, which we were the first to tell you about this week. (Interesting, because David Shenfeld, the senior producer who stopped showing up for work last week, is said to have left the show because he lost all power to Blackford.)
Blackford was only supposed to be with the show through January, but stayed on because she thought she might be named to Ross’ top spot, says a source.
Oh, and in case you missed it in there: Shalev is officially replacing Kaplan.
Might Good Morning America exec producer (and former Early Show producer) Tom Cibrowski – whose name we heard yesterday as one being floated around to take over The Early Show – not be as terrible a guy we said he was? One source told us Cibrowski, seen here with none other than Ben Sherwood, wasn’t having his contract renewed when it’s up this summer, because it might have something to do with his temper.
But someone has come to his defense! CONTINUED »
When Rick Kaplan makes his exit from The Early Show on Friday, who’s going to replace him? One name being floated to us is Tom Cibrowski, the Good Morning America exec producer. We’re told his contract is up this summer and won’t be renewed; perhaps because “he is only allowed in the control room two days a week due to his temper”?
Another possibility is Zev Shalev, a Shelley Ross hire from Canada. He’s a senior producer at TES right now. One of many. Snipes one source: “He has NO news background, certainly not recently. And the trio – Paul Friedman, Barbara Feddida, and Sean McManus – are simply looking for quick answers.”
JOSSIP REPORTS : BREAKING
Might Katie Couric’s woes about to take a turn for the better? Or the worse? SO HARD TO TELL!
But one big rumor we are hearing is that executive producer Rick Kaplan, who was brought in to replace Rome Hartman this time last year, is being shown the door at the CBS Evening News. Oh, and The Early Show, where he’s interim executive producer.
We’re told by an insider that he’s being pushed out from his posts — and will hold a staff meeting on Friday, at 9am in the GM studio, where he’ll at least tell the staffers he’s about to embark on a two-week vacation, but it’s unclear whether he’ll share with them that the vacation is actually a quiet means of exiting. “I’m sure he won’t say anything about not returning,” says a source.
Keep in mind: He’ll be making his exit during sweeps. So whether he tells his staff the real news or not, they can only assume that the boss man is a goner. After all, under predecessor Shelley Ross, you didn’t take time off unless you called in dead.
Why all the drama? CONTINUED »
HOLIDAY MALADIES Whoever gave interim Early Show producer Rick Kaplan his own holiday … was probably Rick Kaplan. [TVN]
Regarding today’s The Early Show item, where Rick Kaplan’s famous temper was matched by anecdote, commenter Melissa Weisberg, of CBS, responds: CONTINUED »
It wouldn’t be fair to let Katie Couric have all the drama at CBS this week, so why don’t we revisit The Early Show, a place that one spy says simply: “The Titanic is out of deck chairs.”
Might the Shelley Ross regime have been better than the current Rick Kaplan affair? The argument is being made.
This week, Claire Peterson, described to us as “one of the strongest” producers and bookers, told Early Show interim exec producer Rick Kaplan that she had an offer from another network, and planned on accepting. (We’re told the offer came from ABC’s Nightline.)
He didn’t give her much of a response. The night she told CBS brass of the job switch, she worked a full day and stayed through the night. Then, at 5:30am, she was awoke by a call from Kaplan, who was phoning from the control room to say he would match the offer she received and pay $5,000 more to keep her.
Yesterday, she and Kaplan finally sat down together, and she declined the offer. That didn’t sit well with Kaplan, who is known for his temper. Let’s just say he got “very nasty and abusive” … CONTINUED »
The Early Show’s drama didn’t end with Shelley Ross’ ouster. Or with last week’s exits.
Yesterday, security escorted five staffers and one senior producer out of the building, we’re told, in a housecleaning orchestrated by interim exec producer Rick Kaplan and CBS VP of talent/development Barbara Fedida. So the story goes, the removals were all people Ross wanted gone during her tenure. (For its part, CBS denies this was a Kaplan-Fedidia-led ouster, and was merely part of a network-wide restructuring.)
Among those removed? None other than Rob Foreman, the health producer who Ross forced to read an apology to the staff when he dared question one of her decisions. How’s that for retaliation?
Not only that, but the senior producer was the show’s only black staffer, who was escorted from the building along with the show’s only Asian staffer. (CBS assures us this is not the case, and that there are other black and Asian staffers, not just Julie Chen.)
The black producer let go was Anjie Taylor. Jee Won Park is the Asian staffer, who made her hatred of Ross and senior producer Laurye Blackford, cohorts from Good Morning America, well known. (Ross and Blackford were the show’s “Mean Girls.”)
If you ask CBS, they’ll tell you they’re moving the show in a different direction and the firings are part of company-wide layoffs. Nevermind that they have double-digit job openings to fill, and everyone who was fired was either over 40 or a minority (CBS says this is untrue).
We’re told to expect more blood spilled before someone grabs a mop.
Update: Says CBS in a statement: “”Like many news organizations, print and electronic, CBS News is taking steps to accommodate changes in technology and newsgathering and trying to best utilize our staff. To that end, some open jobs in the division are not going to being filled, some jobs are being redefined, some are being lost and some will be added.”
(This item was updated from its original version.)
Lots of Ben Sherwood rumors going around. Some have the rumored item-planter edging to become the next executive producer of The Early Show; others say the CBS Evening News will have Rick Kaplan decamp for the morning show and Sherwood replace him at Katie Couric’s haunt. (Even one that has him gunning for the American Morning EP job.)
Naturally, there are the requisite denials: Kaplan will return to News and Sherwood has only had talks about positions there.
But how do we know who Ben Sherwood The Man is? Maybe looking at some of his emails from his days at ABC’s Good Morning America, where he was paired with ousted Early Show EP Shelley Ross, might shed some light.
Where Ross was belligerent to her staff, does Sherwood go out of his way to make his team feel the warm fuzzies?
We got our hands on a Christmas Eve 2004 email that Sherwood, the former exec producer, sent to the entire GMA staff — including the email editing session he had with his wife to make sure everything was phrased just right. CONTINUED »
So happy are The Early Show staffers now that Shelley Ross is gone, some of the 21 who left under her tenure are thinking about coming back now that Rick Kaplan is, at least temporarily, manning the show. [Mixed Media]
More from the anonymous mailbag on The Early Show executive producer hopeful Ben Sherwood: “He was seen at an out of the way East Side bar with interim Early Show EP Rick Kaplan earlier this week.” To the untrained eye, this might appear like someone’s trying to get Sherwood the job!
CBS News just sent out a press release confirming what we already knew: The Early Show executive producer is out. Who’s in? None other than Evening News exec producer Rick Kaplan, who’s gonna have crazy hours, at least until they find a replacement. CONTINUED »
Remember “freeSpeech,” the CBS Evening News’ attempt at doing something unconventional and allowing mostly already-famous loudmouths voice their opinion just shy of 7pm EST? Like Katie Couric’s reputation and ratings, it sank.
Why, then, would exec producer Rick Kaplan greenlight “Fast Draw”?
The new hopefully-not-recurring segment, which aired on Feb. 8 and drew attention after the Times flagged it, is something we’re filing under We Cannot Take This Seriously.
It features ABC veterans and newly hired CBS jawlines Mitch Butler and Josh Landis, artists who use Sharpies and cartoon sound effects to explain how the primaries, supposedly rooted in democracy, are actually controlled in the shadows, by delegates and superdelegates.
Kudos to CBS for actually breaking down a news story that keeps Chris Matthews up at night; many Americans still don’t understand what their level pull, inside a middle school auditorium, actually does.
But this segment, appearing here on YouTube, belongs only on YouTube. Not even JibJab.
From the oft-polluted mailbag: “CBS News staffers are thrilled that Katie Couric has taken a brave and bold stand that no one has ever taken before. The CBS diva told her executive producer Rick Kaplan to lighten up on his notoriously noxious cologne. Kaplan is legendary for wearing what seems like an entire bottle of manly scent every day on his Shrek-like 6′8″ frame. CBS News is only the lastest news division to suffer the HazMat effect of Kaplan’s scent. ABC, CNN and MSNBC have finally been detoxed. Now it’s CBS’s turn, suffering the “Old Spice attack” as it’s been called. Indeed, ABC News colleagues during the first Gulf War jokingly donned their protective gas masks not to survive Saddam’s chemical attacks but to endure Kaplan’s powerful scent. Couric told Kaplan to knock it off with the cologne because whenever he hugged her she carried his stink with her all day. Couric couldn’t take it anymore. Kaplan replied that he had no idea his cologne was so strong - he claims that he doesn’t have a good sense of smell.”
Now that has Rome Hartman re-joined the media playground under “employed” status – with his plush new gig exec producing a new BBC evening newscast – it’s about time he mouthed off on his tenure with Katie Couric. CONTINUED »
Who’s the worst person in the world?
Bill O’Reilly’s answer may surprise you—or, you know, not, depending on your familiarity with the Fox News channel.
Either way, we enjoyed listening to O’Reilly’s (latest) crazyrant, in which he practically talks Dennis Miller’s ear off regarding the Dan Rather/Rick Kaplan feud.
We’ve pasted the highlights below, but click here for some delightful audio goodness, courtesy of our very own Intern Wendy.
“CBS Evening News executive producer Rick Kaplan is mad as hell at Dan Rather,” writes recent birthday boy Roger Friedman, who claims not to read us while mimicking our ledes. CONTINUED »
Rick Kaplan is helping to define “desperate” so accurately that we don’t even need that handy Firefox right-click Dictionary.com plugin. The new-ish exec producer of the CBS Evening News is on aggressive defense after his broadcast continues to set records — of how far down the toilet bowl it can slide. Two weeks ago, Katie Couric set the broadcast’s worst record yet: 5.5 million viewers.
But wait! There’s hope! They haven’t thrown in the white blouse yet!
“CBS stands steadfastly behind its star and is working the angles,” reports Broadcasting & Cable. Translation: Kaplan is concocting gimmicks to trick Nielsen into thinking Katie Couric is being watched. CONTINUED »
Are more CBS Evening News producers about to get canned without Katie Couric’s express knowledge? Today’s Rush & Molloy reminds us that former former exec producer Rome Hartman got the axe in favor of veteran Rick Kaplan, and suggests that Hartman’s “No. 2″ guy might be next in line for the guillotine.**
Kaplan, who ran Peter Jennings’ “World News Tonight,” Ted Koppel’s “Nightline,” and “Primetime Live,” is expected to swing the machete soon, and Hartman’s No. 2, Paul Friedman, is vulnerable, sources say.
“Kaplan has already been butting heads with [Paul],” one source reveals.
Rush & Molloy then goes onto reveal that Kaplan may cut Steve Friedman, exec producer of CBS This Morning, because “[he] clashed with Couric at the Today show.” But, for us, the highlight of the item is definitely the part where the nonexistent comments from the unreachable CBS spokesperson are made to sound strangely ominous:
CONTINUED »
• If they ever do make a tv movie about Bob Woodruff, the role of ABC news president David Westin will be played by a Desperate Housewives “hunk.”
• The Post gets to the heart of the U.S. News/Sarah Lawrence controversy by reminding everyone that U.S. News and World Report is actually owned by Mort Zuckerman.
• Last week, the two biggest news stories were the Scooter Libby verdict and the presidential race. (And lest you thought our country had smartened up too much, it’s worth noting that Antonella Barba grabbed the #3 slot.)
• Turns out CBS Evening News‘ new exec producer is actually friends with the Clintons. Conflict of interest? Or just boring coincidence?
• “[Keith] Olbermann types with one finger. His right pointer. Eighty words a minute.” Just think about that.
CONTINUED »
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