Another reason that the VP debates tonight are going to be a bloodbath: The tougher anchors and networks are to Sarah Palin, the better their ratings. Charlie Gibson's 20/20 special when the former beauty queen couldn't tell him about the Bush Doctrine snagged him the #1 slot, Katie Couric's oft-repeated trainwreck with the candidate has made national headlines and won the anchor a place back in the nations heart, and Tina Fey's impression of the Alaskan native has been viewed over 4.5 million times in two weeks.
As for the positive coverage of Palin, welp…try to think of some off the top of your head, and you'll be more stuck than Sarah when she was asked to name a Supreme Court decision that she disagreed with.
Even the Republicans have had enough. Here's an excerpt from "Palin Problem," an article by writer and frequent Bill O'Reilly guest Kathleen Parker, published today on National Review Online:
It was fun while it lasted.
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
As John McCain's campaign carefully orchestrates a tightly held press unveiling of Sarah Palin to the media, the interviewers allowed to ask Palin questions are carefully vetted not for their journalistic integrity, but by how well they will shape Palin's image with viewers.
McCain first chose ABC News' Charlie Gibson because he's known for not exactly asking hard (or relevant) questions. Then they pushed Palin to Fox News' Sean Hannity, where, following MSNBC's tactic with Barack Obama, the network offered to fluff her seat cushions before beginning the softball Q&A. And then came Katie Couric, whose womanhood was intended to lend a softness to Palin's ball-busting image.
So, in the eyes of media on-lookers, who came out on top? So far, just Gibson and Couric. While Hannity put out the tea and biscuits for Palin, Gibson and Couric completed friendly tete-a-tetes — complete with walk-and-talk segments — that earned them the respect of their peers by doing one simple thing: CONTINUED »
Are you done hearing about Sarah Palin and her magnificent/awful/whatever interview with Charlie Gibson yet?
In case you missed anything on ABC: "Yada yada yada, Bush Doctrine, blah blah blah." There, that was a perfect summation of the three minutes the media zoomed in on during the multiple-part interview. But was it really ABC's fault that Palin either came out looking like a dumbed-down Tina Fey, or smelling like roses, depending on your take? Who's side was ABC prez David Westin really on when he decided to air the show on 9/11?
CONTINUED »
Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin last night confirmed what many already feared: That for all the McCain-fueled vitriol towards the media for portraying her as some sort of dumb hockey mom, she doesn't know more than the Mighty Ducks when it comes to foreign policy. Palin did as expected: She dodged questions, filled her answers with vague postulating, and eventually forced Gibson to explain to her just what the hell he was talking about. Though big ups to Charlie for holding his own, and making sure viewers were aware that she didn't have a clue on what, say, the Bush Doctrine is, before he had to tell her about it. To be fair, George Bush would have probably been queasy on the question too. CONTINUED »
Charlie Gibson will be the first reporter logging official face time with Sarah Palin since her nomination as Republican VP only thirteen days ago. What could they possibly have to talk about?
Luckily, upstanding citizen that he is, JackShaf moved on from his all-important campaign of boycotting the DNC to compile a list of questions Charlie Gibson should ask Sarah Palin at the undisclosed time of the interview.
Unfortunately, Shafer's list reads like a duplicate of the Anchorage Daily News itemization of questions that the publication never received Palin's answer on. Blah blah Senator Ted Stevens accepted bribes, do you still support hi*sssnooooze*.
So what are some fun but totally not-happening questions that Gibson could use to spice up the interview?
CONTINUED »
Despite confirmation that Sarah Palin will be on Charlie Gibson's ABC show for her first interview since she was named VP nominee, the McCain camp lashed out at the media and said Palin wouldn't be talking to anyone until they can behave themselves. "Behave themselves" being code for "not mentioning anything about her children," apparently:
CONTINUED »
ABC is showing their support of Asa Eslocker, the producer for the station who was arrested at the DNC for trying to film high-rolling VIP Democrats at a private shindig. Even though Eslocker apparently used a corporate credit card to release himself on bail, everyone at ABC is just shaking their head and chuckling. Charlie Gibson is even going to blog about it!
"We got a kick out of the fact he swiped his corporate credit card to put up the five hundred. The charge of trespassing against him still stands. But the video of the incident shot by our crew clearly shows him standing on a public sidewalk with many other people on the same sidewalk. We hope the charges will be dropped."
Then Chuck G. goes into a long story about a time he got arrested at the 1984 conventions, proving once again that old people don't know how to write for the Internet. He'd be lucky if your ADD meds kicked in for long enough to get to the end of that quote.
Now that he's on his way to the White House, terrorist-by-satire Barack Obama stands accused of leaning farther toward the center than his left-wing Democratic primary self did. Some might argue that comes with the territory as any candidate progresses into the general election. Fine.
But there's another marked change going on in the Obama camp, and it has to do with his relationship with the press. We noticed three distinct policies that are becoming status quo inside the Land of Change, and they're all rules the press corps now has the grapple with. CONTINUED »
So after all the chatter about what Katie Couric's big announcement on this morning's Today show would be, and the revelation that she and NBC's Brian Williams and ABC's Charlie Gibson would be announcing a joint one-hour cancer telethon, here's the big reveal. And yes, Katie's legs are on display.
So was it hard to get the competing networks to work together on this? Of course not!, says Katie: "It was wonderfully easy, really. I think the opportunity to do something for the greater good, to set aside our competitive differences, to raise money and awareness for something that affects all of us … I think everyone said, 'Yeah, let's do it.'"
The only question that needed sorting out, then, was which network's morning show would get to make the big announcement. Guess that decision was made from a ratings standpoint. CONTINUED »
Wow. What an unbelievable shit show ABC aired last night.
We’re talking, of course, about the Democratic Debates in Pennsylvania. Host Charlie Gibson talked up the event in his introduction, highlighting the city’s resounding history. Too bad Gibson and cohost George Stephanopoulos couldn’t think of anything historic to discuss. Rather than ironing out the issues ahead of the April 22nd primary vote, the ABC news men stuck to past scandals, readdressing Jeremiah Wright, Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia trip and why Barack Obama doesn’t wear a flag pin.
It wasn’t until over an hour into the overhyped event that we actually got to hear about real issues, like Iraq and capital gain reform. By this point, however, we’d already zoned out and could only wonder, “Why are we watching this shit?”
Though Ben Sherwood may be the leading candidate to take over Shelley Ross' executive producer job at The Early Show, network brass is fuming over reports in Page Six that are said to have been leaked by Sherwood himself, or from inside his camp.
On Thursday, Page Six reported that at the funeral of GMA producer James Bogdonoff, ABC anchor Charlie Gibson muttered, "It took us six years to get rid of her. How come it only took them [CBS] five months?" From inside CBS, we're told Les Moonves & Co. understand Sherwood fed that item, and they're furious he'd go to such lengths to sabotage his predecessor.
And it's not just them. Gibson is raging, too, that P6 ran that quote, and more furious since he too suspects it was Sherwood-provided. (These two know each other from Sherwood's days at ABC; he exec produced GMA through 2006, after he returned from writing novels for two years after leaving his No. 2 producer gig at NBC Nightly News.)
But all of that might be swept under the carpet, eventually. We're told Sherwood retains his lead role on the list Early Show job candidates because of a strong personal friendship, beginning in college, with a senior CBS News executive.
As Steve Forbes is apt to repeat from his father: "There is nothing wrong with nepotism so long as you keep it in the family." Or, at the very least, the university class.
CHARLIE ON TOP Giving more credence to Nielsen numbers than they probably deserve comes this news that Charlie Gibson's World News, with 9.8 million viewers, beat Brian Williams' Nightly News for the first time in eight weeks, with 200,000 more folks tuning in. This is said to be ABC's largest viewership in about a year. Katie Couric's show on CBS, meanwhile, eeked on by with 7.13 million.
This morning, we woke up thinking it had been a while since we heard about that perennial news story, evening news ratings. Sure, the Internet, CNN and pharmaceutical ads have made evening news irrelevant and impossible to sit through, but millions of Americans still get their news through basic cable. And that demands coverage. CONTINUED »
Apparently being in third place is really bad. Katie Couric will go to Iraq and Syria for a 12-day trip the week after Labor Day.
This leaves Charlie Gibson as the only major news anchor who hasn’t visited a war torn country lately. He's also the only anchor not to wear Stephen Colbert’s wristband. Of course, when you’re number one in the ratings, you can do whatever you want.
Katie herself is excited about the upcoming field trip:
I'm curious about very basic questions regarding living conditions, about how much fear there is in the street, about how the soldiers really are doing.
Please be safe! Moxie doesn't mean anything outside of the green zone.
When asked (by USA Today's Peter Johnson) why he has become the nation's most-watched TV news anchor, ABC World News Tonight's Charlie Gibson grinned and replied, "Unbridled sex appeal."
And they said this guy had no sense of humor.
Remember the other day when we told you a long, and slightly boring story about how Stephen Colbert broke his wrist then turned it into a drawn out pseudo-feud with Brian Williams? Well, in his new perch at the NYT ("All the news that's fit to print…eventually") Brian Stelter is on hand to breathe new life into the already week-old piece. And he's armed with a sort of stupid quote from the ubiquitous HuffPo editor Rachel Sklar, and this poignant observation about broadcast news.
Brian Williams, the “NBC Nightly News” anchor, and Katie Couric, the “CBS Evening News” anchor, both played along. But Charles Gibson, anchor of ABC’s “World News,” did not, and some media observers interpreted his recalcitrance as a statement that real news shows are not to be conflated with parodies.
Wait, they're not? Well, damn! That notorious prankster Walter Cronkite must be turning over in his grave right about now.
Brian Williams isn't used to being second best. After taking over for Tom Brokaw in December 2004, he's never had to fight for ratings (like Katie Couric) never had to fight for his anchor seat (like Charlie Gibson) and never had to worry about much besides picking out a tie for that evening's broadcast.
But now, the tables have turned, the viewers have shifted, and Williams has been relegated to second place in the ratings for the last two months.
How does Williams cope? By not paying any attention to the ratings slide whatsoever.
Manages not to mention "ratings" or "Katie Couric" once.
• Problems at the Times' new offices include a leak coming from Bill Keller's office, toilets that "make catlike noises before they flush" and a "'big rat' scurrying around Metro editor Joe Sexton last week—'one so huge it made him turn pale.'”
• 'What if Conrad Black returns?' worries the Chicago Trib. Fortunately, that won't happen seeing as he's the Guiltiest Person Ever.
• Peter Braunstein to be sentenced today for acting out on that creepy faux-fireman/rape fetish.
• ABC's Charlie Gibson establishes a scholarship based on "compassion, honesty, fairness and trustworthiness," prompting undergraduate hopefuls to "lie their asses off" in droves.
Editorial Director
