Taking Out The Trash, 08.31.06

We love you Wolf, but Chuck Norris can kick anyone's ass. Wall Street Journal confirms the NY Post's story that Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker "will step down from his post to assume a strategic role with the online side of the parent company." Jon Meacham will succeed him. To the reader who wrote in, "you need to explain more on your blog why you didn't like the karaoke piece" : We weren't kidding when we said we loved it. We love karaoke and the people who cover it. The Washington Post reports that "U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq." Slate's Jack Shafer reviews W. Joseph Campbell's "The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms." Highlights from the Great Press War of 1897 included. "Meet the Press with Tim Russert" topped the Sunday morning competition in all categories last week. According to the release, "Meet" attracted 3.805 million total viewers, compared to "Face the Nation's" 2.695 million, "This Week's" 2.263 million, and FOX "News Sunday's" 1.274 million. TVNewser tells us that "for the first time in recent memory, Hannity & Colmes has bested The O'Reilly Factor in the 25-54 demographic for an entire month. In August, FNC's 9pm show averaged 508,000 demo viewers, 14,000 more than Bill O'Reilly's 494,000 at 8pm." Meanwhile, CNN was up 21 percent in total viewers in prime versus August 2005, and was also up 25 percent in the target 25-54 demo. Fox News Channel was down 28 percent in prime, versus August 2005. "FNC was also down 20 percent in its target demo." Did the terror plot bolster CNN's ratings? Katie Couric "will pop up tonight on Bob Schieffer's last broadcast as 'interim' anchor." According to Philly Inquirer's Gail Shister, Couric will appear in the last segment and will do a tribute piece on Schieffer. Peter Kann reviews Edward Kosner's memoir, It's News To Me: "A memoir of this sort is much like a cookbook written by a maÃ®tre d'--someone skilled at selecting dishes for his customers and garnishing the plates but not himself the creator of fine cuisine." A case of mistaken identity in today's WaPo. (Wonkette) More after the jump... CBS news president Sean McManus responded to the airbrushed photo of Couric with "the obligatory it-won't-happen-again statement," as well as saying "he'd like to be 3 inches taller in his photos." According to the Extreme-ness, McManus isn't the only one who wants a boost. Schieffer on his departure: "Look, I'm 69 and when you're gonna build a news department you don't want to build it around someone who's gonna be 70 in February. If this had happened to me 10 years ago, then yes, I would have wanted to keep this. But I couldn't have done this much more than another year and didn't want to. I think this is ending perfectly for me." Schieffer told the AP, "It's been a great adventure for me. ... I never thought I would have a chance to do this." Los Angeles Times reports that Schieffer "has a new career he's pursuing on the side: songwriting. ... Schieffer recently partnered with a composer to set a few of them to music. The results were so promising that he's met with a music industry executive about getting them recorded in Nashville." B&C reports that the kidnappers who held two Fox News journalists hostage "suspected that correspondent Steve Centanni was a spy and at one point threatened to kill him." While he "can't claim inside knowledge," Slate's Daniel Gross notes that "there are signs" Time Warner may sell off "the company's mammoth magazine business." Howard Kurtz points us to National Review's Kate O'Beirne on the end of Plamegate. A reader asks, "Where's Howie? Have you noticed that for the last two days WaPo.com hasn't featured media notes with the rest of the 'news columns and blogs' on its front page?"

Fishbowl

Taking Out The Trash, 08.31.06

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