Rita Rita Rita

Is Rita Cosby abusing TVNewser’s tip box?! “I think she will save MSNBC from sinking like the Titanic,” a couple of tipsters said this morning. A lot of the feedback about Live & Direct has been positive, as this sampling indicates:

> “It was hard hitting, compelling and entertaining. MSNBC could have a winner in the making,” a viewer writes.

> “Shame on Fox for letting Rita go! She sure showed them last night when she came out in full Rita Cosby force,” an e-mailer shouts. “I never even noticed MSNBC before…but now that Rita’s joined the team, I’m hooked.”

> An e-mailer compared CNN’s Situation Room and MSNBC’s Live & Direct: “If these shows are any indication, CNN is clearly turning towards hard news and MSNBC is turning even more tabloid.”

> “There’s NO way in hell Cosby is going to ‘save’ MSNBC like Nancy Grace did with Headline News. Let’s see how Cosby’s show fares when her ‘exclusives’ get snapped away by NBC. This show is going to be WAY too dependant on the interviews/stories she does, while Nancy Grace’s main attraction is herself.”

> Of course, some of us want hard news: “The problem is that I have no interest in Michael Jackson or in missing blonds,” an e-mailer said this morning. “I expected hard investigative news, not another Greta or Nancy,” another person added…

> Earlier: “It is great to be a part of the NBC family,” Cosby says on her premiere