The Ticker: Dobbs, Zirinsky, Meade…

> Read these: The New Yorker and New York critique Lou Dobbs…

> A cool story in TV Week: “When CBS Entertainment wanted to use fact to enhance the fiction of post-nuclear hit Jericho, it solicited ideas for an online element from veteran CBS News producer Susan Zirinsky. The result was ‘Countdown,’ a ‘webumentary’ serving up real information that parallels the plotline from that week’s episode of Jericho…

> “Talk show host Tavis Smiley and CNN news anchor Fredricka Whitfield are very, very serious,” insiders tell the Sun-Times… Update: 1:39am: The newspaper has issued a correction; Whitfield has been happily married for seven years…

> CBS News is starting a week-long series, “Overweight in America: The Science, The Solutions,” tonight on the CBS Evening News and tomorrow on The Early Show…

> HLN’s “Robin & Company” is “specifically going after business travelers during the competitive morning show time slot,” the Atlanta Business Chronicle notes (via ICN)…