CNN's Coverage of the Diamond Jubilee

CNN To Provide Global, Multi-Platform Coverage of the Diamond Jubilee

Piers Morgan and Brooke Baldwin Will Host CNN’s Live Coverage

Live from London, CNN will globally televise the spectacular pageantry of the Diamond Jubilee, marking Queen Elizabeth’s 60 year reign of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. CNN’s special live coverage will be anchored by Piers Morgan and Brooke Baldwin, across CNN/U.S. and CNN International. Users can also watch the simulcast live online at CNN.com/live or on the CNN App for iPad and iPhone by authenticating through their cable, satellite or telco provider.
CNN’s live simulcast coverage begins on Sunday, June 3, from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. (ET) on location at the Tower Bridge for the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. Hundreds of boats will sail up the River Thames, making it one of the largest flotillas ever assembled on the river.

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Refugees, nukes, a DMZ, smuggling, thieves... yikes!

A very busy week on the international front. Here's some of what the CNN teams are covering...

Monday, Dan Rivers reported from Islamabad on the fighting in the Swat Valley as the Pakistani army tries to oust the Taliban, as well as the mass exodus of residents to refugee camps:

Tuesday, Dan reported on the horrific conditions the refugees are describing in the home region:

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After North Korea conducted another nuclear test early Monday, Morgan Neill (currently covering the Tokyo bureau) reported on Japan's reaction to the test:

Wednesday, as Japan officially downplayed the test, Morgan spoke to a woman of North Korean decent who lives in Japan about the reaction she feels from her fellow countrymen:

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The same day, a piece from Zain Verjee gave us a look at the Korean DMZ:

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Wednesday, Paula Hancocks gave us a look at one of the smuggling tunnels used to move food and goods (and weapons) from Egypt into Gaza:

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Cal Perry is wrapping up a rotation in Baghdad and today he gave us a look at the infamous Thieves' Market before heading back to Beirut:

That's it for me this week. See you Monday!

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Friday Night Sweets & Treats

Wolf Blitzer talked to Broadcasting & Cable on April 2, 2009 at the Cable Show.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer at the Cable Show from Broadcasting & Cable on Vimeo.

Congratulations to former CNNer, Jeff Greenfield, on the birth of a grandchild. Daughter Casey recently gave birth to a baby boy, Rory.

Here's a sweet clip for you from American Morning... Alina Cho reports on candy sales in this recession and brings back treats for Kiran Chetry and John Roberts.

And finally, last week Cyn mentioned that Zain Verjee is off to London for a new morning program on CNNi. Here's a clip of Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty saying goobye to her on The Situation Room.

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G-20...BINGO!

This week, CNN=G20 as the President made his first overseas trip to meet with foreign leaders in London. It seemed like about half of the coverage was about the choice of gifts, the First Lady's wardrobe, and of course, The Hug. (If the Queen says there was no breach of protocol, there wasn't. Her game, her rules; move along.)

On Tuesday, soon-to-be-based-in-London Zain Verjee joined Roland Martin to preview where the President would be traveling on this trip:

Zain's segment segued into a chat with Richard Quest about what was expected to happen at the meetings:

Wednesday, Nic Robertson covered the protestors in the streets of London, and spoke to Roland about it later:

Nic also joined Anderson Cooper at the Tower Bridge remote location that night to recap the protests:

On Thursday, Roland again spoke to Richard about the 10-page agreement released by the G-20 members today:

Meanwhile, on Thursday Wolf Blitzer sat down for a lengthy, wide-ranging discussion with The New York Times' Thomas Friedman. The segment that aired on Thursday's TSR covered relations with Iran, Israel/Palestine, and Afghanistan:

Friday's segment was about the "G-2" (China and the US), the current economic mess, and Friedman's contention that Energy Technology is the way of the future:

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Where in the World...?

SATURDAY: Ted Rowlands, Reynolds Wolf, and Susan Roesgen were still covering the floods in Minnesota/North Dakota.

SUNDAY: John King spent time in St. Louis this past week.

MONDAY: Susan Candiotti was in Warren, Michigan; Ted Rowlands still in Moorhead, Minnesota; Reynolds Wolf in Fargo, North Dakota; Jill Dougherty was at The Hague with SecState Clinton. Roland Martin will be in for Campbell Brown for the next eight weeks during her maternity leave.

TUESDAY: Ed Henry and Suzanne Malveaux were in London with the President; Kyra Phillips hosted her portion of NewsRoom from Washington.

WEDNESDAY: Anderson Cooper hosted AC360 from London; Nic Robertson is back in London (above; doing a stand-up for International from outside 10 Downing Street). Kyra still in Washington. Fredericka Whitfield was in for Heidi Collins; American Morning began 1 hour early to cover the President's speech live, and TJ Holmes was in for John Roberts.

THURSDAY: Anderson still in London; Kyra back in Atlanta; Carol Costello in for Kiran Chetry.

FRIDAY: Susan was in Binghamton, New York to cover the shooting rampage there; Ed and Suzanne in Strasbourg, France; Anderson still in London and the second hour of AC360 was a look at the "New World Promise" -- the Summit, the speeches, and yes, the fashions. Carol in for Kiran; Kitty Pilgrim in for Lou Dobbs.

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Mullah Matchmaker

Reza Sayah is still reporting from Tehran, and on Friday did a piece about a mullah who has set up a matchmaking service so that young Iranians can find a mate while still observing Islamic law:

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Zain Verjee reported on the auction for some items that belonged to Mahatma Gandhi. The auction was controversial because the Indian government felt the items should rightly belong to the people of India:

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A look at how the economic crisis is affecting the global economy, specifically unemployment. First, Ben Wedeman in Jerusalem, Anjali Rao in Mumbai (and the graphics department REALLY wants us to know where Mumbai is!), and Dan Rivers in Bangkok:

Matthew Chance in Moscow, Jim Boulden in London, and Emily Chang in Beijing:

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Where in the World...?

SATURDAY: Randi Kaye was in the NewsRoom for Fredricka Whitfield.

SUNDAY: Randi was in for Fredricka again.

MONDAY: Jill Dougherty was in Jerusalem with SecState Clinton. Roland Martin was in for Campbell Brown.

TUESDAY: Paula Newton reported from Kabul; Stan Grant was in Lahore to report on the attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team; Jeffrey Toobin was in San Francisco.

WEDNESDAY: Fredricka was in for Tony Harris.

THURSDAY: Sanjay Gupta was in Los Angeles; Kitty Pilgrim was in for Lou Dobbs.

FRIDAY: Jill was in Geneva; Kitty was in for Lou; Anderson Cooper was off and Ali Velshi hosted a "Money Summit" program in place of AC360.

That's all for me today... if you're in the US, don't forget to "spring forward" tonight!

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Out of the Box

It has been a rather slow week for appearance announcements, but here's what we have:

Anderson Cooper

Anderson will receive a special humanitarian award from International Medical Corps' on Feb. 18th for his reporting from Africa. Sheryl Crow will be part of the evening's entertainment and Ben Affleck, Diane Keaton, Joel Madden, Felicity Huffman, Nicole Richie, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Spacey, Kate Walsh, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Vinessa Shaw, Elizabeth Berkley, Hank Azaria, Patricia Heaton, Tate Donovan, Deion Sanders, Heather Graham and Marshall Faulk are among the celebs slated to attend. The event will be held at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, CA.

Ali Velshi

The Executives Club of Chicago will present a half day conference on Thursday, Feb. 12, from 7:30 a.m. - 1:45 p.m. at the Fairmont Chicago, 200 North Columbus Drive, Chicago, IL. Ali will moderate a discussion entitled "The Sustainable Advantage: Who Will Survive and Why".

In the better late than never category:
Rick Sanchez

Rick hosted the 'Shorty Awards' on Wednesday night. The shorty awards are for the best producers of short content in 2008 140 characters or less, on Twitter. The ceremony was held in NYC.

And in the probably shouldn't happen category:

John Roberts
After seeing John Roberts strumming his guitar on American Morning we couldn't help but wonder if we'll be blogging his concert schedule anytime soon? Take a look:

BTW, could it be that the when Rob told JR to grow out his hair he was referring to something like this?
Rob should know better than to cast the first stone. Remember this blast from his past?


In other CNN news:

Michelle Jaconi, a 12-year veteran of NBC’s Meet the Press, will join CNN Worldwide as executive producer of State of the Union with John King. Jaconi began working for Meet the Press in 1997, starting as an intern and working her way up to producer and political analyst.
She earned a degree in international politics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and later earned her master’s degree with honors distinction. While earning her master’s, she wrote for PoliticsNow.com, a Web site that was co-owned by the Washington Post, ABC News and the National Journal Group.

We came across another mention that Roland Martin might be doing the honors when Campbell Brown is on maternity leave and I thought I'd pass it along. This one was in the Chicago Trib.

Expecting? Syndicated columnist Roland S. Martin, a contributor to CNN, TV One and Tom Joyner's national radio program, is said to be a candidate to fill in during Campbell Brown's CNN maternity leave this spring. Nothing official yet out of CNN, but word is the one-time editor of the Chicago Defender and former morning host on Chicago's WVON-AM 1690 isn't booking speaking engagements from late March through May.

Happy Belated Birthday to the lovely Zain Verjee who was 35 on Wednesday.

As always thanks to Julie and Cyn for all their help gathering material for this post.Enjoy the rest of your week and hope to see you back here soon. ~Phebe

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Iraq updates, Iran shuttle diplomacy, and an update on "S.G.S.G."

On Thursday, Arwa Damon reported from Baghdad on the results of last weekend's elections:

Michael Ware will be on Fareed Zakaria GPS tomorrow for a discussion about the election results, but on Wednesday he appeared on American Morning to talk to John Roberts about the confession of a woman who used some horrific means to recruit other women to be suicide bombers:

Wednesday on AC360, Peter Bergen and David Gergen discussed the latest from former Veep Cheney:

Back on Monday, Zain Verjee did a report on a little "shuttle diplomacy" with Iran in the form of a badminton tournament. (Unfortunately, the team was denied visas to enter the country and were forced to return home.)

Finally, on Wednesday John Roberts spoke with Dr. Sanjay Gupta about a medical story, and then asked him for an update on the Surgeon General position:

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Where in the World...?

SUNDAY: Fareed Zakaria was in Davos, Switzerland (above) for the World Economic Summit.

MONDAY: TJ Holmes was in for Tony Harris.

TUESDAY: Anderson Cooper was in Washington to interview President Obama; Suzanne Malveaux was in NYC; TJ was in for Tony.

WEDNESDAY: Peter Bergen was on AC360; Don Lemon was in for Tony; Fredricka Whitfield was in for Kyra Phillips.

THURSDAY: John King was in Carmel, Indiana; Fredricka was in for Heidi Collins; Don was in for Tony; Lisa Sylvester was in for Lou Dobbs.

FRIDAY: Wolf Blitzer was in NYC; John was back in DC; Lisa was in for Lou.

Pretty quiet week for travel... Monday's post will include clips from Michael Ware, Chris Lawrence, Barbara Starr, and Stan Grant... plus whatever else catches my eye! Have a great weekend!

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Ups and Downs

So if you're in Davos for the World Economic Summit and need a metaphor for the current global financial mess ... well, all you have to do is step outside! Richard Quest quite literally hit the slopes last Monday to explain it all:

Last Wednesday, Ben Wedeman reported from Jerusalem on the status of the truce in Gaza and the meetings going on with US Special Envoy George Mitchell:

Thursday Zain Verjee was in The Situation Room to talk to Wolf Blitzer about President Obama's upcoming world travels:

Havana Bureau Chief Morgan Neill was visiting "the Mothership" Friday and spoke with Kiran Chetry about the latest from the Castro brothers -- Fidel wants the US to give Gitmo back to Cuba, and Raul is visiting Russia. Well, it's nice to have Morgan get airtime with something other than hurricanes:

Michael Ware was up bright and early for the second hour of American Morning today and talked to Kiran about Saturday's provincial election in Iraq:

Michael stuck around the Time Warner Center and spoke to Wolf about the Iraqi elections and the "graveyard of empires" that is Afghanistan:

That's a wrap for me -- hope everyone is keeping warm; since Punk Phil has promised/cursed us with six more weeks of this nasty winter, I think it's time to throw another log on the fire!

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Reactions and Realities

Tuesday, Stan Grant had early reaction to President Obama's al-Arabiya interview:

And on Tuesday's AC360, Nic Robertson (in London) had a pre-recorded piece about Saudi hopes for a new relationship with our new president, after which Anderson Cooper asked Peter Bergen (in NOLA) and Reza Aslan (in LA) about whether the interview would resonate in the Muslim world:

Wednesday, Zain Verjee was in The Situation Room to discuss Iranian reaction to the interview:

So... what about the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On Wednesday, Christiane Amanpour (in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Summit) spoke to John Roberts about that:

That evening, Chris Lawrence and Peter Bergen were on Campbell Brown's program to discuss it. (And seriously -- doesn't anyone have any info about that new wedding ring Peter is wearing?):

Thursday morning, Tony Harris spoke with Atia Abawi (CNN's newest correspondent in Kabul) and Rory Stewart about what the next step should be:

Friday, Wolf Blitzer spoke with Christiane and Michael Ware (in New York) about the interview, the outreach, and the realities:

Arwa Damon reported Friday on the build-up to the Iraqi elections:

And this morning Arwa reported on how things are going so far:

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Where in the World...?

SATURDAY: Ben Wedeman was still in Gaza.

SUNDAY: Karl Penhaul was still in Rafah, Gaza; Dan Rivers reported from Bangkok on the plight of refugees in Thailand.

MONDAY: Stan Grant reported from Abu Dhabi; Richard Quest from Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Summit is underway; Peter Bergen is still in NOLA. Erica Hill filled in for Kiran Chetry; Betty Nguyen was in for Kyra Phillips.

TUESDAY: Stan reported from Dubai; Nic Robertson from London. Betty was again in for Kyra.

WEDNESDAY: Christiane Amanpour is in Davos; Ben is in Jerusalem. Fredricka Whitfield filled in for Kyra; John King filled in for Larry King.

THURSDAY: Atia Alawi reported from Kabul; John was in Peoria, Illinois at a Caterpillar plant absorbing massive layoffs. TJ Holmes filled in for Rick Sanchez; Fredricka again filled in for Kyra.

FRIDAY: Michael Ware is in New York; Arwa Damon reported from Baghdad on the Iraqi elections; John is back in DC, appearing in The Situation Room; Morgan Neill is in Atlanta (above). TJ again filled in for Rick; Fredricka again filled in for Kyra.

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Out with the old...

Since everyone is focused on the DC coverage today, just some quick clips from CNN.com I wanted to highlight:

Stan Grant, now back in Abu Dhabi, interviews an Iraqi man who escaped from Saddam's army and now worries about Iranian influence taking over his former home:

Jeanne Meserve looks at the countermeasures being taken by the Secret Service sniper team:

Here's something I bet you never thought of -- Zain Verjee compares the preparations for Inauguration Day with the Hajj in Mecca:

And on Sunday's GPS, Fareed Zakaria spoke about what he believes was President Bush's biggest blunder. There are a lot to chose from, in my opinion, and I would not have thought of this one, but he makes a persuasive case:

That's all for today... back to the party! Boy, we have earned this one!

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