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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Freshman Year

Have you been watching the latest reality TV series? CNN is following two freshman congressmen and posting their stories online.

What's it really like to be a new member of the world's most powerful legislature? Two new U.S. representatives are teaming up with CNN.com to report their "Freshman Year" experience through videos and commentaries.

Jason Chaffetz and Jared Polis are taking video cameras with them as they negotiate their way in the 111th Congress, both inside and outside Washington.

They both won convincing victories in November in neighboring states, yet they are world's apart. Utah's Chaffetz is a conservative Republican married father of three who is sleeping on a cot in his congressional office to save money. Democrat Polis from Colorado is a former Internet entrepreneur who is one of the wealthiest members of Congress and the first openly gay male to be elected to the House of Representatives as a freshman.

You can follow their stories regularly on CNN.com.

• Jason Chaffetz

Rep. Jason Chaffetz is a freshman Republican congressman representing the 3rd District of Utah. He was elected in November, winning two-thirds of the vote against a Democratic challenger.>

• Jared Polis

Rep. Jared Polis is a freshman Democratic congressman representing the 2nd District of Colorado. He was elected in November to the seat held by Mark Udall, who ran and won for U.S. Senate. Polis defeated his Republican opponent, gaining 62 percent of the vote.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/freshman.year.bios/index.html

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode Four

By now you've probably seen the sound byte of RNC Chairman Michael Steele's appearance on D.L. Hugley Breaks The News. But have you seen the whole interview? Below is a clip from the second part of the discussion... what did I take away from it? You can disagree with someone and still have a civil conversation- plus even find a small bit of common ground if you try hard enough.

And Mr. Steele's comments about Frederick Douglass High didn't go over well either... at least not in Baltimore City.

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News Around CNN: Thursday Edition

Former CNN correspondent Miles O'Brien will join the SpaceflightNow.com Webcast for the next shuttle launch. The five-hour live video broadcast will cover the March 11 launch of Discovery.

TVNewser is reporting that D.L Hughley is ending his show. Insiders tell us CNN's "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News" will end its run at the end of the month, and we're told the decision was Hughleys.

From CNN: "D.L. approached CNN about being permanently based in Los Angeles, where his family lives. To accommodate this, we agreed upon a new role where he will be a contributor for the network based in Los Angeles. We are eager to continue our relationship with D.L., who is a tremendous talent and a valued colleague."

Insiders tell TVNewser it would have become cost-prohibitive to produce the show in Los Angeles. The one-hour, Saturday night news/comedy show had been drawing about 200,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo in recent weeks.It's not known what will happen to the staff of "Hughley" who were made aware of the news in a meeting this afternoon. The show debuted Oct. 25, 2008.

Looks like we will be seeing Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the CNN airwaves for a while longer. Gupta opts out of surgeon general consideration You can read the full story here.

CNN will be increasing its coverage on Africa. With Nkepile Mabuse, Isha Sesay, Robyn Curnow, David McKenzie and Christian Purefoy leading the coverage.

The Daily News had a great article with Campbell Brown where Campbell talks O’Reilly, Olbermann and mold. Interesting combination I know. To read more click here.

A group of Washington State and Toronto youth have started a campaign to get Anderson Cooper to cover the plight of those in Sri Lanka. I could not agree more and I would guess Anderson would love to get out into the field and cover these stories. To read more click here.

That is it for me this week. Another huge thank you to Julie for her terrific finds ~ Sapphire

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.

Out of the Box

Ed Henry:Senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, will serve as the opening keynote for FOSE 2009 on March 10 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. FOSE is the largest trade show for government technology professionals.

Suzanne Mulveaux:
Suzanne Malveaux, CNN White House correspondent, will join Columbia students for a discussion on leadership March 5th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the Morningside Campus Teatro.

Anderson Cooper:
Anderson Cooper will discuss “A 360-Degree Look at World Events” at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY on Thursday, March 19th at 3 p.m. in John Cranford Adams Playhouse, South Campus.

While this isn't exactly 'out of the box' it is out of the CNN box:
Sunday's "60 Minutes" was the 6th most-watched TV show last week, according to Nielsen. Anderson Cooper's report on the Mexican drug cartels was featured on the broadcast.

Jeffery Toobin:There has been no official announcement, but congratulations may be in order for CNN's legal eagle Jeff Toobin. It has been reported on several sites that Toobin has married Casey Greenfield. Her father, Jeff Greenfield of CBS News is a former CNN colleague of Toobins. To read more follow here and here.
*UPDATE: Toobin has updated his Facebook page this morning to say that he is married (previously his marital status was left blank). Not sure if that means he's still married to Amy, his wife of 22 years, or has married Casey. If any official statements are released we will post them.

John Roberts:
While we're on the subject of marriage we're hearing that John Roberts is a single man again. He implied that he was looking for love on American Morning on Tuesday. Take a look:

As always much thanks to Julie for her research and Cyn for the clip. Have a great week everyone and hope to see you back here soon! ~Phebe



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Ratings At A Glance- Week of February 23, 2009

Ratings for the week FEBRUARY 23, 2009 - FEBRUARY 27, 2009

	8PM^Adults 25-54 FOX 748,200 CNN 301,000 1 MSNBC 445,600 HLN 444,200
	9PM^Adults 25-54 FOX 581,750 2 CNN 339,000 3 MSNBC 349,750 2 HLN 211,600
	10PM^Adults 25-54 FOX 412,250 2 CNN 360,250 2 MSNBC 268,000 2 HLN 271,000

The ratings winner last week? *drum roll* FOX. Once again, they swept the average Adults 25 - 54 ratings for regular programming in all three prime time hours. The exception to their first place finish came on Monday and Thursday nights at 10PM when CNN had the highest demo ratings. CNN remained in fourth place at 8PM and slipped to third at 9PM. MSNBC rose to second place at 8PM and 9PM. They remained in fourth place at 10PM. HLN had third place finishes at 8PM and 10PM; fourth place at 9PM.

CNN had the highest Adults 25 - 54 demographic ratings for Tuesday night's Presidential address to Congress (the non-State of the Union Address) with 1,293,000 viewers. FOX followed with 1,218,000 viewers. MSNBC had 813,000 viewers.

¹CNN: 3 day average at 8PM. Does not include Wednesday & Thursday night's broadcast of Black in America.

²4 day average. Does not include Tuesday night's Presidential address to Congress (FOX: 9PM & 10PM; CNN: 10PM; MSNBC: 9PM & 10PM)

³CNN: 2 day average at 9PM. Does not include Tuesday night's Presidential address to Congress or Wednesday & Thursday night's broadcast of Black in America.

^{^} Courtesy Nielsen Media Research; Demographics where noted; Live + Same Day (LS) Fast Track Nationals.

NOTE: Ratings at a Glance is going on a brief hiatus but is scheduled to return on March 17, 2009.

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Paki-STAN and WARE-ez (Sorry, just had to say it...)

Stan Grant reports from the midst of a riot in Rawalpindi on Friday:

And on Saturday, back in Islamabad, about troubling changes in the Bajaur region of the country:

By the way, Stan is also an author with a fascinating family history:

The Tears of Strangers

A family memoir charting the political and social changes of Aborigines over the past 40 years.

Stan Grant was born in 1963 into the Wiradjuri people − a tribe of warriors who occupied the vast territory of central and southwestern New South Wales. For 100 years the Wiradjuri waged a war against European invasion and settlement. This war has largely been ignored by historians and politicians but will be burnt into the hearts and minds of the Wiradjuri forever.

By the time Grant was born‚ the war against invasion had largely been lost and remnants of the Wiradjuri were scattered among mission camps and the fringes of rural towns. Then the Wiradjuri people found themselves waging a new war − this time against alcoholism‚ poverty‚ abuse and neglect. It was against this backdrop that the Grant family waged its very own struggle: a life−and−death battle for survival.

In the 1980s Stan Grant would begin a career in journalism that would take him to a position of national prominence. As a reporter he has travelled all over the world‚ interviewing the likes of Arafat‚ Clinton‚ Blair‚ Adams and Saddam. He has seen despots and tin−pot revolutionaries; madmen and saints; the glory of the Olympics and the despair of hundreds of years of conflict in Ireland and the Middle East.

Yet always he is a storyteller − just as his father′s father′s father was before him. And now he turns to the biggest story of his career: that of his people. The story of the Wiradjuri.

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International's program BackStory celebrated its 100th episode today, and between the recorded pieces, Michael Holmes read emails from viewers. This one came from a regular ATA/ATC poster and happens to be about my favorite subject... which leads into an interview with Michael Ware about the difficulties in getting the story on the Juarez drug cartels, recorded Friday while he was in New York:

Michael was on American Morning today from the Mexico City bureau:

That's all for me this week!

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Highlights from State Of The Union (Tuesday)

John King showed up on Katie Couric's YouTube video from Tuesday's visit at the White House.

Jim MacMillan caught this picture of John King in Philadelphia this past week and posted it to twitter (twitpic).

On Friday, Politico's Michael Calderone posted an email from Michelle Jaconi, the new Executive Producer of CNN's State of the Union with John King.

Family, Friends & Contacts,

The lead reads like this: I left the oldest show in television for the newest.

After 12 years with “Meet the Press,” CNN wooed me with an offer I couldn't refuse -- including creative control of a show that is going to change my favorite political institution, the Sunday morning public affairs program. So, I did the unthinkable ... I traded one 4 am alarm clock for ... another one. And I did it for one reason: I love being excited about what I do.

I believe in CNN and in John King.

So set your DVRs and on Sunday morning, tune into CNN from 9 am to 1 pm ET. The show is called the "State of the Union with John King" and I hope that with my brethren alone we can bump the ratings up this Sunday.

Michelle Jaconi
Executive Producer
"State of the Union with John King"

On Tuesday, John King anchored a one hour live edition of State of the Union with John King on CNN.com\LIVE. Alex Castellanos, Hilary Rosen, Mike Allen, Dana Bash, Dan Lothian, Ed Henry, and Candy Crowley joined King. The discussion included comments from Facebook users as well as results from polls being conducted on Facebook. Online broadcasting is a bit different from TV... there's aren't really any commercials or breaks. The program did take a short break (filled with music- including ABBA- and CNN promos) mid way through as they changed who was sitting at the table, but mostly this was a full hour broadcast.

Here are a few clips from the program... it is still live TV whether it is broadcast to your TV or through the internet, so there were a few technical difficulties. Also, getting feedback from viewers can always be interesting as you'll see in the last clip... one viewer suggests a drinking game.

One other difference between a regular TV broadcast and the internet... no transcript. I'm not able to do highlights from today's State of the Union with John King... highlights will return in a few weeks.

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