CNN anchor Campbell Brown and husband Dan Senor celebrated the arrival of their second child on Monday, a boy, a rep for the cable news network confirmed to E! News.
Asher Liam Senor weighed in at a healthy 9 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 21½ inches. Both mom and tot are said to be doing well.
Asher joins older brother Eli James Senor, who was born in December 2007.
The 40-year-old Brown and the 37-year-old Senor, a partner in Rosemont Capital and a former White House adviser in the Bush administration, swapped vows in April 2006 when the CNN journalist was previously the weekend anchor on NBC's Today show.
Ratings for the week MARCH 30, 2009 - April 3, 2009
8PM^
Adults 25-54
FOX
794,200
CNN
220,000
MSNBC
428,600
HLN
377,400
9PM^
Adults 25-54
FOX
661,800
CNN
280,200
MSNBC
334,800
HLN
158,200
10PM^
Adults 25-54
FOX
526,600
CNN
301,800
MSNBC
268,800
HLN
270,400
Last week's ratings shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point... FOX had the highest Adults 25 - 54 demographic all five days during every hour of primetime.
CNN's average rating for the week gets better as the hour gets later: 8PM (with Roland Martin anchoring)- fourth place; 9PM - third place; and 10PM - second place.
MSNBC did better this week during the 8PM hour than last week with a second place finish. The 9PM & 10PM hours remained the same with second place at 9PM and fourth place at 10PM.
HLN took third place at 8PM; fourth place at 9PM; and third place at 10PM.
^ Courtesy Nielsen Media Research; Demographics where noted; Live + Same Day (LS) Fast Track Nationals.
One last item for you tonight, I came across this article on the Opinion page of BYU's NewsNet. Below is an excerpt from the article that discusses opinionated journalism:
... Others believe they are more qualified to speak on the issues because they research them more thoroughly than most citizens who vote on them. After all, who better to comment about the Mexican border drug war than Anderson Cooper after he camped out on the border. And who better to comment on Obama’s budget than Campbell Brown, since preparation for her story involved hours of picking the numbers apart.
But those arguments miss the point. Assuming you know what’s best for the people because of some deeper knowledge is an elitist mentality, almost as elitist as claiming your competitor is straight opinion and you’re the real reporter. Neither one of those attitudes stresses the importance of balance, fairness and objectivity, and neither one is likely to produce stories with the real public interest at heart rather than ratings or outside opinions.
So public, watch out. Don’t complain the news is slanted and then subscribe to one of the personalities who’s slanting it. If you want objective, straight news, don’t support the opinionated hosts who taint it. And journalists, be even more careful. Don’t let your fan base let you forget what you are: a mirror, not a commentator. There are plenty of people ready to badger for hours about everything from endangered species to what the moon’s made of. The public doesn’t need any more talking heads. What they need are the stories, the window to what’s really happening. Don’t lose sight of that window and remember where to keep the camera pointing.
Early Sunday morning, CNN had the International feed running on Domestic in order to cover President Obama's speech in Prague. Ralitsa Vassileva spoke with Atia Abawi in Kabul and Reza Sayah in Islamabad for their reactions to the speech.
First, Atia discusses the likely reaction to the President's pledge to wrap up "loose nukes":
In the second part, Reza discusses the portion of the speech addressed to Iran:
This morning, Reza Aslan spoke to Kiran Chetry from Istanbul, as the President spoke in Ankara. They had some serious audio problems during the transmission, but it's always worth listening to Reza even if you can only hear every other word:
Meanwhile, Barbara Starr is currently in Afghanistan and on Friday had a report on The Situation Room about the spike in violence there:
And this morning Kiran introduced an interview that Barbara did over the weekend with General James Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps as he visited the bases amidst concerns of a new wave of violence from the Taliban:
Frederik Pleitgin is back in Baghdad, and Don Lemon introduced a piece Frederik did about the targeting of gays in Iraq, where at least six gay men have been murdered in the past ten days:
This morning, Frederik spoke with Betty Nguyen about a number of car bombs that went off in Baghdad today:
Tony Harris also spoke with Frederik about the importance of Turkey to the US military forces in Iraq, especially to the planned withdrawal:
On Tuesday, April 7, 2009, CNN Lead Political Anchor Wolf Blitzer and Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger will site down for an EXCLUSIVE interview with Vice President Joe Biden. The conversation will touch on a wide variety of topics including the economic crisis, the federal budget and national security.
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday, April 7th at 6 PM ET.
State of the Union with John King started with news of North Korea's missle launch late Saturday night (ET). John King spoke with Ed Henry who is in Prague, Czech Republic following the President. King also spoke with Kyung Lah in Tokyo.
King spoke with Ed Henry a second time later on in the broadcast. During the primary campaign, there was the infamous commercial about the “3 AM phone call”... well, the President received that phone call a little bit later than that – 4:30AM local time – when he was notified about the North Korean missile launch.
Just a side note on Ed Henry... CNN has posted the latest “44” podcast with Ed Henry. I thought it was odd when I went to retrieve the podcast that there were two versions of it. Turns out the first version that was posted had an extra four minutes that included a pre-program staging conversion between Ed Henry (who was reporting from Strasbourg, France) and Dick Uliano of CNN Radio. The actual podcast includes calls from listeners, discussions with Dick Uliano, Mark Preston, and Dana Bash. Ed also does his Richard Quest impression towards the end of the podcast.
John King continued the discussion about North Korea with Lt. Gen. Henry Obering at the magic wall where they talked about the type of missile that was launched, the expected range, and what could have caused the failed attempt.
Next, was a discussion with Wendy Sherman, Former Special Adviser to President Clinton about the missile launch, the impact of the launch of the UN sanctions and the six party talks. She also talked about what it was like to meet Kim Jong-il.
Reaction to N. Korea launch
King spoke with Senior White House advisor, David Axelrod, who is in Prague with the President, about nuclear proliferation and the progress with the G20 and NATO. They also discussed the town hall meeting where the President took questions from the Europeans. And, of course, King asked Axelrod about the comments that the former Vice President made on a previous State of the Union program.
Obama advisor talks North Korea
The next guests on the program were Sen. Bob Corker (R) from Tennessee and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) from Michigan. The discussion started with North Korea, the economic impact of the G20 summit, NATO sending more troops to Afghanistan, and led into a heated discussion about the US auto industry.
Bankruptcy for auto companies?
Christiane Amanpour reported on the North Korean missile launch.
At 10AM, John King spoke with Sohn Jie-Ae who was reporting from Seoul, South Korea. (This appeared to be taped from earlier when he also spoke with Kyung Lah.) He also spoke with former CNN correspondent, Mike Chinoy, who was in Hong Kong.
Where was Howard Kurtz with Reliable Sources? Kurtz had about 7 minutes of his portion of the program stolen as a result of the reports on North Korea.
Once Kurtz was able to get on air, he jumped right in with a discussion about the media's coverage of the First Lady on the President's first over seas trip and the lack of coverage over Gov. Sebelius tax problems. The panel included Matt Frei, Danielle Crittenden, and Keli Goff.
Kurtz also criticized FOX's coverage of Obama's speech in France. Here's an excerpt from the CNN Transcript:
There's one more thing I want to get to, one more piece of tape, because Obama, in his speech in France, criticized the U.S. And in the next sentence, he criticized Europe.
Fox's Sean Hannity played a bite from that speech. Let's take a look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: There have been times where America's shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And the liberal tradition of blame America first, well, that's still alive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: But in the very next sentence, the president of the United States said, "But in Europe, there is also an anti-Americanism that can be casual but can also be insidious."
And Sean Hannity's entitled to any opinion he wants. If he wants to criticize Obama for talking about American arrogance, that is fine. But he didn't play the second part of the sound bite, and I thought that was not quite fair.
The next topic was a person that some people love, others hate, and still others just think is looney...former CNN/ HLN host, Glenn Beck. Beck has received some criticism and a lot of media attention since he joined FOX News. Stephanie Miller and Steve Malzberg joined Kurtz for the discussion. They also discussed the state of talk radio.
Carol Marin and Jim Warren joined Kurtz for a discussion about the two Chicago newspapers that are bankrupt. Kurtz was quite animated while introducing this topic – not surprising since he also writes for a newspaper (The Washington Post). Couldn't help but notice the nice stage craft behind Warren... a monitor with Reliable Sources on it.
If you missed any portion of Reliable Sources, CNN has posted this video clip:
Right on time at 11AM, the program was turned back over to John King. After reviewing some of the stories that had appeared earlier on State of the Union as well as other Sunday morning talk shows, King interviewed Jack Welsh, former CEO of GE. They discussed the Dow and unemployment figures, the government's involvement in the auto industry, Obama's European trip, and Obama's performance so far. Here is an excerpt from the interview:
KING: Let me ask you a question. From the perspective of a guy who has been the CEO, imagine that you are the CEO of Ford at this moment. Ford decided we're going to try to get through this without taking any government bailout money. But now you have the president of the United States essentially saying publicly, look, we'll back up a GM warranty, don't worry if GM goes into bankruptcy. Buy a GM car. The government will back up the warranty. He's pushing the unions. You say you're skeptical, but he's pushing unions to go back to the table. If this happens and they go into a controlled bankruptcy with the federal government support, has the government of the United States created an environment that is disadvantageous to Ford?
WELCH: Well, I think Ford is going to be able to offer the same benefits. Ford was not able to knock out their competitor, that's all that's saying. And they're going to have the same competitive playing field they've had all along. So I don't think it's a surprise to Ford. They happen to be in better shape at this moment. But I think it is what they expected.
KING: Is it America?
WELCH: Well, America's in a very different spot now. Capitalism has gone off the rails and government has had to step in. And once you allow that, because you have to, you're not allowing it, you're begging for it once you get that help, you get all that comes with it, John.
KING: You get all that comes with. …
KING: And, Jack, I want to circle back with one more question. If we have a conversation in three to five years, will there be a viable General Motors and Chrysler that are competitive in the world market?
WELCH: John, I don't know the answer to that. I think that with the help we're giving him, I've seen this new fellow, Mr. Henderson, on television a couple of times, I don't know him, he seems determined to take action. Look, I don't know the answer but I would bet on it.
I bet America is going to come back in the automotive business if everybody makes concessions they have to make, everybody.
Almost half way through the 11AM hour, we see the first (and only) analyst panel with David Gergen, Ed Rollins, and Gloria Borger. Topics included North Korea and Obama's over seas trip.
King traveled to Detroit to talk to the new GM chief, Fritz Henderson. Henderson brushed over the “fairness” issue when asked about the comparison between AIG contracts and union contracts:
KING: What about fairness argument? When you talk to the workers, it comes up quite a bit and again, most of these are people who supported this president and supported the Democrats who run Congress. But what they see is this double standard. They say they are told that they have to go back to the table and renegotiate their contracts and then they hear from the same administration, well we can't go after bonuses of the AIG guys because that's contractually negotiated money. Is there a double standard when it comes to your people?
HENDERSON: Our people really have done a fantastic job. We're going to focus on General Motors. We have our hands full at General Motors. I don't work for AIG. I don't work for a bank. I think that the way the administration's handled General Motors has been in a very professional way. You know, human nature being what it is of course there's got to be some part of that. But I think our people really understand, what it will take to make General Motors competitive? How do we actually move to the next century and not necessarily dwell on how we compare with some other industry.
And King asks Henderson the same question that he asked Welsh:
KING: In business school and in your early days at GM, could you ever imagine it coming to this? This is Detroit. It's Motor City. It's home of the big three. I'm not sure people equate the big three in the way they used to before. But this was capitalism at its finest, companies going out there making new cars, hiring people. And now you're dependent on the government. Did you ever see this happening?
HENDERSON: No, I didn't.
KING: Is it American? It's sort out of our way of doing things, isn't it?
HENDERSON: It is out of our way of doing things. But I think, you know, what is also American is when you need a hand, when you need help, that is American.
KING: And so to those out there, whether they're every day Americans or members of the United States Senate who say, you know what, this government is not supposed to be doing this, up or down in the marketplace, tough love, go to bankruptcy court if you have to but this is not the government's job, you would say what?
HENDERSON: I would say that we can and will play a role in the future of the auto industry. Clearly, the weaknesses and the fragilities of our business were exposed in the current economic environment. It's our job to take care of customers and then take care of the taxpayer, pay it back and justify the -- you know, what has been done to try to help us.
G.M. CEO on Pres. Obama
G.M. CEO on who he voted for
GM CEO: We need to go further
King also traveled to Tennessee this week. Here is a behind the scenes clip that CNN posted to Facebook and to CNN.com:
King spoke with a newly retired GM worker and UAW president about the resignation of Rick Wagoner and about the future of General Motors.
The first half of the 12 PM ET hour was a recap of the 9AM hour ET. The second half of the hour started with the Last Word which was originally scheduled to go to David Axelrod. Who ended up getting the last word instead? Senator Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island. The discussion started with North Korea, General Motors and Timothy Geithner's remarks about possibly forcing out current heads of large banks.
U.S. reaction to North Korea
A special session of the UN Security Council was meeting to discuss North Korea's missile launch and King spoke with Senior UN Correspondent, Richard Roth.
The Diner segment this week was from Franklin, Tennesse at Merridee's Bread Basket. Those at the table this week were all Republicans and were hesitant to speak well of the President.
One final item tonight, Channel Guide recently interviewed John King. Here are a few excerpts from the interview:
“Some people watch those shows because they’re provocative,” King explains. “I watch some of them, because I learn. It’s like intelligence gathering. Some people go to those shows because they can be fun. Sometimes they’re shout festivals, but sometimes it’s provocative, challenging conversation. My idea is, ‘Let’s have a show with provocative conversation with all views — not just one view.’ My goal is to try to have that conversation, but involve everybody. Let the people watching make the decision.”
Do they ever. Bloggers examine King’s every guest, every comment, every question for telltale hints of political leaning — usually hammering their perceived context into something that pairs up with foregone conclusions. ”Some days I am apparently Satan to the left and on some days I am Satan to the right,” says King “If that happens just about equally, then I assume I am trying to do my best and I am somewhere in the middle where I belong.”
While King believes there is danger in viewers only choosing news programming that embraces a particular ideology, he begrudges no one their program or programming choices — choosing to merely let the lessons learned guide his own professional habits.
“It reinforces my determination to be as objective as possible” King says. “I’m not perfect. I don’t pretend to be perfect. But I try, in everything I do, to be respectful of all opinions and to solicit all opinions. To ask questions to try and cover the broad range of the spectrum. I do this myself and I try to impress upon the staff of the show how important it is to make sure we’re entertaining different voices.”
And not entertaining for the sake of entertainment alone.
“My training is as an AP Wire guy before I came into television,” Kings says. “So I speak for myself in this regard when I say that I am a little bit more of a dinosaur in that I say ‘Well, why would I do this?’ and ‘What is the news value of that?’
“I don’t want to be viewed as an entertainer. I want to be viewed as somebody who is a source of information for people. There are a lot of people on television now. You have all these talk shows now. And when you turn on the television — from 5 o’clock in the morning through late-night television — there are people on TV talking. So we need to be very careful to delineate — as we do on [State of The Union] — this is a conversation with a Senator, a politician, a newsmaker, an administration official. This is a conversation with one of our reporters; they are giving you objective information from their news gathering. This person is an analyst, they have an opinion and you should understand their opinion when they speak. They are not speaking as an objective person — they are speaking as a person with an opinion.
“The lines need to be carefully drawn, so that when there is a big news day — whether it’s an upbeat, positive news day, or God forbid, a tsunami or a 9/11 — when the people see you in that box, they trust you. And they trust that you are telling them facts and relevant information to the best of your ability — that you’re not trying to perform.”
Also included in the interview were King's views on Rush Limbaugh.
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:
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.
Hey it's me, Phebe, in for BA tonight. Not that this was planned, just a last minute switch. Unlike Book Asylum's thoughtful, well planned posts mine is going to be a 'fly by the seat of your pants' type of thing. First a few tidbits, courtesy of our wonderful Julie.
• Alina Cho must have the most active social life of anyone at CNN. Last Friday night Ms. Cho attended the 'Young Friends of Venice'Ball at the Bowery Hotel in NYC. Her escort was John Dempsey. Cho also attended NY Fashion Week's Tuleh show with Dempsey in February.
• Roland Martin began his stint as Campbell's sub this past Monday. When Campbell was in the anchor chair the program's executive producer was David Doss, also the man in charge of AC360. While Campbell is on maternity leave Scott Matthews will take over as exec producer of NBNB.
• DL Hugley has bid ado to CNN but he told the Daily News TV editor that he hated to leave when the program was so successful (yes you read that correctly). To read more follow the link.
• On March 26th mediabistro.com's Morning Media Menu had Jack Cafferty for a guest. They talked about his new book, "Now or Never: Getting Down to the Business of Saving Our American Dream" among other things. To listen follow the link.
I read with interest all of the suggestions you readers had for how to improve the CNN lineup. Most of your ideas concerned the anchors at the newsdesk and the prime time programs. I would be interested in hearing your opinions on CNN's reporters. Who are your favorites and who makes you want to flip the channel. I don't want anything too negative, just your honest picks and pans. ~Phebe
Tonight I have a whole bunch of wonderful finds from our amazing research assistant Julie.
THR.com had a Q&A with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and during the conversation, Anderson Cooper is mentioned. I guess there were worse things Bill could have said so Anderson should be flattered.
Here is a great article about CNN reporter NkepileMabuse
Tony Harris was recently in South America and you can see a picture of Tony by checking out this blog.
D.L. Hughley talks about his show ending with the Daily News.
Christiane Amanpour on panel awarding grants for the stories of change program. You can about the event by clicking here and here.
Here are two articles about Christiane Amanpour’s new show and Executive Producer Kathy O’Hearn you can read them here and here.
Book Asylum came across a great pic of a portrait of KiranChetry and her son Christopher on the AMFIX blog and it is really amazingly well done. Check it out right here.
Kiran Chetry and Robin Meade were recently names by the television show Extra as some of the hottest women in morning television.
Congratulations to CNN on there Peabody Award win for Coverage of 2008 Presidential Primary Campaigns and Debates.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association 2009 Vanguard Awards ceremony will be held in Washington, D.C., on April 3rd. Jim Walton, CNN's Worldwide President will receive the Vanguard Award for programmers. Walton has been with CNN since 1981, starting at an entry level position. To read more of his interesting story just follow the link.
Erica Hill: Erica Hill will do a live webcast chat every Saturday after she finishes anchoring CBS's Saturday edition of The Early Show.
Fareed Zakaria: • Fareed Zakaria will speak in Dallas on Friday, April 17th as part of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth's speaker program. The event will be held at The Fairmont Dallas, 1717 N. Akard St., Dallas at 11:00 AM. For tickets follow the link. • Zakaria is also slated to open the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall 2010 lecture series with two lectures on Jan. 11. Better Late Than Never:
James Carville: James Carville and his wife honored outstanding women in Louisiana government on Saturday, March 28th for the Louisiana Center for Women and Government, which is based at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux. Thanks as always to Julie. Have a great week. ~Phebe
D.L. 
Book Asylum came across a great pic of a 
