Larry King: Hard Choices

Last week, BusinessWeek.com posted a story about Larry King almost leaving CNN in 1989.

As Larry King Live nears the end of its run, the king of talk remembers his decision to stick with CNN

As told to Ronald Grover

It was 1989, and I had been doing Larry King Live for about four years. My contract with CNN was up, and I had three months to look around. My agent, the late Bob Woolf, got a lot of substantial offers for me to consider.

Fox (NWS) wanted me. ABC (DIS) said they wanted to put me on behind Ted Koppel. The King brothers [of King World Productions] wanted to give me a deal similar to the one they had given Oprah. The show would be syndicated and I would get 9 percent of the profits.

I was making $800,000 at the time and the deals would have paid me $1.5 million. It should have been a no-brainer. I decided to take one of them, and I told Bob to get it done. It was a good time to take the chance. My show was doing well, and it was a lot of money.

I remember getting picked up that night at LAX. I was dating Angie Dickinson at the time, and we were going to dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The next morning, at 6 a.m., I get a phone call from Ted Turner in New York. He's got Bob Woolf in his office and they're on speakerphone.

"I hear you want to leave," Ted says to me. "Say it to my face." I hear Bob behind him saying, "That's unethical." But Ted says, "Screw the ethics. Tell me goodbye to my face."

That's when I remembered discussing it with Angie the night before. She had asked me, "Are you unhappy, is that why you're leaving?" I wasn't. She said, "If you take all that money, the moment you're unhappy you're going to say to yourself: Why the heck did I make the change?"

She was right. I told Ted I was going to stay. Our show started to take off, and pretty soon I was making a lot more money. It turned out to be the right decision. Sometimes you don't need to make a change to succeed. Sometimes success is right in front of you.

Later on, I was at The Palm restaurant in Washington. Michael King was sitting across the room from me. He stands up and shouts, "I made you big money!"

Source: Business Week, July 22, 2010

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Green iReporter

The Gothamist recently had a little bit of fun with CNN's iReport...

Meet CNN's Newest Reporter: Ted

CNN has been going through some growing pains lately; between Larry King's retirement and Octavia Nasr's mis-tweet, as well as previously losing Lou Dobbs and Christine Amanpour, CNN has parted ways with a lot of talent, and is desperate for new blood (see also: Eliot Spitzer).

So when the FDNY had their busiest week in almost 30 years during last week's heat wave, they turned to their newest, finest, greenest iReporter, Ted, for coverage of the 4-alarm East Village fire last week.

Apparently, this was Ted's first hard news assignment. He was back to his usual entertainment beat the next day, interviewing Lady Gaga fans outside of Rockefeller Center.

Source: Meet CNN's Newest Reporter: Ted, Gothamist, July 11, 2010

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Exec Producer of New 8 PM Hour Named

Liza McGuirk has been named Executive Producer of CNN’s new 8 pm program with co-hosts Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker set to launch this fall. The announcement was made by senior vice president of programming Bart Feder and is effective immediately.
“Liza has the experience producing quality television that is smart and informative, and she has the editorial muscle to develop a program that will be provocative and entertaining,” said Feder.

Most recently, McGuirk has been the executive producer of CNN’s Sunday morning news and discussion program Fareed Zakaria: GPS. Launching that program in June 2008, she has produced a one-of-a-kind public affairs program on cable news. Nominated for an Emmy after just months on the air, the Zakaria program led by McGuirk has provided intelligent and insightful programming about domestic and international issues.

Said McGuirk, "After working with Fareed Zakaria, I'm delighted to be working with two people, Eliot and Kathleen, who are truly his equals at exploring the world of intelligent ideas. Most of all, I look forward to bringing that kind of elevated discussion to primetime.”

Before rejoining CNN in 2008, McGuirk spent 25 years working in television journalism and has extensive experience in all areas of television reporting and production. An Emmy-award winning producer, McGuirk was at CBS News for eight years, including four years producing and writing segments for 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley. McGuirk also worked at CNN from 1980 to 1989, where she wrote and produced daily newscasts, supervised story coverage and produced a number of special events, among them, political conventions and presidential trips overseas. She was the fifth person hired when CNN was in its infancy. Before returning to CNN in 2008, she was a freelance documentary producer, teaming up with Christiane Amanpour on several projects.

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President Ed Henry

Earlier this month, CNN's Ed Henry won an election...

CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry was elected president of the White House Correspondents Association board Thursday.

Henry garnered 86.9% of the votes to win the honor.

The WHCA board is perhaps most in the spotlight at the moment as it will decide which news organization will inherit Helen Thomas' front row seat in the White House Briefing Room.

Henry came out in support of Fox News, which is seen as the frontrunner along with Bloomberg News.

"When CNN bid for the front row in 2007, Fox could have challenged it and had a knock-down, drag-out fight like the one we might have this time," Henry said. "But they did the gentlemanly thing and said CNN had more seniority. I've got to honor that commitment."

Source: The Huffington Post, July 16, 2010

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Arwa Damon Revisits Ramadi

Arwa Damon appeared on International's BackStory Thursday to talk about a trip she made recently back to Ramadi. She had traveled to the city is the spring of 2006 on an embed with the 82nd Airborne when the convoy she was traveling in struck an IED. Today she took a look back, showed what the city s like today, and talked with host Michael Holmes about what the future may hold for the city's residents as the American military heads home.

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Craig Ferguson's Skit Skewers LKL

Craig Ferguson did a take on Larry King Live this week. As Ferguson said recently he's going to miss Larry because of all the material the program provided his writers.

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Soledad O'Brien Take Five

The current issue of Jet Magazine has an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien:

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien has carved quite a nice niche for herself as the anchor/reporter for the network’s In America documentary series. It started off with 2008’s "Black in America" and since then the unit has produced five more, chronicling the struggles of Blacks, Latinos and gays, as well the Black church and next month's look at life in New Orleans five years after Katrina.

O’Brien spoke with MyJet247.com about that series, how she balances work and family and her proudest moments.

Q/ Did you always know you wanted to be a journalist and tell stories?

A/ I was pre med in college and always thought I was going to go to medical school and not for any real reason I just felt like it was the right thing to do when I was in high school. I was a candy striper and I got my nurse’s aide certification. So, when I decided not to go I was just completely perplexed because I hadn’t thought of another career. I had started working at a TV station, WBZ, in Boston. It was surprising to me how immediately I thought ‘Oh, this is exactly what I want to do!’ And it kind of dawned on me that everything that was happening around me was very exciting and I sort of thought I could be really good at this. I always liked writing and telling stories.

To read the full interview at MyJet247.com: TAKE FIVE: Anchor Soledad O'Brien

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