ABC News Boss Wants and Piece of the Pulitzer

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Some say it's kind of like New England Patriots wanting to win the Stanley Cup. A football team can't win hockey's biggest prize. 

But, ABC News boss Ben Sherwood thinks that his TV Network should win the Pulitzer Prize, even if Pulitzer's are only given to print journalism. 

Sherwood sent a four-page letter Tuesday to William Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, asking that the organization “share” credit for its Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, awarded this week to the CPI’s Chris Hamby.

“You seem to be determined that ABC was simply a megaphone for Chris Hamby’s work,” Sherwood wrote.

He added that ABC’s investigative reporter Brian Ross and producer Matt Mosk should share in the Pulitzer, saying he intends to take the matter up with the Pulitzer board.

The award-winning reporting exposed how doctors and lawyers worked with the coal industry to deny medical benefits to miners with black lung disease.

In an email to the journalism site Poynter.org, Buzenberg wrote: “Three times ABC SVP for communications Jeffrey W. Schneider threatened me and the Center saying they would make this very ‘messy’.”

“A lot of work went into the investigation,” Schneider told The News on Wednesday. “We’re disappointed that CPI made it seem like ABC’s contributions did not exist.”

According to Pulitzer rules, “Magazines and broadcast media, and their respective Web sites, are not eligible. Entries that involve collaboration between an eligible organization and ineligible media will be considered if the eligible organization does the preponderance of the work and publishes it first” which, according to Buzenberg, was the case here.

Sherwood insists they were equal partners, while the CPI says it did most of the work.

H/T NY Daily News

Fox News to Launch Outnumbered

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If you heard that Fox News was going to launch a show called "Outnumbered" you would likely bet that it would be a bunch of conservative hosts and one liberal.

But FNC says their new show will be featuring a rotating crew of four female hosts and one male.

Poor guy.

Fox News said the dynamic of the gender-weighted panel would result in a “fresh take” on news of the day. During each segment, the panelists will examine the top news of the hour, and deliberate the leading pop culture and relationship issues dominating the headlines that day, the network said in a statement.

“‘Outnumbered’ combines a distinctive group of Fox talent with unique experiences and insights that will make for compelling news programming,” said Jay Wallace, senior vice president of news at the 21st Century Fox-owned outlet. “We look forward to once again pushing the envelope with the addition of this new show and are confident the revised line-up will only strengthen the FNC brand.”

Harris Faulkner, a weekend anchor for the network and Sandra Smith of Fox Business Network, will serve as two of the rotating members of the show’s five-person panel. The solo male panelist will vary each day. Additional personalities to be featured include: Kimberly Guilfoyle and Andrea Tantaros, co-hosts of the Fox News late-afternoon program “The Five” and Fox News Channel contributors Jedediah Bila, Katie Pavlich and Kirsten Powers. Each of the panelists will keep their other duties on Fox News or Fox Business.

H/T Variety 

CNN Breaking News: The Titanic Sunk

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CNN continues to become more of a laughing stock when it comes to their news coverage. 

Since Jeff Zucker took over at CNN, the network has not been afraid to put the "breaking news" banner on anything and everything. 

Just look at the missing plane story which has been "breaking" for well over a month on CNN.

But CNN sunk to new depths (pun) when they reported that the Titanic sunk 102 years.

How the hell this is breaking news?!  Only Jeff Zucker knows the answer to that one. 

H/T Mediaite

Bumping Up the Producer and Adding an 11PM Newscast

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WXMI in Grand Rapids is adding a 10PM newscast starting June 2. News Director Brooks Blanton told the staff that 44% of the viewers that watch WXMI's 10PM newscast, watch another stations newscast at 11PM.

Which means the people in Western Michigan are news hungry, or WXMI does fulfill all their needs at 10PM.

Also, Blanton says that "darn good Producer" (My God the language) Paul Cicchini is being bumped up (or down) to a Reporter spot at the station.

Here's the internal memo sent to the staff: 

Back Again in Sac Town

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Weather Anchor Patty Souza is returning to Sacramento to forecast at KTXL.

Here is the internal email that went out to the staff:

From: Chapuis, Ed
Date: April 15, 2014 at 5:36:14 PM PDT
Subject: Meteorologist Patty Souza

Join me in welcoming a new member to the FOX40 Weather Team.

Meteorologist Patty Souza will be doing fill-in weather on all of our newscasts, starting with this coming Monday April 21 on FOX40’s Morning News.   

Patty is a Sacramento weather veteran, working as Chief Meteorologist at News10 from 2006-2010 and as Morning Meteorologist at KCRA from 2002-2006.   She has also worked at WFTV in Orlando, WHBQ in Memphis, KULR in Billing and UTV-NAU in Flagstaff.    She has a Broadcast Journalism and Political Science degree from Northern Arizona University and a Broadcast Meteorology and Geoscience degree from Mississippi State University.    

For the last few years, Patty has run a Social Media Marketing and Web Design business in South Lake Tahoe.    

Welcome back, Patty!

Ed Chapuis
Vice President & News Director
KTXL FOX40

CNN's Jeff Zucker Heads to OfficeMax

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And you thought the "ice desk" was bad.

CNN had moved their new Jeff Zucker experiment show “CNN Tonight” the field to the studio for day two.

Newscaststudio says that CNN is using the former studio of “Piers Morgan Tonight,” but it looks like a new desk wasn’t ready in time for the debut.

So, apparently Zucker ran to a local office supply store and bought a cheap “modern” office desk.

How crazy does this look? Very, especially since on wide shots you can see the old desk, sitting dead with no host.

“CNN Tonight” was quickly thrown together with a rotating cast of characters, using a left over studio, what could possibly go wrong? CNN is clearly waiting for one host to gel with viewers, then actually brand this hour… CNN just wanted to look like its shit was together for the upfronts.

Bill O'Reilly's Thoughts on CBS Hiring Colbert

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Bill O'Reilly look time out of his show to give his thoughts about CBS hiring Stephen Colbert to replace Letterman.

O'Reilly says that the 40% of people that call themselves "conservative" will not watch Colbert on CBS. O'Reilly points out that it is giving up a lot of the audience before they even start.

Interestingly, O'Reilly did not point out that his show is not watched by the people that call themselves "liberal" and he seems to be doing just fine.

Just saying......

Tampa Anchor Saves Duckings

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FTVLive gives big props to WTSP Anchor Reginald Roundtree after he helped save some baby ducks that fell into a storm drain.

Roundtree was out on a story in Tampa, he noticed a crowd gathered around a storm drain where four ducklings were trapped.

A worker helped get the 200-pound grate off so Reg could go in and scoop the little guys out.

He was finally able to get all four out of the drain and Mama Duck was off and running with the little ones behind her.

Let's go to the video:

Back on the Air in Denver

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A well known Denver Sports Anchor, who moved to news is returning to the air, back doing sports.

Are you confused yet?

KUSA has hired a long-time competitor, out of retirement. Ron Zappolo, who “retired” temporarily last year, will return to TV and to his first love, sports, as a KUSA weekend sports conversationalist. Not an anchor, not a reporter, but a well-known presence injecting a personal style into watercooler stories involving sports.

He’ll be paired with Sam Adams, Denver comedian and sportswriter (for the Rocky Mountain News), to talk sports as a segment within the newscast. The first taping is Friday, to air this weekend.

“We’ll see what develops,” Zappolo said late Tuesday. “Anything’s on the table.”

KUSA President and General Manager Mark Cornetta calls the move an “experiment,” as a way to inject talk about sports, sometimes in a debate style, in the weekend newscast. “As with anything, if it is good, there is the possibility it could expand,” Cornetta said.

Zappolo left KDVR last April with the intention of “reinventing myself one more time.” Zappolo had been considered Denver’s premiere sports anchor in previous stints at KCNC and KUSA, before taking a chance on becoming a news anchor for KDVR.

He had extended talks with FoxSports1 and with KDVR but nothing materialized at either outlet. At KUSA, he said, “they treated me really well.”

H/T Denver Post