Al Roker Breaks Two Records

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Al Roker set out to break the record for the longest weather report and this morning he did so.  Roker when 34 hours straight talking about the weather (most of the time).

Al's prize for breaking the record was a certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records and a threesome in bed with Savannah Guthrie and Tamron Hall (which almost makes it worth it). 

Roker also broke the record for the longest sweeps stunt.

Congrats Al! 

Former Navy SEAL Making Media Rounds

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Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill isn't done making the media rounds.

O'Neil the former U.S. Navy SEAL who says he fired the shot that killed Osama bin Laden, continues his media blitz this morning with an appearance on the Today Show.  

O'Neill talks to Savannah Guthrie in an interview on Today and then will be back on Fox News tonight talking to Sean Hannity. 

NBC is being all hush hush with the location where Guthrie is interviewing the SEAL, although we are not sure why.

O'Neil will be in Sean Hannity's studio tonight talking to the host.  Guess it sounds so much more cool if you say "undisclosed location".

Fox News has good reason to keep the conversation with O'Neill going. Wednesday's second part of the "The Man Who Killed Usama Bin Laden" had a bigger audience than Tuesday's part one for Fox News.

Part two averaged 3.4 million total viewers and 586,000 in the 25-to-54 age group. 

H/T Orlando Sentinel 

Phoenix Station Finally Names New News Director

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After months and months of saving money on the News Director's salary, KPNX has ended their nation wide search for a new ND.

They found their next news boss sitting in the KPNX newsroom. 

The Gannett station has promoted Sandra Kotzambasis to the ND job. She’s been the Senior Executive Producer.

The position opened up when Mark Casey was promoted from the ND office to the Station Manager’s office.

CBC Reporters are Tired of the FHRITP Shouts

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And speaking of fucking her right in the pussy (that didn't come out right). Two Reporters for the CBC say enough is enough. 

Canada.com writes that Morgan Dunlop (pictured) and Tanya Birkbeck recounted several experiences of people yelling “fuck her right in the pussy” during their live broadcasts. Both women described feeling threatened by the interruptions.

 “Somewhere along the line this prank has morphed into something that’s not funny at all,” said Dunlop, who said she was interrypted with the phrase while speaking to an anchor in the studio during a demonstration in downtown Montreal. 

Birkbeck said she was unaware of the meme when two separate men yelled the phrase at her on the same day. 

“Just being in public with a TV camera means you have to be comfortable with all kinds of attention. I just wasn’t expecting this,” she wrote.

Both women described feeling vulnerable and belittled as a result of their experiences, with Dunlop even suggesting harassment like this could hurt a woman’s career in broadcast journalism if her manager restricts the kinds of assignments she can take on.

After learning how frightening, embarrassing and disorienting such an attack can be for someone just trying to do her job, it’s hard to watch videos of people rushing reporters to scream obscenities and find them funny. 

What may have seemed as a dumb but harmless prank is clearly more sinister for those on the receiving end, especially women.

Montgomery Anchor Out After Bypass Operation

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WSFA News Anchor John O'Connor has been off the air and while that is almost unheard of during sweeps, he has a good reason. 

The station says that O'Connor had unexpected open heart surgery and six bypasses Wednesday, Nov. 5.

“I went from not even thinking about it and less than a week later, I'm on the operating table,” O'Connor said.

He says it started two weeks ago when he was walking the two flights of stairs to his apartment like usual, but this time he noticed a weird feeling in his chest. He decided it probably wasn't anything, but over the weekend it progressed into pain in the right side of his chest and numbness in his arm.

He decided to go to a walk-in clinic on the way to work that Sunday, and they sent him to the emergency room. A number of tests, blood work, and ultimately a cardiac catheterization, or heart cath, revealed “significant blockage” in several arteries.

Three days later he had open-heart surgery and six bypasses at a Montgomery hospital.

“[This was] an eye opening thing for me because I would have been the last guy in the world to have any suspicion. I would've told you that I'm not in very good shape, but I would've been the last guy in the world to think I would've been having open heart surgery,” O'Connor said.

Doctors say John's heart is otherwise healthy and that his condition was genetic.

John said he hopes by telling his story that people will pay more attention to the little symptoms before it's too late.

Plus, you know it's ratings, so what better time to talk about an Anchor's health issues.

Just saying.... 

Back in the Fox Den

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She's back!

Elisabeth Hasselbeck  returned to Fox and Friends this morning after taking a month off due to “a bit of a scare,” she said this morning, adding she had the “blessing of it not being cancer.”

“I had  a tumor in my abdomen. The doctor said, ‘You got to get it out by the end of the month, we don’t like how it looks’,” she explained at the top of today’s show. “I had a scary week when we didn’t know what the result were. But I’m okay…everything came back okay. Surgery’s not fun, but it is necessary to find out if you have something really terrible.”

While the tumor was determined to be not cancerous, she said, “It was a scary week indeed.” And, she thanked “Mr. Ailes and the entire Fox family for treating me like family the entire way.”

“So many people I know have stared down the barrel of that cancer gun, and looked at it when they have gotten bad news. ..and done remarkable things, courageously to fight it,” Hasselbeck told viewers. “So I knew if I got that kind of news I would be in their wings and, by their example, able to fight it. I didn’t get that message from my doctors. I got a clear and clean bill of health and I’m thankful. “

On October 15, the program announced Hasselbeck was taking time off after having surgery the previous day, and that she would be out for a “couple weeks.”

Fox News said back then that Hasselbeck wished the details to remain private. 

But now, we're in the ratings book, so we can talk about the details freely. 

H/T Deadline

Media Companies (besides CNN) Back Away from Fareed Zakaria

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While CNN has "complete faith" in serial plagiarist Fareed Zakaria, other reputable media organizations where Zakaria had his work published are now slapping disclaimers /corrections/warnings on old Zakaria articles.

The Daily Beast says that This week, The Washington Post, where Zakaria has penned an op-ed column, and the online magazine Slate, where he once wrote about martinis, publicly criticized his professionalism and ethics. Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, previously one of Zakaria’s staunch defenders—he called the plagiarism charges “reckless” when Our Bad Media criticized several Zakaria columns three months ago—said the paper will likely slap warnings on five of his columns published before August 2012.

Hiatt explained his change of heart this way: “In the first batch of columns that were posted, I did not think the allegations concerning the [Washington Post] columns had merit. The anonymous posters put up six new allegations yesterday, and we looked at those and felt, on preliminary look, that five of them were problematic. We’re looking more carefully now, and where my preliminary view holds up, we will post messages, I hope within the next day or two.”

Looks like it many media companies are erasing the small "p" and replacing it with a capital "P" as in Plagiarism.

Will CNN follow suit and finally admit that Zakaria is a plagiarist? 

Don't hold your breath. 

H/T Insidecablenews

Howie Kurtz Takes Shots at MSNBC's Ronan Farrow

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Fox News Presidential slammer and sometime media critic Howard Kurtz took some shots at easy target, MSNBC's Ronan Farrow.

Kurtz, who leans so far right me makes Rush Limbaugh look like a liberal, is not happy that the "mainstream media" hasn't been giving more attention to Obamacare consultant Jonathan Gruber's controversial comments on the "stupidity of the American voter." 

Kurtz pointed out that Gruber did make an appearance on left-leaning MSNBC, but that anchor Ronan Farrow -- who has “zero journalistic experience" -- flubbed the interview by not pressing him. 

"My 9-year-old daughter could've conducted a better interview with Jonathan Gruber," he said. 

Sadly, we're fairly positive that Kurtz's 9 year old could also do a much better job than him as well.

H/T HuffPo

Jon Stewart to do O'Reilly Factor

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Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly don't seem to like each other much, but they love using each other when it comes to pimping a pet project.

Stewart is making the rounds promoting his movie Rosewater and it includes a stop by O'Reilly's show.

Last month, O'Reilly was on the Daily Show to promote his book, Killing Patton. 

No matter what, when these two square off, it's always interesting television.

Shaking Down the WCBS News Crew

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Not exactly sure what is going on here, but it appears that some guy is trying to shake down WCBS Reporter Lou Young for some money to park the live truck.

On the other hand, it's good to see Lou helping out by raising the mast. Just don't let the union see this video.

Post by Teddy Wagner.

Is NBC News Boss on Thin Ice?

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Could NBC be sending Deborah Turness packing?

Page Six dishes in their almost daily NBC rumor that the Peacock is looking at Josh Tyrangiel, the chief content officer at Bloomberg Media to replace Turness as president of NBC News.

The Bloomberg Businessweek editor since 2009 was given responsibility for digital, TV and radio last August. “They love him. He is their golden boy,” an executive at a rival media company said.

Sources speculate that Turness is on the chopping block. She was imported from Britain in August 2013 when Comcast announced it was buying NBC from GE, but formerly top-rated shows “Today” and “Meet the Press” are mired in the ratings, and “NBC Nightly News” is barely beating “ABC’s World News Tonight.”

Another candidate is Jamie Horowitz, who was poached from ESPN last May to run “Today.”

“Horowitz is the insider that NBC folks think has the inside shot at replacing her. He’s been kissing up to the Comcast brass with some effect,” said a second source.

An NBC spokesman told me there is no truth to reports of Turness’ impending replacement. “Deborah is not going anywhere. She’s just getting started. She has the full support of NBCU brass all the way to the top.”

Stay tuned.... 

MSNBC's Phil Griffin is now Living Under a Bridge

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MSNBC's Phil Griffin is now Living Under a Bridge

Speaking of NBC people that should be fired..... 

Yesterday, we got an email from staff inside MSNBC with another Phil Griffin internal memo attached.

It seems that old Phil thinks has a new formula that will bring MSNBC to the top of the ratings. Of course, Griffin has had this "new formula" about 10 different times at the struggling cable net. 

You may remember that Griffin predicted that MSNBC was going to pass Fox News in the ratings in 2014.

How's that working out for you Phil? 

But now it appears that Griffin is building a bridge and everyone at MSNC will live under the bridge.

Yeah...that'll work.

His internal email is up after the jump, if you care:

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