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David Shuster Breaks Silence: Talks MSNBC, Future Plans

2010-12-28T14:55:16Z

After an over six-month "indefinite" suspension from MSNBC, David Shuster's contract with the network has expired.

A network spokesperson said Tuesday that Shuster, who was suspended indefinitely in April over reports that he filmed a CNN pilot, is "no longer with MSNBC."

Shuster, reached by phone in Washington, confirmed that he has officially left the network.

"I had a great eight-and-a-half years with MSNBC and I have many lifelong friends that I made there," he told the Huffington Post.

Shuster would not discuss the specifics of his suspension from the network, merely saying, "I never intended to humiliate or embarrass anyone at MSNBC, and I harbor no ill-will or bad feelings towards anybody over there."

In the six months since his suspension — during which MSNBC paid him through the end of his contract, which expired earlier this month — Shuster has kept busy, finishing a Masters in Public Policy at Georgetown, traveling and volunteering.

Shuster's next step involves investigative journalism, and while he won't go into details he promises it will have a big impact on DC politics.

"I'm thrilled and excited with the awesome responsbilities in journalism that I have lined up for 2011 and look forward to providing more detail in the new year," he said.

Keith Olbermann SUSPENDED From MSNBC Indefinitely Without Pay

2010-11-05T17:40:38Z

MSNBC has suspended star anchor Keith Olbermann following the news that he had donated to three Democratic candidates this election cycle.

"I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay," MSNBC president Phil Griffin said in a statement.

Politico reported Friday that Olbermann had donated $2,400 each to Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, and to Kentucky Senate contender Jack Conway. While NBC News policy does not prohibit employees from donating to political candidates, it requires them to obtain prior approval from NBC News executives before doing so.

In a statement earlier Friday, Olbermann defended his donation, saying, "I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level."

Griffin's statement underscores that it was Olbermann's failure to obtain approval, and not the actual political donations, that prompted the suspension.

The move is doubly significant in that it represents a major development in the relationship between Griffin and Olbermann, who once told the New Yorker, "Phil thinks he's my boss."

"Keith doesn't run the show," Griffin told New York Magazine recently. "I do a lot of things he doesn't like. I do a lot of things he does."

In recent months, Griffin has taken several bold steps to declare his authority over the network and its sometimes unruly talent: he sent a stern memo warning hosts to not publicly fight with each other, he suspended David Shuster indefinitely for filming a CNN pilot, suspended Donny Deutsch, banned Markos Moulitsas from the network, and reprimanded Ed Schultz for threatening to "torch" the network.

The New York Times' Brian Stelter and Bill Carter report that, according to one NBC executive, Friday's suspension is "not a step toward firing" Olbermann, though a source also told the New York Observer that there was "no time frame" for Olbermann's potential return. MSNBC's Thomas Roberts filled in for Olbermann on Friday's "Countdown." The network has not yet announced who will host the show when it returns on Monday.

Kathleen Parker: Eliot Spitzer Won't Shut Up!

2010-10-04T16:48:17Z

Kathleen Parker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist who will debut tonight on CNN, engendered some New York blog backlash last week when she complained in her column about her new city.

"So now that you've LIVED IN NEW YORK CITY now "FOR A FEW WEEKS" and you DON'T LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, maybe you should move to Westchester before you have a chance to figure out what you're talking about, you Non-New Yorkey Beltway Outsider™?" wrote The Awl's Choire Sicha.

"Kathleen Parker Already Hates New York City," the Gawker headline read. "This Is a Thoughtless Thing That Kathleen Parker, New Resident of New York City, Wrote Today," wrote New York Magazine's Daily Intel blog.

"They need to get over it," Parker told the Huffington Post last week of her blog critics. "Here's what I should've said: New Yorkers take themselves too seriously. Good grief."

And Parker has another message for those critics and anyone who isn't familiar with her in advance of tonight's debut of "Parker Spitzer," which she co-hosts with Eliot Spitzer at 8PM on CNN.

"Get used to it, buddy!" she said. "If these people haven't read my column before and they're just catching on, oh, they're going to have so much trouble with me. I don't have a tendency to say bland things."

Her new co-host agrees.

"I have said from the very beginning: Kathleen is going to suddenly jump into people's consciousness," Spitzer said. "They're going to say: she's smart, she's witty, her observations make you think and they are fun and they also have a real sensibility of what's going on out there."

When CNN announced the plans for a male-female duo hosting a panel show, observers immediately drew comparisons to MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"We're definitely not doing 'Evening Joe,'" Parker said. "We love 'Morning Joe,' but we think that free-wheeling, more relaxed format is more suitable to the morning. Plus they have three hours, so they can be a little bit more laid-back. We're going to ratchet up the pace a bit, but yes, we have that in common with that show and others. We'll have a conversation."

Both Spitzer and Parker said they have been having a lot of fun preparing for the show, even though the boss who recruited them, former CNN/US President Jon Klein, was fired just ten days before their show's premiere.

"We obviously love Jon Klein and miss him, but we don't have time to do anything but move forward," Parker said, adding that new CNN/US Executive Vice President Ken Jautz is "a very nice guy."

"It's kind of like we're the members of the team and we got a new manager," Spitzer added. "Jon's a great friend and we both like him enormously, but we're team players."

And while Klein championed Spitzer's CNN career from the start, a New York Magazine article by Gabriel Sherman reveals that many inside CNN are skeptical of being part of Spitzer's personal reinvention. Do Spitzer and Parker think that people are rooting for them to succeed or to fail?

"I think people are always rooting against people's success, no matter how great we are or how good a job we do critics are going to be critics," Parker said.

"It depends who you're talking about," Spitzer said. "Are you talking about the real people on the street? Real people have a belief in what people can do, and want people to succeed."

Spitzer said that being a media personality is "not as different as everybody thinks" from being a political figure.

But unlike when he was governor, he now has a co-anchor, and one who doesn't let him run the show 100% of the time.

"She tells me to shut up all the time," he said.

"He talks too much!" she shot back immediately.

NOT JUST ANOTHER 'CROSSFIRE': Spitzer & Parker Discuss New CNN Show

2010-06-23T18:08:52Z

CNN's new 8PM show doesn't have a title yet, but rest assured it won't be "Crossfire 2."

In an interview with the Huffington Post shortly after they were announced as CNN's new hosts, Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker said their show will take a different tone than the network's previous panel show.

"It will be much less artificial than Crossfire," Parker said. "We're going to be an organic talk show where we sit around the kitchen table -- not literally, but that's the idea -- and talk about what everybody talks about when they're in the kitchen."

"Big issues, little issues, coming at it from different perspective, same perspective, agree, disagree," Spitzer chimed in, "but in a way that people are going to be drawn into, to find it amusing and fun and informative."

The pair — he, the former Democratic governor of New York; she, a Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist for the Washington Post — said they only met in the last few weeks, but as the exchange below indicates they have already found a comedic rhythm with one another:

Parker: We just met a few weeks ago, completely around this. We were both called and invited to consider it. So I met Eliot in his office, we had coffee and ate fruit and talked.
Spitzer: The essential components of the show, what we were seeing if we could make work, was to be thoughtful, smart, funny, not boring, not predictable...
Parker: ...and we decided I could be all those things!
Spitzer: That's right, Kathleen carrying the water and you put my name there and people will watch one night. I'm expendable.

"Actually, I think that we complement each other very well, and bring completely different perspectives and life experiences, which is what this country is all about," Parker said. "So we are the conversation that America needs to have."

They both stressed that their show will not be a simply "left vs. right," partisan shout-fest.

"I think what we have in common is a pragmatic approach to problem solving and to talking about the issues," Parker said. "I don't really care if a Democrat or a Republican comes up with the right answer, I just want the one that works. And I think Eliot comes from that same place."

"Take BP," Spitzer said. "We all agree: BP is bad. That's the easy part. Then you say OK, so what do you do? How do you actually solve the problem? How do you plug the hole? How do you prevent it from happening next time? What were the structural issues at a regulatory level, corporate level, that really created this? And that's where the conversation gets more interesting and more important. The superficial stuff is easy."

"We get bogged down in whose fault things are, and we really need to re-focus towards what can we do to prevent this?" Parker said. "How do we live in the future?"

But how do they plan to do what their predecessor, Campbell Brown, could not: break-through against Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann at 8PM?

"It's a big challenge," Parker admits. "They're both amazing. They're giants in their field and they have a huge following, but we will be offering an alternative to them."

"There's still a lot of people who are not watching either one of them," Spitzer points out. "So somehow we're figuring there's still a little reservoir there, we'll put our fishing rods in and see what we can come out with. Because we're going to craft something different. The way I look at it: if you want to be validated in your underlying world view, you go to their shows and you feel good and they're great shows. If you want to see something different, be challenged, be pushed, then we're trying to create something that will be exciting for you...

"We will do something different," he continued. "If people are chattering about our show and saying, 'Yeah that was an interesting perspective, Kathleen really had a critique there that I wouldn't have thought of but now I agree with it,' that in our mind is a success. And we think there are a lot of people out there who will come to that point of view."

As for ideal guests, Parker says they'd have General Stanley McChrystal on the show tonight if they were on air and otherwise plan to draw from "people that we've interacted with in our personal lives and our work." She described the booking plan as "a sort of blog approach to programming in that it would be very eclectic just based on what we're interested in that day."

When it comes to Gen. McChrystal, incidentally, the pair is in complete agreement, and their conversation on the subject offers a glimpse into the kind of dialogue they'll bring to their new show, which will debut in the fall:

Parker: My immediate reaction is you don't ever disrespect the commander-in-chief. That's Basic Training 101. I feel very sad for McChrystal. He should've known better and I'm sorry that this is probably not going to go well for him.
Spitzer: I agree entirely with that and I would then take it to the next level which is the real tragedy right now is, I think, the tension we see between General McChrystal and the White House reflects a strategy right now that is not working. And that is the real crisis. Our troops are over there fighting valiantly and I'm not sure any of us is persuaded it's working.
Parker: On the other hand, a perspective that I haven't heard anybody talk about — and I come at this from a military background, all the men in my family have been in the military and fought in every war since the American Revolution, so I'm kind of from that warrior culture — and what I suspect is that McChrystal's comments are not unique to him. I'm worried that it reflects a wider-spread feeling towards our President and Vice President...and that's a problem, and that's something we ought to talk about.
Spitzer: A different dimension on this: I just found out Kathleen's from a warrior culture and now I'm beginning to worry.
Parker: Listen, sweetie, all you need to know is the Marine Corps is on my side.

Brian Williams From Gulf Region: 'It's Groundhog Day'

2010-06-04T16:52:01Z

"It's a wrenching, slow car crash of a Groundhog Day."

That's how "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams described his visit to the oil spill-ravaged gulf region this week.

"I can't believe I'm sitting here, looking at the Gulf of Mexico, and it's still going," he said by phone earlier this week. "And more than that: it's about to increase, if they get the cut right. They have to increase it to stop it. That's hard to believe. Here we are in suspended animation. It is Groundhog Day."

PHOTOS:

Williams, who visited the region immediately after the oil spill, said that that first visit "seems so long ago."

"It seems like such an innocent time, how little we knew about how big it would get," he said.

Williams added that he considers himself an "honorary Louisianan," and said that no other region in the US could withstand what this region has endured over the past five years.

"There's the usual spirit here," he said. "I don't know a region that could deal with this as well. They've had a kind of perverse practice round during Katrina, but as I keep saying: Katrina didn't take away their right to work, their ability to work. If you had a trade and if you worked on the water those shrimp were still there and as soon as the fishery business recovered, they got back on it. This isn't just a region of the country or an accent or a city. This really is a culture, and this is a way of life."

"All I know is it's awfully sad down here," he added.

Anderson Cooper From Gulf Region: 'Anger Is Rising' Over Oil Spill

2010-06-02T20:25:40Z

When President Obama spent the day with Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser last week, the President gave the parish president an order: if anything goes wrong, call the White House before you call Anderson Cooper.

That alone signifies the extent to which Cooper, who has made disaster coverage his trademark, has owned the coverage of the BP oil spill.

"I was surprised to hear that, but it's nice to know the White House is watching," Cooper told the Huffington Post by phone from the gulf region Wednesday. "Billy's been an incredibly important voice on this in terms of raising people's awareness. I think it has less to do with me and more to do with the power of Billy Nungesser and the power of his voice and the importance that he has given to all this."

Sean Gardner/Getty Images for CNN

Cooper, who canceled a planned vacation to remain in the region this week, said the feeling on the ground is one of anger, but not desperation.

"Anger is rising," he said. "People continue to be just incredibly frustrated and angry, all of which is very understandable. I think the magnitude of this is becoming more and more apparent. People here have figured it out much sooner than a lot of people elsewhere in the country and maybe around the world. But I think that the magnitude of really what lies ahead is becoming increasingly apparent to people....it's stunning to think that this thing could go on until August, as BP says it might."

And Cooper says that while there's a feeling that Obama's "heart is in the right place," the anger is directed equally at the government and at BP.

"Among the local officials that I talked to, there's the feeling that...a lot of them believe [Obama's] heart is in the right place," he said, "but they've been frustrated by the command control structure that's been in place, they've been frustrated by the lack of information that BP gives out, and they've certainly been frustrated by a lot of the federal response."

He said his role in the gulf is strictly to hold people accountable.

"My job is to hold BP accountable, and to hold public officials accountable, and to go out and see for myself what's happening, and what isn't happening, and hold that against the statements being made about what should be happening," he said.

Cooper memorably rescued a bloody young boy while covering the earthquake in Haiti (which some critics used as an example to argue that he'd gotten too close to the story), and while he says he doesn't regret doing so, he notes that the oil spill is different from the earthquake in terms of its immediate human toll.

"It's rare that you find yourself in a situation where a little boy is bleeding and can't get up, and is in a very dangerous situation and he's right in front of you and you can easily scoop down and help him," he said. "So that's a rare situation one is in and when presented with it, frankly I think anyone would've done what I did. I certainly have no regrets on that, nor, frankly, did I hear much flak. My job down here is not to go out and find birds that need rescuing; there are people here who are working very hard to do that, and are experienced with it and know what to do."

Sean Gardner/Getty Images for CNN

He added that the best thing people who want to help can do would be to support the gulf economy by visiting and spending money.

"I certainly think it's important to support the economies of all these places all along the Gulf," he said. "And also to realize that beaches are still open, people shouldn't cancel a trip to New Orleans because they heard there's oil on some beaches. New Orleans is open for business, the restaurants are amazing as always, there's fish in the restaurants. I ate fish last night, and I had raw oysters off an oysterman's boat last week. People should come and continue to support the industries down here and have a great time in all these Gulf communities."

Cooper, who turns 43 on Thursday, said he won't do anything special to mark the occasion.

"I pretty much worked on every birthday I've had as an adult so it'll be no different than any other day for me," he said. "I'm not a big fan of birthdays."

Michael Calderone Leaving Politico, Latest In Mini-Exodus

2010-03-29T18:31:05Z

Politico media blogger Michael Calderone is leaving the site for Yahoo.

According to sources, he is expected to leave Politico within a matter of weeks to join Yahoo News' original content project, overseen by blogging editor Andrew Golis. Chris Lehmann and "Cajun Boy" Brett Michael Dykes also recently joined the project.

Calderone, who joined Politico from the New York Observer, has the rare distinction of being named both one of Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons in the World" and one of Bill O'Reilly's "pinheads."

Calderone had no comment when reached by the Huffington Post.

The departure comes on the heels of several other big losses for the site: just last week, features editor Pia Catton left to join the Wall Street Journal, Victoria McGrane left to join Newswires, and Patrick O'Connor left to join Bloomberg. Other members of Politico's staff have also been shopping their resumes around to various news organizations in Washington.

It is a tense time at an already intense organization: the site recently came under fire from black journalists after CNN's "Reliable Sources" showed an editorial meeting full of white men; the New York Times Magazine is expected to publish an article about the site by Mark Leibovich some time next month.

NBC News Dominant Despite Network Woes

2010-02-01T13:30:01Z

The name NBC may be synonymous with turmoil right now, with the network's well-documented problems in primetime and its recent late-night drama involving Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. But at least one of the network's divisions — NBC News — has a remarkably different story to tell.

NBC News is coming off one of its most successful years ever and is poised to expand on that success in 2010. The network is home to the #1 program in the morning ("Today"), the evening ("Nightly News"), and on Sundays ("Meet the Press), and as ABC has initiated anchor changes across all three of those timeslots, NBC's programs haven't lost steam.

NBC News President Steve Capus recently shared this message with ad sales and network affiliates in a sort of "news upfront," where he keyed in on the network's ratings and its deep talent pool to pitch NBC as the network best suited for continued success in the future.

2009 Ratings
"Nightly News with Brian Williams"
In the November sweeps, for instance, "Nightly News with Brian Williams" averaged 9.167 million total viewers, an 11% advantage over "World News" (its best since 2005). In the A25-54 demo, "Nightly' saw its best advantage over "World News" since 2002, averaging 2.770 A25-54 viewers for a 17% advantage. "Nightly" also had its best share ever during the November sweeps, with 38.8% of the network news audience choosing Williams' broadcast, and was the only one of the three network newscasts to grow year-over-year.

Of course, Diane Sawyer replaced Charlie Gibson as "World News" anchor in December; but since then, "Nightly" has only increased its lead, growing to a regular audience of over 10 million viewers and beating "World News" by 16% in total viewers and 26% in the A25-54 demo over the first five weeks of Sawyer's tenure.

"Today"
In the morning, the "Today" show brand is as strong as ever, with ratings to match. The show is #1 across all key demos and was the only morning network news show to grow year-over-year (ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS' "Early Show" were down or flat in all demographics). "Today" — which in 2008-2009 topped "GMA" by 25% in total viewers, 33% in Women 18-49, and 26% in Women 25-54 — has increased its lead over "GMA" to over 1.3 million viewers from 7-9 AM.

Even after 9AM, the "Today" show continues to grow; from 9-10AM, the show is up 8% in total viewers and 7% in W25-54, now beating ABC's "Live! with Regis and Kelly" for the first time (by 5%). And the 10AM hour featuring Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb has benefitted from what Capus calls "the 'SNL' effect," growing 9% in total viewers and 13% among W25-54 ("SNL" regularly parodies the broadcast).

"Meet the Press with David Gregory"
Sunday mornings are perhaps where NBC was most vulnerable, with Tim Russert's sudden death in June 2008 casting the dominance of the "Meet the Press" franchise in serious doubt. But Capus describes David Gregory's performance in 2009 as a stabilizing one; with few but notable exceptions, "Meet the Press" regularly topped ABC's "This Week" (along with CBS' "Face the Nation" and "FOX News Sunday") for the Sunday morning crown. Gregory now has a year under his belt and a question mark at his chief competitor, where ABC has yet to announce a replacement for George Stephanopoulos on "This Week." In 2010, Capus has told him, "Buddy, you gotta run."

2010
In an interview in his Rockefeller Center office, Capus said that while he is pleased with his show's ratings, he worries constantly about maintaining the top spot.

"Roger Ailes' sense of healthy paranoia manifests itself here," he said. "Staying number one enables everything that we do."

To stay number one, Capus — who says all of his network's major talent are locked up in long-term deals — will rely on his network's star power, which he calls "a Mount Rushmore of television news" as well as its deep bench of younger talent. He says his boss, embattled NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker, is very supportive in this regard.

"He is not a casual observer of what goes on here," Capus said of Zucker, who got his start in NBC's News division. "We talk all the time, and he is the first to say, 'Let's rip up this talent contract and renew it.' He is absolutely our biggest advocate."

Capus also pointed to the growth of his cable arm, MSNBC — which offers a dual revenue stream of subscriber fees and advertiser revenue — as a key component of his 2010 strategy.

But he says he is not worried about the perception that MSNBC's liberal slant could taint his objective NBC News brand, citing figures that show only 17% of the "Nightly News" audience self-identifies as either "somewhat liberal" or "very liberal," compared to 30% "middle of the road" and 37% "somewhat conservative" or "very conservative." Like the other evening newscast audiences, most "Nightly" viewers are "middle of the road," skewing more conservative than liberal.

Looking beyond 2010, Capus — who also hopes to help NBC's affiliate stations grow their local newscasts — said "it will be very interesting to see what happens when Oprah goes off the air." Oprah's lead-in puts ABC affiliate stations in a strong position nationally as, in many markets, her show is immediately followed by the local news.

But for now, Capus is most pleased that his programs' strong ratings have put him in a position — unlike his competitors — where he doesn't have to consider large-scale layoffs. CBS News, for instance, plans layoffs this week.

"I don't see the need for massive cuts," he said. "That wouldn't be the case if the ratings weren't where they are."

Bill Hemmer From Haiti: 'This Is The Most Inaccessible Story I Have Ever Covered'

2010-01-15T00:17:08Z

Fox News' Bill Hemmer arrived in Haiti Wednesday, and spoke to the Huffington Post from Port-Au-Prince Thursday afternoon.

"I've had the good fortune of seeing a good part of this world, and a lot of the 3rd world, and this is the most inaccessible story I have ever covered," Hemmer said. "It's inaccessible in so many ways: our ability to communicate, our ability to move around, our ability to get information."

Hemmer said that he was expecting Haiti to be poor, but was still not prepared for the level of poverty that greeted him when he arrived.

"I was expecting a substantial amount of poverty and that's exactly what greets you here," he said. "It's the poorest place I've ever traveled. I've traveled in Iraq and Afghanistan and I've worked in this business a long time but Haiti beats them all in terms of an impoverished nation. Haiti is so poor, they don't have cars. But I don't see many bicycles either. I see hundreds of people streaming up and down the roads at all hours of the day. I think that's the nature of the environment here."

He added that he was surprised by the fact that there are 45,000 Americans living in Haiti that are now trying to get out.

Hemmer also said that there is some frustration that water and other aid have not yet reached the island.

"I would expect water to be flowing off these cargo planes, but that's just not the case yet," he said. "The Haitians have expressed to us that they've been very patient so far. I don't know how long that patience lasts. I think they've shown a good measure now. This story isn't even 48 hours old. These people are used to getting beaten up, and they have shown strength through that. And so far I've seen a measure of their strength also, and I hope they'd just exercise a little more patience to get these supplies. We're still talking about getting water and food to people who need it. My biggest fear is that we're doing that a week from now."

Hemmer praised the "damn good crew" working with him and said that, from a production standpoint, modern technology has made covering stories like Haiti — where there is no electricity — possible.

"Technology today allows us to go places like Haiti when there is no electiricty and still broadcast," he said. That's the miracle of technology. We found out during the war with Hezbollah during the summer of 2006 that we could go places in that war and still report live because we had the technology to do it. Technology allows us to go places that we would not go before. It is challenging in the following way: there is no electricity. A lot of our technology is not helped at all by the infrastructure here."

He compared the coverage of the earthquake with the coverage of Hurricane Katrina, but said that ultimately the two are very different situations.

"Katrina was challenging because there was standing water all over an American city which made it tough to get around and tough to bring in supplies," he said. "Here it's the nature of the country. The backbone of Haiti is a mess. Haiti was a tough place to be during good times; you can imagine when the capital city has collapsed on itself."

Anderson Cooper From Haiti: 'The Camera Lens Is Too Small To Capture What Is Really Happening Here'

2010-01-14T23:13:05Z

Anderson Cooper shot to TV anchor super-stardom during Hurricane Katrina, so perhaps it was no surprise that he was the first American TV journalist on the ground in Haiti Wednesday morning. The disaster coverage veteran spoke to the Huffington Post Thursday by phone from Port-Au-Prince, and described the devastation surrounding him.

"It's certainly among the worst that a lot of us have seen," Cooper said, describing bodies piling up in the city. "Today I ran into a family who was carrying a casket through the streets and taking their daughter to the cemetery so I ended up just going with them to the cemetery. It's hard to describe what's going on in the cemetery in Port-Au-Prince. There are literally just bodies piled up. For people who can't afford a casket they're just dumped into crypts that have been previously occupied. They're dumping multiple bodies into one crypt and then just sealing it up. It's truly a pretty horrific situation."

Cooper said that while he feels "privileged" to be in Haiti — "There's something extraordinary happening here, something truly horrific, and I think it's important that people know what's happening here" — there are frustrating limits to what a TV camera can capture.

"The thing that's difficult about this is that the camera lens is too small to capture what is really happening here," he said. "It's too small to capture the scale, the size, the horror of what's happening here. It's a very tiny little camera lens, and no matter where you point it something is happening."

Cooper — who is traveling around the city unescorted by security — said he and his team figured out a way to get a vehicle upon arriving Wednesday morning, and have spent the last two days driving around Port-Au-Prince shooting stories. He described the Haitian people as strong but growing desperate.

"I think early on in a situation like this people are shocked and are just trying to figure out what comes next, and figure out how they can try to rescue their neighbors or rescue their loved ones," he said. "People are still digging for rubble on virtually every street in downtown Port-Au-Prince trying to find their friends or their neighbors or their family members. There is an increasing level of anger you hear from people in the streets, asking where's the relief, and what can we do for them and what are you doing. But that's completely natural and understandable.

"I'm continually impressed by how strong the people in this city are. They've lived through dictators and military dictators and thugs who are rulers and inefficient governments and they've lived through corruption and all sorts of things which are hard to imagine and now to have this to deal with this -- and find a way to continue moving forward. This place continues to evolve and move forward. Last night I was thinking, well how are they going to deal with all these bodies? What are they going to do with all these bodies? Today you see more and more people just getting wheelbarrows and putting the bodies in the wheelbarrows and carting them off to cemeteries. They're reusing crypts. Haitians find a way to survive. This is a huge challenge and a lot of them may not survive in this case, but this country moves forward and they find solutions and they find a way to survive and to thrive and to live. I keep thinking about that as I see all this devastation around me."

Cooper said that the Haitians don't expect help from their own government, having learned from "decades of government corruption and incompetence and just outright stealing by a variety of leaders in this country" not to rely on the central government.

"There's certainly a lot of anger about that, but people do look to the US and the UN and there's certainly going to be doing that increasingly in the coming days," he said.

Personally, he said it was "really difficult" to see a "remarkable city like Port-Au-Prince" — one he's visited both personally and professionally over the years — "on its knees like this."

He had not heard about Pat Robertson's remark that Haiti was "cursed" by a "pact to the devil" and said no one he had spoken to on the ground had heard of it either.

"To be honest, right now that sounds like it's coming from another planet," he said. "I think people here would probably appreciate if Mr. Robertson maybe came down and lent a hand."

Brian Williams In Haiti: 'This Is Just A Colossal Calamity'

2010-01-14T18:21:30Z

Brian Williams was the first network news anchor on the ground in Haiti, reporting live from Port-Au-Prince in an hourlong "Nightly News" Wednesday. The Huffington Post spoke to Williams over a shaky satellite phone connection from the airport in Haiti Thursday morning.

"We arrived here at the tarmac and put our equipment boxes down and, as is so often the case, it ended up being home," Williams said. He said that he bunked with Al Roker and slept in a tent on the cement tarmac Wednesday night, while some of their NBC colleagues -- including Ann Curry -- slept in baggage containers parked at the airport. The US Army was setting up shop nearby Thursday morning.

"This is just a colossal calamity," he said. "I've just been told that on the other side of the wall from where I am dead bodies are arriving because people just don't know what to do with them."

Williams compared the situation on the ground to what he witnessed covering the tsunami in 2004.

"It's very reminiscent of what we saw in Banda Aceh," Williams said. "There were 35,000 dead in our time there. There's no way to express it, no way to explain it, it just becomes other-worldly."

From his reporter's perspective, Williams compared the Haiti story to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We're all reporters," he said. "It's like Iraq and it's like Afghanistan. Why have our jobs if we're not covering these stories? These stories become the benchmarks of our time. I just realized as I'm standing here that my foot is on an equipment case and the baggage case said KAM Air. That means this gear was last in Afghanistan with us. These become the signposts. These are the events of our time. If the job really was sitting in New York and looking into a camera, it wouldn't be worth it."

He added that sleeping on the tarmac Wednesday night reminded him of his time in Baghdad.

"Parts of this remind me of hooking up with the 3rd ID arriving in Baghdad airport the night after it fell and living on the ground there," he said. "It's familiar in that it is ominous and sad and beyond the scope of anything Americans have suffered."

PHOTOS (courtesy NBC News):

George W. Bush Institute To Co-Produce Public Television Show "Ideas In Action"

2009-12-22T18:35:38Z

The George W. Bush Institute -- the "action- oriented think tank" that is part of Bush's Presidential Center -- will co-produce a public television show hosted by its executive director, Ambassador James Glassman, in a rare convergence of public broadcasting and a partisan research organization.

"Ideas in Action" will premiere in February and will be co-produced by Andrew Walworth, who produces PBS's "Think Tank." Glassman, the former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy under President Bush and one-time moderator of CNN's "Capital Gang Sunday," will lead a discussion on public policy issues in front of a live audience at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He will remain executive director of the Institute.

The show will be distributed by Executive Program Services (EPS) to public television stations nationwide, including many PBS affiliates. Beginning in January, EPS will also begin distributing repeats of "Think Tank," currently distributed by PBS.

PBS confirmed that host Ben Wattenberg is leaving "Think Tank" and Walworth said an announcement will be made in the new year regarding the future of that program.

Glassman told the Huffington Post that they've filmed two episodes of the new show, "Ideas in Action," thus far.

The first episode, a discussion on pay for performance in education, includes one panelist from the George W. Bush Institute and panelists from the Economic Policy Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute.

"The idea is to discuss a difficult issue with a balanced panel," Glassman said.

The Bush Institute has a special focus on education policy -- along with economic growth, global health, human freedom and a women's initative -- but Glassman said the shows will tackle other topics as well. The second episode, for instance, highlights the use of online tools by dissident groups, such as those active in Iran.

It is questionable to say the least for a public television station to air a show produced and moderated by the George W. Bush Institute; one could easily imagine a conservative uproar if a similar show were produced by, say, the Clinton Foundation.

But Walworth cautioned not to jump to conclusions about the show based on the Institute's involvement.

"The Hoover Institution had a show on," Walworth said, citing the conservative think tank's "Uncommon Knowledge," which aired from 1997 to 2005.

"The proof will be in the pudding," he said. "When you see the shows, they're balanced, they're fair and Jim's got a long track record on TV. I've been in this business for 25 years, I've had many talk shows on PBS. I think the proof will be in the pudding."

A Tale Of Two MSNBCs

2009-12-03T11:26:20Z

Increasingly, it's seeming as if there are two cable news networks inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza: a thriving, opinion-oriented evening channel that's solidly in the #2 spot and a struggling straight-news dayside network that regularly places fifth in the demographic.

In November 2009, MSNBC's evening lineup topped CNN's in the Adults 25-54 demographic, the audience segment that advertisers buy, coming in a solid second place behind the dominant Fox News.

At 6PM, MSNBC's "The Ed Show" averaged 155,000 A25-54 viewers, an 8% advantage over CNN's "The Situation Room," which averaged 143,000 A25-54 viewers.

At 7PM, MSNBC's repeat of "Hardball with Chris Matthews" averaged 184,000 A25-54 viewers, an 11% advantage over CNN, which averaged 166,000 A25-54 viewers in the timeslot ("Lou Dobbs Tonight" aired through November 12, after which "CNN Tonight" filled the timeslot).

At 8PM, MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" averaged 298,000 A25-54 viewers, a 66% advantage over CNN's "Campbell Brown," which averaged 179,000 A25-54 viewers.

At 9PM, MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show" averaged 251,000 A25-54 viewers, a 9% advantage over CNN's "Larry King Live," which averaged 231,000 A25-54 viewers.

At 10PM, MSNBC's repeat episode of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" averaged 224,000 A25-54 viewers, a 7% advantage over CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," which averaged 209,000 A25-54 viewers.

During the day, however — when MSNBC is airing its straight news programming — it's an entirely different story.

The network's two new dayside programs, "Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan" and "Dr. Nancy" have struggled in the ratings.

"Morning Meeting" averaged 75,000 A25-54 viewers in the 9AM hour, and just 65,000 A25-54 viewers in the 10AM hour, coming in fifth place behind Fox News, CNN, HLN, and CNBC (in that order). "Dr. Nancy" averaged just 55,000 A25-54 viewers at 12PM, again fifth place behind Fox News, CNN, HLN, and CNBC (in that order).

At 11 AM, "MSNBC Live" averaged 55,000 demo viewers; for comparison, Fox News' "Happening Now," which airs from 11AM-1PM, averaged 262,000 demo viewers, and CNN averaged 129,000 demo viewers at 11AM.

It's not much better in the afternoon, when MSNBC averaged 63,000 A25-54 viewers for "Andrea Mitchell Reports" at 1PM and 64,000 A25-54 viewers at 2PM. Compare that to Fox News' 255,000 A25-54 viewers for "The Live Desk," which airs from 1-3PM, and CNN's 127,000 A25-54 viewers at 1PM and 122,000 A25-54 viewers at 2PM.

At 3PM, MSNBC averaged 79,000 A25-54 viewers compared to 257,000 for Fox News' "Studio B with Shepard Smith" 130,000 for CNN's hour anchored by Rick Sanchez.

It's not until 4PM that MSNBC comes out of fifth place in the A25-54 demo, tying HLN for 3rd with 97,000 A25-54 viewers (compared to Fox News' 301,000 A25-54 viewers for "Your World with Neil Cavuto" and CNN's 140,000 A25-54 viewers).

At 5PM — a sort of transition hour between newsy dayside and opinion-oriented evening — MSNBC's "Hardball" averages 133,000 A25-54 viewers, while Fox News' "Glenn Beck" averages 678,000 A25-54 viewers and CNN's "Situation Room" averages 154,000 A25-55 viewers.

Of course, it must be noted, both MSNBC and CNN were down significantly in both total day and primetime compared to election-heavy November 2008. MSNBC was down 60% in the demographic in primetime and 56% in the demographic in total day ratings, and November's 127,000 A25-54 total day rating was its lowest of 2009. CNN, too, had its lowest A25-54 total day delivery of 2009 in November, averaging just 136,000 A25-54 viewers, down 63% from November 2008. CNN was down 71% in the demo in primetime, averaging 191,000 A25-54 viewers.

Lou Dobbs Tells O'Reilly: I'm Staying "In Public Arena," CNN Didn't Want Me In Obama Era (VIDEO)

2009-11-16T21:54:54Z

***SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO***

Lou Dobbs guaranteed Bill O'Reilly Monday that he is going to "remain in the public arena," and suggested that the only factor that made his brand of "advocacy journalism" unacceptable at CNN was the arrival of the Obama administration into power.

In an appearance on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" set to air Monday night, O'Reilly welcomed Dobbs — who he described as "recently emancipated" — for his first cable news appearance since resigning from CNN last week.

"Now, there's been speculation you might run for the Senate in New Jersey. Is that on your mind?" O'Reilly asked.

"A lot of things are on my mind," Dobbs responded. "I'm not going to be coy about this....I'm thinking — my wife and I are thinking about a lot of opportunities. I'm very blessed to have a lot of opportunities. I can guarantee you 100 percent I'm going to remain in the public arena. These issues that matter so much to me, many of the same that matter to you, are not changing. What is immutable here is, I'm going to remain in the public arena."

A spokesman for NJ Senator Robert Menendez said "the senator's focus is on jobs, not Dobbs."

"Senator Menendez has his nose to the grindstone to help create an economic recovery for New Jersey families and will not be distracted by an election three years away," Afshin Mohamadi told the New York Times. "I'm sure that he would relish eventually having an opponent from so far out of the mainstream and who has never done a thing for the hard-working people of New Jersey, but the senator's focus is on jobs, not Dobbs. The senator has developed a record of delivering job-creating programs and tax relief, and as he builds upon it, 2012 will in large part take care of itself."

Dobbs agreed with O'Reilly's characterization that he was "demonized by the left" over his stance on illegal immigration, but said he did not believe CNN management "bought into" that position.

Instead, Dobbs hinted, it was the arrival of the Obama administration into power that changed the climate and made his brand of advocacy journalism no longer acceptable on the network.

"On CNN, you did quite well in the ratings when the immigration thing was in the forefront. And CNN actually moved you up from a -- what they call the early fringe to 7 o'clock, because your ratings were strong," O'Reilly said. "Then your ratings leveled, as well as all the ratings for
CNN, and began to go down. Just correct me if I'm wrong."

"I discern more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration whom I was criticizing, and now, when it is the Obama administration and an entirely different tone was taken," Dobbs responded.

"As soon as the new president came in, and you went after him, not only on illegal immigration, but economic issues...they don't like you anymore," O'Reilly said later.

"Well, I don't know whether that was the distinction that triggered any sort of response or difference in perspective on the part of CNN's management," Dobbs responded, "but it is the only difference between the way I was conducting myself under this administration and the previous administration."

The Huffington Post was on site for the interview.

Before he went on air, Dobbs seemed very much at ease in the green room, drinking Diet Coke, applying ChapStick, and laughing hysterically as O'Reilly pre-taped an interview with Cheech and Chong (set to air later this week on "The O'Reilly Factor"). Dobbs even laughed when Cheech and Chong came into the green room after their interview to wish him luck, and Chong joked that he looked forward to seeing him in his new show on Fox News.

After the interview, Dobbs was asked in the green room if it was weird to be on the other side of the interview.

"It's very weird," he said.

The interview airs tonight on "The O'Reilly Factor" at 8PM.

WATCH:

Brian Williams From Afghanistan: How Kabul Changed Overnight, What The Troops Think, & Why He Had To Go

2009-10-30T15:44:38Z

"NBC Nightly News" anchor and managing editor Brian Williams conducted an e-mail Q&A with the Huffington Post from Afghanistan, where he has been reporting from all week. Williams wrote his responses to the Huffington Post's questions Friday in Kabul.

Huffington Post: How are things different now vs. your last visit in June 2008?
Brian Williams: Things are different depending where you go in Afghanistan. So far on this trip, we've visited a U.S. Army Special Forces mountain outpost (better), Bagram Airfield (Same), and Kabul (worse). They are all narrow slices of a huge military effort inside a huge country. There are 35,000 villages in this nation, roughly the size of Texas -- and no two villages are alike.

HP: Does this feel like any of your Iraq trips? As in, does Afghanistan today feel like Iraq from 2004? 2006?
BW: Again, it depends on where you are and what you're doing. While the U.S. strategy is much more about "hearts and minds" these days in terms of big-picture theory, generally the Afghanistan we encountered on this trip seems tighter and more militant and militarized.

Yesterday the ride from Bagram to Kabul felt very Baghdad-like. We made the trip in armored vehicles with heavy security. The mechanics of the motorcade felt very similar to how the same type of journey would be undertaken in the urban areas of Iraq: we spaced the vehicles out, as to avoid getting bunched up and trapped in traffic (and vulnerable to attack or ambush). Our drivers and guards (and passengers who know what to look for by dint of experience) have all become hyper-aware of the same things you look for in Iraq: idle men by the side of the road who seem unusually interested in us, any changes in road pavement (that might indicate a newly-buried IED) and any objects like plastic jugs, dead animals, lumber -- anything that could be stuffed with explosives. Potholes are to be avoided, and when possible, drivers should follow in the tracks of the vehicle immediately in front of them. Similarly, here in Kabul, the attack on the U.N. compound was a wake-up call for security -- and we are taking steps for our own safety that we frankly would not have done 6 months ago.

HP: Did Richard Engel almost being on one of those helicopters that crashed drive home the dangers of covering war?
BW: Richard's experience (getting bumped from a helicopter flight that later crashed) was no different from the airport interviews we've seen in the States...people holding boarding passes from doomed flights, which for whatever reason they never boarded. Richard is brave but not reckless, fearless but never dangerous. There is a price to pay for covering our nation's dual wars. In Afghanistan especially, helicopters are de facto busses with rotors. They are the primary means of getting around. A flight on a Chinook or a Blackhawk is fairly routine. Even as a part-time visitor to war zones, I've gotten so that I sit in the same seat every time (right rear of the Blackhawk, right side midships on the Chinook) and I now handle the five-point harness latch and the headset microphone and crew intercom like a grizzled veteran. Richard has been on too many missions to count. He has had many close calls, and this was another one. No one loves his job more...no one loves life more. When I leave here to fly back to New York and resume my life and work, Richard stays behind here to do his job. He will spend as many hours flying in helicopters during the month of November as I will driving in my car back home.

HP: There's all this talk of making the cities more secure. Is there any sense that the people in the cities want the foreign troops there?
BW: Whereas some of the locals in Iraq (depending on the circumstances) will often be comforted to see U.S. dismounted infantry patrols, (in ways they were not until fairly recently) and will ask them for help and to stay with them, the situation here in Afghanistan is different. The two societies are vastly different. It is not helped by the fact that U.S. forces often take a very aggressive posture -- arriving in small towns in massive armored vehicles with machine gun turrets, each infantryman with his hands on his M-4 rifle in front of him...and often on the trigger with the safety off. Of course there's a reason for this: they get shot at and killed, and they are soldiers in an unforgiving place -- surrounded by an enemy they often can't see. So its a Catch-22 of sorts. It made big news here when Gen. McCrystal started the practice of removing his body armor while on walkabouts, or when meeting with local leaders. By his reasoning, the locals aren't wearing such armor. It should also be pointed out that he gets around in a massive, armored SUV with security vehicles in tow, dismounted infantry flanking him and able to unleash fearsome amounts of suppressing fire, and air support overhead whenever he is out and about. Even when U.S. troops are handing out something "good" -- food supplies, medicine, school supplies for the Afghan children, its not as if local villagers tending to their goats on a Thursday afternoon sit around thinking, "If only a dismounted platoon of heavily-armed American soldiers would come visit us today, preferably accompanied by an armored mechanized column...". The rumored/leaked Obama plan to concentrate on the population centers would essentially cede huge tracts of the countryside to the Taliban -- and it would reverse some hard-fought gains made by some military units who have been in almost daily firefights, often for control of mere acres at a time. Its not like it would be the first change in military policy for either war.

HP: How have the increased attacks in Kabul affected the atmosphere in the streets? Do people go out less, visit restaurants less? The UN is now on lockdown -- is the whole city?
BW: Kabul has changed -- a little bit, but literally overnight. The U.N. attack was a huge wakeup call. As I indicated, Kabul has hardened and tightened -- its much more about security now that the Taliban has "entered the battle space" with such a brazen attack. Richard Engel talks wistfully about the street life and nightlife here -- and he's talking about 6 months ago! There's a plan afoot for several of us to visit a local bar tonight -- but if we decide to go, we have to bring plain clothed security and have armored vehicles standing by outside and at the ready. Our security guys (the best I've ever worked with) already nixed our request to visit an open-air market that we visited without incident 16 months ago. It has changed here. Friday is a holiday, so street traffic is light (we just came back from a tightly-choreographed and heavily-guarded 2-hour outing to cover a story for tonight's Nightly News broadcast) but it doesn't feel locked down in any way.

HP: Have you gotten a sense of the troops' attitudes towards the war, Obama, McChrystal, etc.?
BW: Its hard to speak to the attitudes of uniformed personnel about their commanding generals or their Commander in Chief. This volunteer force, in keeping with military doctrine and chain of command training, is extraordinarily mission-oriented. They don't spend much of their time ruminating about McCrystal's plan or Obama's deliberations. They do not, however, like limbo...and I did hear a few complaints that the review process was taking too long. In the meantime, they do their jobs. There is also the usual disparities among personnel in uniform: two days ago, the Lance Corporal who drove us in a shuttle bus from our Chinook to the barracks at the air base never greeted us, made eye contact or turned down the hip hop music blaring from his stereo. He was just doing his job...the absolute bare minimum. We don't know what else is going on in his life. From there, we saw the other extreme, in a meeting with the 2-star General in charge of the 82nd Airborne and the entire military district surrounding the Kabul region. In that meeting was a Colonel I had previously met at Al Faw Palace in Iraq at the height of that war, another Colonel widely rumored to be on a fast track to Brigadier General -- and some of the sharpest, most squared-away officers the Army has to offer, male and female.

You've really got to WANT to cover this story. Its remote and its dangerous. Its difficult and expensive to get here, to broadcast television from here...even to drive across town. It is so much easier to stay in my office and newsroom at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, and go home at the end of the day. Instead, I'm writing this in a dimly-lit room inside a barricaded, heavily-protected compound in Kabul, wearing boots covered in ash from the fire that consumed the U.N. Here on my desk is the military MRE (meal ready-to-eat) that I will happily consume for dinner. This is something I volunteer for -- and demand to do -- because its essential to understanding of this story. To be in my job for the past 5 years and NOT have a ground-level familiarity with both of our nation's ongoing wars would be reckless, I think. Getting to know the military -- sleeping where they sleep, eating what they eat, going on patrol with them, learning about their lives here and at home -- has been one of the great blessings of my life...and anybody who knows me knows I feel that way. Its one thing to post an opinion on the web about what the U.S. is doing here, from the comfort and safety of home...and its quite another to be here and experience it...and come back and do it again and again. For all the pejoratives attached to the MSM label, it also means we have the money and means to get over here and report what we see and experience. Our viewers can make their own judgments. That's the way its supposed to work.

Below, view photos from Williams' trip in Afghanistan, courtesy NBC News:

Watch Williams' vlogs from Afghanistan below:

"We're in the middle of an earthquake"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

UN guesthouse a "war zone"

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Behind-the-scenes at Bagram Airfield

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

View more photos/blogs/vlogs from Williams' Afghanistan trip