CBS News

On Tuesday April, 22, Steve Krakauer of TV Newser was the first to report that CNN's suspender-wearing newsman Larry King had re-upped with the cable news network through June 2011.

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The North Carolina Democratic Party has just announced that the proposed April 27 presidential debate in North Carolina has been officially cancelled. The star-crossed debate would have been hosted by CBS News--and would have been Katie Couric's first opportunity to prove herself as a debate moderator on a national stage.

From the web site for the North Carolina Democratic Party:  read more »

On Friday, before he got sidetracked, Senator Barack Obama suggested that he might bow out of a proposed April 27 debate in North Carolina to be hosted by CBS News and moderated by Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer, reports the Charlotte Observer.

"In a telephone interview with the Observer to discuss his economic plan, Obama doubted whether a proposed April 27 debate at Raleigh's RBC Center would fit with his schedule," reports the Charlotte Observer.  read more »

Filling out the rumors floated in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, today the New York Times reports that a “wide-ranging discussion” about Katie Couric’s future took place among CBS executives back in February:

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The Wall Street Journal reports:

After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011—possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year.  read more »

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Amid reports of a possible news-sharing partnership between CBS News and CNN and stories about layoffs at CBS stations around the country, today Matea Gold and Meg James of the L.A. Times write about the state of the local news gathering business.

They begin by noting the layoffs last week of more than 160 employees at CBS-owned stations in 13 cities, including a number of top anchors and seasoned correspondents.  read more »

So now we know what Matt Drudge was talking about: Tim Arango at the Times is reporting that CBS "has been in discussions with Time Warner about a deal to outsource some of its newsgathering operations to CNN," a report sourced to "two executives briefed on the matter."

This is something CNN has talked about with other networks in the past, Mr. Arango points out in the article, but the talks with CBS have been "revived and lately intensified."  read more »

Last week, on Thursday March, 13, Ed O'Keefe of ABC News reported that Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton might debate at least twice more before the all-important Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

Both senators, ABC reported, had agreed to an ABC News debate in Philadelphia; and Mr. Obama had agreed to a CBS News debate in North Carolina at a time and place to be determined.

As NYTV had earlier reported, Katie Couric has yet to host a debate in this podium-rich primary season. The North Carolina gig would be her first chance at the big stage.

But will it happen?  read more »

On Feb. 5, during MSNBC’s Super Tuesday political coverage, anchor Keith Olbermann joked that during this long primary season, it sometimes seemed like everyone in the business had already anchored a debate. “I think most people at home have now moderated one as well,” said Mr. Olbermann.

If Katie Couric was watching at home, chances are she wasn’t laughing. Eight months and more than 20 debates into podium season, Ms. Couric has yet to get anywhere near the big stage.  read more »

According to the Associated Press, two journalists with CBS News are missing in the Iraqi city of Basra.

CBS has put out the following statement:

Two journalists working for CBS News in Basra are missing. All efforts are underway to find them and until we learn more details, CBS News requests that others do not speculate on the identities of those involved. CBS News has been in touch with the families and asks that their privacy be respected.

As we reported last week, Jim Stewart, the retired former Washington- based correspondent for CBS News, recently filed a motion in federal court, in which he continued to defy a federal judge's orders that he name his confidential government sources from a series of stories he produced in 2003 about the FBI's investigation into the scientist Steven J. Hatfill. At the time, Mr. Hatfill was suspected of being involved in the domestic anthrax attacks of 2001, and he is now suing members of the federal government, alleging that they violated the federal Privacy Act by talking about him to reporters.

On Friday, Mr. Hatfill's lawyer, Thomas Connolly, officially responded.  read more »

NASHUA, N.H.—The rushed primary schedule gives reporters only five days in New Hampshire, with virtually no sleep since they finished up in Iowa late last night. This morning in New Hampshire, they were feeling it.  read more »

TV Newser confirms that CBS News' PublicEye blog, once described as the "de facto ombudsman of CBS News," has been shuttered.

The former editor of the site, Matthew Felling, had been laid off last month as part of a round of job cuts at CBS Interactive -- though CBS had at the time insisted that the site would continue.

More bad news for Katie Couric and CBS: Evening News lost 1.1 million viewers over the last 12 months, according to ratings numbers for the third week of December reported by the New York Post.

By contrast, Brian Williams of NBC lost just 164,000 viewers, and ABC's Charlie Gibson gained 38,000 over the same period.

Somewhere, Dan Rather is smiling.

According to a source who's been talking to Usmagazine.com, Hannah Storm is set to leave her gig as an anchor on CBS' The Early Show after five years.  But she she'll stay at the network, and focus on longer-form reporting. 

The source says that Early Show producer Shelley Ross fought to have Ms. Storm stay, but network brass were insistent on making the move.

According to The Huffington Post, Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Bill Richardson have all announced that they'll skip a December 10th debate, to be hosted by CBS News in Los Angeles, unless the network can come to an agreement with its striking employees.

Note that all four candidates' statements refer to those on strike as "workers" (Hillary gets the word in three times in two sentences), which sounds better than saying you're supporting news media professionals.

Editor's Note: This post has been corrected from an earlier version. 

Sounds like Shelley Ross has really taken to heart her mandate to shake up CBS's The Early Show since being named the struggling show's executive producer in September.  So much so that, according to Page Six, eight staffers have left since she took over.  Another Page Six source says the remaining staff has an over-under pool on how long Ms. Ross herself will last.  read more »

Wanna see a clip of Katie Couric making fun of Dan Rather for trying to decide whether to wear his coat open or closed? Ok, so did we.  read more »

'Democracy cannot survive, much less thrive, with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news.'  read more »

From The Times' Jacques Steinberg:

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005.  read more »

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On Monday morning, Karl Rove stood next to President George W. Bush on the South Lawn of the White House and announced that he would be resigning from the administration at the end of the month. In front of the assembled D.C. press corp, he read a statement, and the President spoke. There was no formal opportunity for questions.

Towards the end of the appearance, as the President and his favorite pol were about to head in the direction of an awaiting helicopter, Bill Plante, CBS White House correspondent, broke the embargo.

“If he’s so smart,” said Mr. Plante, “how come you lost Congress?”  read more »