Cable News Network

Reid Collins, a longtime radio broadcaster for CBS News, will join Cable News Network in mid-March as a Washington-based anchor.

As NPR weathered a storm of criticism Thursday for its decision to fire news analyst Juan Williams for his comments about Muslims, Fox News moved aggressively to turn the controversy to its advantage by signing Williams to an expanded role at the cable news network. Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes handed Williams a new three-year contract Thursday morning, in a deal that amounts to nearly $2 million, a considerable bump up from his previous salary, the Tribune Washington Bureau has learned.

Turner Broadcasting System will begin transmitting its Cable News Network to Europe in September. TBS officials said they will offer a live feed of the 24-hour television news network to European Broadcasting Union members. The signal will be made available to European customers for excerpting purposes, free of charge, for a three-month familiarization period. The telecasts will be received in Europe by satellite dishes as small as two to three meters in diameter, TBS said.

Anderson Cooper clambered to the top of a pile of rubble along a ruined Port-au-Prince street, joining the clutch of men digging fervently inside a dark crevasse. As his cameraman zoomed in on a pair of small, naked feet, the CNN anchor described the struggle to free 13-year-old Bea. The images swept the cable station's audience, in an instant, into a moment as intimate as it was epic, as unsettling as it was affirming -- a microcosm of Haiti's struggle these last three days. Could a handful of amateur rescuers, armed with a single shovel, win one skirmish against the country's sweeping devastation?

Cable News Network has been granted permission to routinely receive transmissions of Soviet television pictures direct from the Soviet satellite system. The permit is subject to instant cancellation without hearing any time "such revocation is in the public or national interest," a statement from the Federal Communications Commission said. John M.

After more than a month of negotiations, Cable News Network (CNN) announced Wednesday that it has agreed to produce a weeknight newscast in Spanish for a major Spanish-language television network--a first for an English-language broadcaster. Officials at the Atlanta-based network said CNN will produce a 30-minute newscast titled "Noticiero Telemundo-CNN" beginning May 31 for the Telemundo Television Group, one of two national Spanish-language networks in the United States.

Atlanta cable baron Ted Turner said Thursday that he wants to sell part of Cable News Network to ease the debt that he will shoulder as a result of his planned acquisition of MGM/UA Entertainment. Turner Broadcasting System said it wants to raise $200 million to $300 million by selling 30% to 40% of CNN.

The death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was the first of a liberal politician of legendary stature since the rise of the cable news networks and as such it brought out their biases in slightly new ways. MSNBC, which has increasingly positioned itself as the anti-Fox, covered his death wall-to-wall and most often sounded the heroic note. CNN, staking out the middle, made it the day's main, but not only story. And Fox News, which had to measure respect for the dead against its habitual rightward spin, made its feelings known by treating it, for the most part, as just another of the day's news events (though the lead story, to be sure)

Birney Groom's seventh-grade social studies class at Farb Middle School on Tuesday became one of the first in California to use television news as a regular tool to improve understanding of current events. The Tierrasanta class is using the Atlanta-based Cable News Network show "CNN Newsroom," a 15-minute weekday newscast produced for secondary school students. It is provided free to any school equipped for cable transmission.

Long-struggling MSNBC, NBC's third-place cable news network, may be getting a new leader. NBC News is expected to announce as early as today that it has hired Rick Kaplan, a senior vice president at ABC News who also previously oversaw CNN, to run the news network, sources at MSNBC said. Erik Sorenson, who has been running MSNBC since 1998 and currently is president and general manager, will move to an as-yet-undefined job at NBC. MSNBC is a joint venture of General Electric Co.'

The death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was the first of a liberal politician of legendary stature since the rise of the cable news networks and as such it brought out their biases in slightly new ways. MSNBC, which has increasingly positioned itself as the anti-Fox, covered his death wall-to-wall and most often sounded the heroic note. CNN, staking out the middle, made it the day's main, but not only story. And Fox News, which had to measure respect for the dead against its habitual rightward spin, made its feelings known by treating it, for the most part, as just another of the day's news events (though the lead story, to be sure)

The liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America sought to ratchet up the pressure on CNN on Monday with an ad slamming the network for allowing host Lou Dobbs to continue raising questions about President Obama's birth certificate. In the ad, set to begin running on cable today in three cities, the group spotlights Dobbs' recent focus on the so-called "birther" controversy, fueled by right-wing critics of Obama who question whether he is really a citizen.

CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein told staffers of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on Thursday that the controversy regarding the legitimacy of President Obama's birth certificate -- a topic Dobbs has avidly pursued on the air -- is a "dead" story. But in an interview, the cable news chief left open the possibility that Dobbs may continue to raise questions about why the president has not produced a long-form birth certificate.

Cable news channel CNN's latest ad campaign is raising quite a few eyebrows and has a competitor crying foul. In a new television spot aimed at getting advertisers to spend more on the network, CNN proclaims it is "No. 1, with more viewers than Fox and MSNBC." The ad goes on to say that CNN has held the top spot for seven years in a row. This came as a news flash to Fox and MSNBC, considering that both top CNN in the ratings.

Ashton Kutcher is poised to single-handedly conquer CNN. On Twitter, anyway. Kutcher, the actor and new-media entrepreneur, was in a near dead heat with the cable news network late Thursday to become operator of the most-followed account on the micro-messaging service. He did so by positioning himself as the ringleader of a frenetic digital circus act whose cast has swollen to include Larry King, video game maker Electronic Arts Inc.

Amid expectations of more coverage for West Coast games and events, ESPN is officially opening its 12,300-square-foot studio today in the middle of LA Live, the entertainment complex across the street from Staples Center. The national sports cable network, which reaches 98 million viewers, will broadcast its first 10 p.m. "SportsCenter" from the new studio tonight.

CNN said it will lay off nearly 10% of its 4,350 employees and centralize its news- gathering system in a bid to revitalize the 21-year-old cable news network at a time of declining ratings and intense new competition. CNN also named new executives to head three struggling spinoff cable networks. The moves, which will tie CNN's television operations more closely to its Internet sites, had been anticipated since last week's acquisition of CNN parent Time Warner by America Online.

In a decision that may signal new willingness to limit press freedom, the Supreme Court on Sunday refused to allow Cable News Network to broadcast government-recorded phone calls between deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel A. Noriega and his lawyers. The high court on a 7-2 vote let stand an order by a judge in Miami requiring CNN to turn over the tapes to him for his examination. The Supreme Court has never formally upheld an order barring the publication or broadcast of news and information.

After a year of explosive audience growth, the cable news channels head into 2009 buoyed by record ratings, a rare bright spot in what has otherwise been a gloomy media season. Thanks largely to avid interest in the historic presidential campaign, all of the networks scored their largest prime-time viewership in history this year -- though they suffered a steep drop in viewers after the election.

'Who is Todd Palin? What is his influence?" CNN's Rick Sanchez asked urgently Tuesday afternoon, just before a commercial break. "What is his tie to AIP, the Alaskan Independence Party?" The anchorman's serious tone and dancing eyebrows -- not to mention a "The Palins and the Fringe" banner across the bottom of the screen -- suggested big surprises. Must-see TV! And all of it coming "right after the break." So I holstered the remote for a couple of minutes and waited to see what CNN was up to.