Television News

It's been a long time since Fox News, which avidly cultivates its outsider status, got to play the underdog. But after White House aides recently labeled the top-rated cable news channel "a wing of the Republican Party" and argued that it is not a news network, Fox News found itself back in a spot it relishes: firing back at a more powerful adversary. The salvos by administration officials have rallied liberals who complain that the channel has a conservative agenda. The activist group MoveOn instantly jumped in the fray, urging Democrats to stay off Fox News programs.

White House versus Fox News eye gouging has been all the rage in recent days. The Obama administration calls the cable outlet a partisan political organ. Fox retorts that the president can't take a fair punch. Fox says just check its news programs -- filled with "fair and balanced" coverage -- and don't peg its reputation solely on the work of commentators like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. The debate over the meaning of Fox News has become so routine, and so routinely partisan, that one hesitates to join the fray again.

The heroic tale of Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger's safe landing of a US Airways flight on the Hudson River has gotten caught up in the ugliness of the television booking wars. On Friday, CBS announced that Sullenberger and his crew would give their first interviews to Katie Couric for a piece set to air on "60 Minutes" on Feb. 8. That provoked no small amount of displeasure at NBC's "Today" show, which had originally booked Sullenberger and his family to appear on the program Jan. 19. The "Today" interview was postponed at the request of the pilots union, which asked Sullenberger to hold off until federal officials had a chance to further investigate the cause of his plane's engine failure.

President Clinton's speech admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a former White House intern drew CNN's highest ratings since the 1995 verdict in O.J. Simpson's criminal trial, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday. CNN had a 7.3 rating during Clinton's speech, which was seen in an estimated 5.4 million homes. CNN's Web site also had a record 20.4 million page impressions on Monday, 31% more than its heaviest day ever.

You are old, father William the young man said and your hair has grown very white and yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right? --Lewis Carroll Whaddaya think? Whaddaya think? --Larry King on CNN Monday night * Whew! What you just heard was a collective sigh of relief following months of agonizing root canal.

It is one of the oldest tricks in journalism. A reporter, eager to have his story published or broadcast as soon as he has finished it--and worried that a competitor might beat him--tells his boss that his story has to run right away because he has heard that the competition is using the same story in that night's news broadcast or in the next morning's paper.

Virtually every reporter who has ever picked up a pencil or a microphone, typed on a keyboard or looked into a camera would echo what Wolf Blitzer, senior White House correspondent for CNN, said recently about trying to be first, trying to get every story before the competition does: "It's in my journalistic blood."

Channel 7 has told sportscaster Todd Donoho to "take a hike." Donoho and his "take a hike" signature phrase will be leaving the station around the end of September, along with colleague Rick Lozano. Their contracts are not being renewed. The station is bringing in Chicago sportscaster Bill Weir to replace Donoho on the weeknight 5, 6 and 11 o'clock news, as well as the highly rated "Monday Night Live" show. Lozano's 4 p.m. sports spot is being eliminated.

Sure, Fox News is going to cop an attitude. Could it be Fox without one? From its outspoken chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes, and so-called citizen reporter Matt Drudge, to news veterans Brit Hume and Catherine Crier, Fox News is raising its profile. And it's doing it with a mix of moxie, talent and challenges to conventional wisdom. "I think we're doing well," says Ailes, political consultant, Emmy-winning producer and president of CNBC before joining Fox two years ago.

Into a glut of television newsmagazines that seem to multiply like grasshoppers in an El Nino spring comes four more from an organization best known for live, breaking news. CNN's "NewsStand," a collaboration between the Time Warner-owned cable news outlet and three of Time Warner's print publications--Time, Fortune and Entertainment Weekly--premieres Sunday with promises of meaty journalism that matches the tone, standards and prestige of its three traditional magazine counterparts.