Television News

After years of toiling in the shadows of a giant, ABC's Sunday morning public affairs program, "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," is finally beginning to step into the spotlight once exclusively occupied by NBC's "Meet the Press." It's the economy, stupid, plus "This Week's" round table has been called pretty smart. "Meet the Press" has long been the dominant program, so far this season attracting about 4.3 million viewers each week.

KTLA-TV Channel 5 is expanding its news operation and is adding more than eight hours of news programming each week, station officials announced Tuesday. The increase, which primarily affects early morning and midday newscasts, is part of a larger strategy begun this year to broaden the station's local news coverage. KTLA, which like the Los Angeles Times is owned by Tribune Co., began a 6:30 p.m. weekday newscast in January.

After talking to journalism students at Stony Brook University recently, John Houseman of New York's WPIX-TV left behind 18 new video cameras. Houseman, assistant news director at WPIX, had enlisted students at the Long Island campus as contributors to his news operation with an investment of $119 per camera. He wants the budding journalists -- as well as students at Fordham, Rutgers and New York universities -- to send in material if they see something they believe to be a story.

Add another casualty to the list of victims of the Mumbai attacks: the credibility of India's 24-hour television news channels. In the wake of the November assault that killed more than 170 people, India's TV channels, often accused of sensationalism, have come in for rebuke, accused of informing their viewers so quickly and completely that the alleged masterminds in Pakistan were able to tell the attackers what Indian security personnel were planning and when.

It was a voice of anguish that pierced a nation. Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital.

NBC Political Director Chuck Todd, who was considered a contender to succeed Tim Russert as moderator of "Meet the Press," has been given another plum assignment: chief White House correspondent. Todd, who will continue serving as NBC's political director, will be the network's lead correspondent covering the Obama administration, the network announced Thursday. He will be joined on the beat by Savannah Guthrie. Todd replaces David Gregory, who was named earlier this month as the moderator of "Meet the Press."

If anything could slow the inexorable decline of evening news viewership, it should have been this year's riveting presidential campaign, which produced a ravenous appetite for political news. The cable news networks benefited mightily during the race, more than doubling their prime-time audiences this fall.

A television news director who was fired by Univision Communications Inc. last year for allegedly slanting the news fired back Monday, contending in a lawsuit that company executives shaped stories to woo advertisers. Jorge Mettey served for five years as the influential news director of Univision's flagship KMEX-TV Channel 34, which is Los Angeles' top-rated station. He was ousted in April 2007 after the company determined that he breached ethics policies in directing news coverage.