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For MSNBC, Time to Get Political
The effort by Abrams, the former legal-affairs commentator who took over in June, to tap more NBC talent will be getting an unexpected boost from a painful round of budget cuts at the network. Over the next year, MSNBC will abandon its Secaucus, N.J., campus and move in with its corporate parent at Manhattan's 30 Rock. A number of producers, bookers and others will be let go as job functions are combined. Abrams insists that the impact will be modest because his network is already thinly staffed.
Some of the election coverage was anchored by Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, and Keith Olbermann, whose show "Countdown" has become a nightly feast of Bush-bashing.
"His program could become a model for the newscast of the future," Abrams says. "It's a mix of straight news reporting with lighter fare and occasionally with some opinion."
Some opinion? Not only does Olbermann steer clear of conservative guests, he has added an occasional "special comment" segment in which he recently urged President Bush to apologize to American troops for starting and mishandling the war, going on to suggest that "you are not honest" and "you are far more stupid than the worst of your critics has suggested."
Olbermann said last spring that he is not ideological but that his growing conviction about the administration's failings puts him "in the same part of the ballpark as a lot of liberals."
Scarborough, for his part, says: "I see my job now as someone who holds both parties accountable, and I think I've proven that over the last year. Probably I've held my own party to a higher standard than Democrats. The burden is on me to prove I'm fair and down the middle." Both Olbermann and Scarborough did put aside their views while anchoring campaign news shows.
Abrams, who was no shrinking violet back when he hosted his own show, says CBS is edging in a similar direction in trying to make Katie Couric "accessible and personable. . . . In cable news, the most honest thing we can provide for our viewers is the sense that you know where the host is coming from."
Holding Back
For 10 weeks, Denver television reporter Paula Woodward tried to break the story about the Rev. Ted Haggard carrying on a gay relationship. She had the firsthand account of a male prostitute, Mike Jones, and copies of voice mails that Haggard, the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, had left for Jones. But Woodward was so cautious that she lost the scoop when Jones, frustrated by the delays, made his allegations -- under a pseudonym -- on a local radio show.
"We're very comfortable with the way we handled it," Woodward, a KUSA reporter, says. "We knew that the story, if true, would have a very dramatic impact on his life, his family's life and the church."
The station contacted voice experts, who said they could not verify the phone messages without a "first generation" recording of Haggard's voice. So, as Columbia Journalism Review reported, Woodward and her news director decided to use hidden cameras to tape Haggard entering and leaving Jones's apartment. That plan failed because Haggard, who always initiated the visits, stopped contacting Jones.
After Jones went on the radio show this month, KUSA got an interview with Haggard -- who denied any misconduct -- and was able to use that tape to confirm the authenticity of the voice-mail messages. When the station reported that information the following day, Haggard resigned from the evangelical group and later admitted to sexual "immorality."
Woodward and her news director, Patti Dennis, insist they're not disappointed. "In my mind, we broke the story," Dennis says.
Parting Words
It was a routine memo from USA Today's management, telling the staff that reporter Elliot Blair Smith would be leaving the paper for Bloomberg News and thanking him "for his excellent work."
But accidentally attached to the mass e-mail last week was a note from Smith, griping about how his last story was being handled. Smith, whose last day will be Friday, called the piece "the most powerful, the most explosive report on the most important financial story of the year. It required intense dedication. . . . It would take one hour of everybody's time to sit down and iron out any wrinkles that remain. One hour, I have that, don't you?" Smith said they should "close out the relationship with really substantial and meaningful actions, instead of these nice words below."
Well, at least everybody got both sides.
Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."
