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News consumers of America owe a debt of gratitude to Jonathan Klein. Really. Yesterday, NB's Noel Sheppard noted the ignominious end of Klein's nearly six-year term as head of CNN/US. If there is an example of anyone who has overseen a bigger audience decline and loss of competitive position and survived so long, I don't know who he or she is. Fox News, which first passed CNN in total viewers…

The sexual revolution always seems to have another frontier. Indeed, the very idea of a “revolution” would be negated were there no frontiers to conquer. So deeper, ever deeper, we plumb the depths. Look at television. Every new frontier is just another titillating, initially shocking plot for a fictional or “reality” show, until there's a “new normal” and the novelty and naughtiness wears off.…

Patricia Sellers of Fortune magazine posted a little piece on how NBC anchor Brian Williams interviewed the morning stars of NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC on their wake-up rituals for media writers. On the Today team, Meredith Vieira sets the alarm for 2:30 am, Al Roker at 3, Matt Lauer at 4:10, and Ann Curry at 4:30. But guess just how much prep time Joe Scarborough puts in? Almost zero. But surprise, he…

Andrew Breitbart on Friday exposed Bill Maher for not being the Libertarian he claims to be, but a socialist instead.When push came to shove, a seemingly embarrassed Maher didn't protest.In the middle of a heated discussion on HBO's "Real Time" about healthcare reform legislation passed earlier this year, Maher vehemently defended the program.This led Breitbart to smartly observe, "So you're…

Appearing as a guest on Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane made a crack about his willingness to have sex with Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell after host Maher showed a clip of O’Donnell from a Politically Incorrect episode from 1998. After a clip of the GOP candidate in which denied believing in the theory of evolution, MacFarlane…

As the actor Richard Tillman – brother of former Army Ranger and former NFL player Pat Tillman – appeared as a guest on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday promoting the film "The Tillman Story" about his brother’s death in Afghanistan, host Maher played a clip from Pat Tillman’s funeral in which Richard Tillman mocked the religious references made at the funeral by speakers Maria Shriver…

Oliver Stone may strike most people as pretty radical, but not to people at The New York Times. Business columnist Joseph Nocera panned Stone's new movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in a piece headlined "When Did Gekko Get So Toothless?" Stone failed to "eviscerate the folks responsible" for the credit crisis -- and Nocera might mean actually removing their viscera, like in a slasher flick…

On Friday's Situation Room, CNN highlighted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation's concerns over a planned concert at Fort Bragg, North Carolina organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Foundation, but omitted the MRFF president Michael Weinstein's past invective against Christianity. Anchor Wolf Blitzer referred to the MRFF as merely a "watchdog group."Blitzer introduced correspondent…

Like a meaty moth to a flame . . . Ed Schultz, of all people, just can't stay away from fat jokes about Chris Christie.  As I documented here, on his MSNBC show last month Schultz made no fewer than seven cracks about Christie's girth.The un-svelte Schultz was back at it tonight with a series of insults, culminating in calling Christie a "fat slob."Here was Ed, in his inimitable fashion, making…

Good Morning America's Jim Sciutto on Friday suggested Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an example of a human rights "advocate" opposed to the execution of a woman in Virginia. The odd aside came from just one day after the Iranian leader blamed the United States for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Sciutto related the details of Teresa Lewis, who was executed on Thursday for plotting to kill her husband and…

Comedian Stephen Colbert on Thursday ridiculed Rick Sanchez, the much-maligned CNN personality that deservedly is the butt of many jokes. After telling his "Colbert Report" viewers that Jon Stewart's Washington rally next month has been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Colbert informed them that he too has gotten a "major media figure" in his corner.Upon learning the endorsement is from Sanchez,…

Catching up on an item from the Thursday, September 9, The View on ABC, Barbara Walters was at odds with her co-hosts over the issue of whether racism was the primary motivation of the Arizona illegal immigration law as well as opposition to the Ground Zero mosque. Whoopi Goldberg raised the question of whether "there may be an undercurrent of racism in the USA that’s building up," leading co-…