FLASH: CABLE NEWS RACE
WEDS NITE, OCT 12, 2005
VIEWERS

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,687,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY/COLMES 1,559,000
FOXNEWS SHEP SMITH 1,500,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,499,000
CNN KING 821,000
CNN ZAHN 818,000
CNN COOPER 766,000
CNN BROWN 687,000
CNNHN GRACE 653,000
MSNBC RITA COSBY 455,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 429,000
MSNBC SCARBOROUGH 334,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 319,000
MSNBC TUCKER 280,000

One word of correction, Johnny. A small one.

I had watched bits of Countdown last night and had heard Olbermann make some sort of comment about Fox New's Carl Cameron. I went to the transcripts to see how snarky it had been.

Olbermann identified Carl Cameron, himeself.

He said:

"When you have to shout down Les Kinsolving and Carl Cameron -- Well, they say the experience of the British prisoners in the black hole of Calcutta in 1756 was a lot worse, but don't tell that to Scott McClellan."

He identified Cameron with the radio talk show host Les Kinsolving, that is. Kinsolving,in turn, is identified with being a Jeff Gannon type.

But in Olbermann's defense, Cameron does work for Fox News and you know how the news shows over there are generally filled with snarky partisan comments and one-sided spin, all guided by a ideologues as hosts.

Oh... wait...

Good catch, C. I was thinking more of the video clips shown, where all these other people were identified, but Cameron was not. Viewers who don't watch Fox would have no idea that guy hollering questions was Carl Cameron.

Associating him with Kinsolving is another good catch of a typical Olby 'guilt by association' trick. I didn't notice any clips of Kinsolving though, which further muddles Cameron's identity to those who don't know him on sight.

I was trying to remember the reaction Olbermann had to the news last year that a journalist had coached a GI at asking Donald Rumsfeld a question about body armor.

I googled Olbermann and Pitts (the reporter) and ran across this. A bit of wisdom from former OlbyWatcher Henry Hanks. Hanks made this entry on Olbermann Watch:

December 13, 2004
Strange Coverage of the Pitts Scandal
Hard to tell what Keith thinks about a reporter planting questions with soldiers here... He quotes Pitts saying that he feels that it was his best day as a journalist. Somehow I don't think Keith would hold back quite so much if the Bush Administration had planted questions with reporters...

The link he provides is the December 9, 2004 found here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6667405/#041209a

Hanks is being kind. In this bloggermann Keith obliquely salutes Pitts for having the guts to bring out an issue that the rest of the media won't cover. Even if he has to use a GI in the process....[See Hank's bit of irony above for context with today's news...]

In yet another Bloggerman about the Pitts story, Keith defends Pitts by mention that the GI, himself, defended Pitts. Wonder if we'll see him take up the WH cause on that basis...

"Poor Rumsfeld isn�t helping his case much. While the Pentagon was happy to seize upon the Chattanooga reporter�s confession that he spoon-fed a soldier the question about the lack of vehicle armor in Kuwait and Iraq, the soldier himself is contradicting that account. Time magazine quotes Specialist Thomas Wilson as saying that Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times Free Press not only didn�t give him the question, he tried to talk Wilson into finding �a less brash way of asking the question.� Wilson even said �I hope I didn�t do any damage to Secretary Rumsfeld.� "

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6667405/