Reliable Sources Transcript: Questioning Scream Coverage
Katrina Vanden Heuvel on Dean scream coverage: "There's no question that it was overplayed. It is the nature of our media system right now, that it's so fixed on the horse race, on the personality. But it's so interesting." Covering the coverage of the yell was a focus of Reliable Sources this morning... 6:28:47 PM

Chris Wallace: TV News People "Envy" Cable News
Chris Wallace talks about his move to FOX News in an AP story today. Interesting quote: "People in our business get it," Wallace says. "We sit around all day with Fox or another cable network on. We spend between 9 in the morning and 6 at night not on the air. So I think a lot of people in television news look at the cable networks with great envy." 6:24:12 PM

The Third Exclusive Trippi Interview
A visitor writes in with note of another 'exclusive:' "On today's edition of Inside Politics, Judy Woodruff advertised her conversation with Joe Trippi as 'an exclusive interview'...gee, first Deborah Norville, then Chris Matthews and now Judy Woodruff...all 'exclusives.'" I hope 'casual' viewers don't believe these lies... 1:07:03 PM

Ken Auletta on BookTV
Ken Auletta (our quote(d) of the day) is on C-SPAN2's BookTV program right now, discussing his impressive collection of media stories in his new book "Backstory." Jon Friedman called Auletta "the premier chronicler of the media business" in his Friday column... (Thanks Barnaby) 1:03:06 PM

Quote of the day
Ken Auletta, quoted in Variety, on the "gotcha" questions posed to candidates: "You start playing God. You start looking for questions that you think will reveal their character. The process becomes so intrusive. We're not supposed to get between the candidates and the voters." 10:48:20 AM

Two Big Stories This Morning, and MSNBC Talks About...the Super Bowl
Is MSNBC's Flash News banner not working this morning, or are they just asleep at the wheel? "So MSNBC.com is indicating two major news stories are breaking this morning," this poster at TV Barn writes. (244 killed in a stampede at the Haj, and dozens dead in Iraq attacks.) "And what has MSNBC the television station said about these things in the last hour? Absolutely nothing. In fact, as I type this (8:57 a.m.), they are going through the top stories, and they're not even mentioning these two stories; instead, we're hearing them talk about "America's Heroes" (a corrections officer who was beaten at work) and the Super Bowl." Read more... 10:48:01 AM

Dennis Miller's Roller Coaster Ratings Week
The NYPost looks at Dennis Miller's week one ratings. Monday, 746,000; Tuesday, 290,000; Wednesday, 682,000; Thursday, 441,000. Pity the fool who has to make sense of thse ups and downs... 10:47:08 AM

One Month In...
A quick thank you to...you. Watching thousands of visitors check out CableNewser in its first month was great -- in excess of 25,000 page views in fact, with the vast majority of those coming in the last ten days. I certainly didn't expect it to become a popular site so quickly. (Nice seeing turner.com and nbc.com among the top IP's, too.) Spread the word! And stay tuned. 1:36:44 AM

"The Definitive Guide to Fixing MSNBC"
The MSNBC Group on MSN is the source for an excellent critique of "We’ve ranted about it, proposed schedules for it, done just about everything to suggest improvements for MSNBC live, which seems to have hit the pits of also-ran news. It’s deathly boring to watch, and almost mindless in the content it delivers. It’s mismanaged, understaffed, and just plain poorly produced. ...I think that before we talk about fixing MSNBC, we must talk about what’s wrong. And there’s a lot that belies the pictures on your TV. So here’s my definitive guide to fixing MSNBC’s news coverage." A must-read. (This has given me an idea. More soon...) 1:30:11 AM