I was a bit skeptical of the new 2 headed, push-me, pull-you organization at CBS News, but I have been impressed with how it is going so far. From the jump it was clear that the new regime was put in place to replace not just the Katie-cast, but the whole celebrity-journalist approach. The emergence of Scott Pelley as the front runner to replace Katie is a very good sign; he has been a solid broadcast journalist, and represents a return to one tried and true path to the anchor chair - through the White House Correspondent beat **(yes, I know those guys don't do a lot of real reporting, but they have a bird's eye view of the important issues of the day, get to know a lot of players, and most days tell the spine of the basic story of the day. Pelley has done enough real reporting, domestic and abroad, to make him the most credible new news anchor since Brian Williams). It probably is not related to the regime change, but it seems Sunday Morning has been sparking a little more lately, and 60 Minutes looks better than it has in a while (perhaps that is a reflection of how bad most of its competition has gotten).
Now tvnewser has a blistering memo Rhodes sent his main show runners, basically blasting the Executive Producer of The Early Show (David Friedman). While part of it may read like a memo to push the company product with more in-house integration, I think the main thrust is to try to get The Early Show to act more like a news show, and less like a by-the-numbers morning tabloid. I particularly like this passage: "We did exactly what our competitors did today. Weather roundup, check. Air traffic control, check. Holly Bobo—check, at precisely the moment everyone else covered Holly Bobo. Why not our reporting on Casey Anthony when others did Holly Bobo? Why not the Mortenson bombshell in the open?" CBS News still has the finest journalism pedigree in television. Their Early Morning show is always a bottom-feeder in the ratings. Why not try to distinguish itself by taking advantage of the assets of its own news division, rather than simply following the crowd? I will continue to be very interested in seeing the directions the various CBS news programs go in from now on. The entire memo can be read at the tvnewswer link below. I paste their summary of it below that. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/david-rhodes-memo-to-cbs-early-show-let%E2%80%99s-get-with-it_b62179 "CBS News president *David Rhodes<http://www.mediabistro.com/David-Rhodes-profile.html> * tore into his morning news program, “Early Show,” today telling staffers in an email, “CBS News had a great weekend. And a bad Monday morning.” Rhodes, who’s been on the job<http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/david-rhodes-cbs-news-jeff-fage_b53925>just shy of two months, sent an email to the staff and cc’d the show toppers of the weekend shows, “60 Minutes,” “48 Hours” and “Sunday Morning.” Rhodes was miffed that while the weekend shows broke news or had newsmaking interviews, none of it turned up on Monday’s “Early.” “Many of you on the Early Show have asked for clarity on what we want. Several times we have talked about sustained coverage of stories which are our own—I mentioned this several times the week after our story on Orlando’s motel homeless. Let’s get with it. Where’s our reporting? Make sure it’s in our show.” “Early” has been mired in third place since it debuted in 1999; the anchor team was replaced<http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/day-one-for-new-early-show-anchor-team_b46197>earlier this year, before Rhodes took over; and the show has had four different executive producers in the last 3 and a half years (five if you include interim<http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/shelley-ross-leaves-early-show-rick-kaplan-to-take-over_b18452>EP *Rick Kaplan <http://www.mediabistro.com/Rick-Kaplan-profile.html>*). This morning’s memo, sent just 15 minutes after the show ended, is directed squarely at current EP *David Friedman<http://www.mediabistro.com/David-Friedman-profile.html> * who’s been with the show for 13 months." -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
