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CBS Discourages Religion in Christmas A segment of "The CBS Early Show" today, hosted by Rene' Syler, included a list of "do's and don'ts" for holiday gift giving. She and her guest said it was "a bad idea" to send Christmas cards with religious themes, or with religious messages. I thought Christ was born on this day and is the basis for the holiday celebration of Christmas. Apparantly they have lost touch with reality. Please send a feedback comment email to the show if you feel compelled to do so. Here is the link: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml

“Is there a dirty bird on your dinner plate,” wondered CBS anchor Katie Couric as she hatched a brief and biased news item centered around a new Consumer Reports study on chicken. “Bad news,” “Evening News” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi summed upon the December 4 program. Consumer Reports magazine found that the chicken on your dinner table is “dirtier than ever.” Alfonsi aired a clip of a researcher for the publication, Urvashi Rangan, complaining about an “astronomical rate of pathogen contamination.” While Alfonsi did concede that the bacteria is killed when chicken is cooked properly, she added that scientists such as...

Growth has been slow for the 39 owned-and-operated outlets that make up the CBS station group, especially in the South Florida markets. But CBS execs are hopeful new managers and a fresh game plan will finally help the station group capitalize on the region's population boom. Revenue growth for the entire station group stands at a modest 5% since 2001. The stations took in $1.57 billion in 2001, and the number peaked at $2.03 billion in election year 2004, before dropping back to $1.85 billion last year, according to BIA Financial Network. CBS' primetime improvement, built on hit programs like...

A Black Rock source writes to TVNewser: "With all the talk about layoffs at NBC, you may want to poke around CBS. Two weeks ago a veteran evening news producer was let go, last week, a senior producer on weekends was fired, and this week a Dallas producer and and Atlanta producer were terminated. At least two other evening news producers have been put on notice..."

A Black Rock source writes to TVNewser: "With all the talk about layoffs at NBC, you may want to poke around CBS. Two weeks ago a veteran evening news producer was let go, last week, a senior producer on weekends was fired, and this week a Dallas producer and and Atlanta producer were terminated. At least two other evening news producers have been put on notice..."

Former CBS chief Mel Karmazin has told reporters that he long believed - and continues to believe - that CBS and CNN should merge. Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit in New York City, Karmazin said: "I thought CBS News and CNN to this day should be combined. I was hoping that Dick [Parsons, Time Warner CEO] would buy [tri-state cable operator] Cablevision and need the cash, because Cablevision was much more strategic [to Time Warner], and then sell me CNN." "When I was [CBS] CEO, would I have liked to have owned CNN?" he asked rhetorically. "Yeah." Discussing the...

CBS's Lara Logan Declares US Defeated In Iraq; General Abizaid Disputes Claim Posted by Michael Rule on November 27, 2006 - 16:09. On Sunday’s "60 Minutes," CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan insisted the US had been defeated in Iraq. During an interview with General John Abizaid, the top US Commander in Iraq, Logan asserted, "We hear very little about victory in Iraq these days. We hear a lot about how to manage the defeat." It appears Ms. Logan suffers from selective hearing. While many Democrats and some Republicans talk about Iraq as a lost cause, sources such as...

The 13th annual post-election analysis and fundraiser State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36th District) held on Nov. 16 was markedly different than her first 12. That's because in the latest election Democrats trounced Republicans at a state and national level for a change. However, KIRO-TV reporter and master of ceremonies Bob Branom cautioned a roomful of people at the Hale's Ales Brewery & Pub, where the event was held, not to put too much store in the results. Polls showed, he said, that people voted against Pres.George Bush more than they voted for Democrats. "It's something we should keep in mind."

The Crisis in American Journalism: Is This the Best We Can Do Under the Circumstances? Jeffrey Dvorkin, CCJ Executive Director, November 17, 2006 The following is a transcript of a speech Dvorkin delivered to the 42nd Institute of Ethics in Journalism held by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, VA. The speech was delivered on November 10, 2006. Click here for Washington& Lee's press release about the speech. I recently came across an interesting complaint by a foreign correspondent about how tough it is to be a reporter. As you may know,...

So much for the tumble many foresaw By Toni Fitzgerald Nov 16, 2006 When "Today" co-host Katie Couric announced she was leaving NBC’s long-dominant morning show for the CBS "Evening News," it seemed a big shakeup in morning show ratings could follow. Couric had been there for more than a decade, and it seemed doubtful the show could remain so dominant without her, especially with ABC's "Good Morning America" long gaining and a former "Today" executive producer joining CBS's "Early Show." But nearly six months after Couric left, not only is “Today” still the dominant morning news program, it’s actually...

CBS EVENING NEWS DOWN OVER YEAR AGO... For the first time since Katie Couric became anchor, CBS EVENING NEWS is down compared to a year ago, falling 4% from 8.069 to 7.758 million last week among total viewers, and the program also declined 9% among adults 25-54 from last year's 2.2 to a 2.0 rating last week... Developing...

CBS News has an interview on their website with Marine Corps Commandant General Mike Hagee, which it promotes with the headline, "Top Marine: No Plan For Post-Saddam Iraq". The article that fronts this interview makes the claim that Hagee admits that the Pentagon had no plan at all for security in the post-invasion period: Well, that sounds pretty damning -- but that's not what Hagee says in the portion of the interview that CBS has, a 7:27 segment in which Hagee explains what happened. The connection is poor and no transcript is provided by CBS (what a shock!), but be...

Katie Couric has proven she can do just as well at a network news anchor desk as any man. Make that any man named Dan Rather or Bob Schieffer, the only two to hold the CBS anchor position on a regular basis for the past quarter-century. Her ratings are on a par with Schieffer's at this time a year ago and better than Rather's in his final days. Alas, that's not good enough. CBS is not paying her $15 million to maintain the status quo. In spite of a spare-no-expense promotional blitz, which generated a huge initial sampling, Couric has...

(CBS) An American general caught up in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal is now at the center of a new controversy involving allegations about her past, but she's calling it a smear campaign. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who claims she has been made a scapegoat for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, is the subject of an investigation by the Army Inspector General involving an alleged shoplifting incident in October of 2002, one year before the abuses began, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin. According to military sources, Karpinski was caught shoplifting a $22 bottle of perfume from a...

CBS Corp. reported a marginal increase in profit on slightly higher revenues of $3.4 billion due in large part to weak advertising in the radio and television divisions. Cash flow, defined as operating income before depreciation and amortization, increased 3 percent to $755.9 million. Net earnings increased 26 percent to $323.6 million in the third quarter. Television revenues decreased from the previous year to $2.2 billion because of lower advertising and home entertainment sales.The loss of the Primetime Emmy telecast and the shuttering of the UPN brought advertising revenues down by three percent.Licensing fees increased, however, due to the sale...

It's Bush v. Kerry Round Two, and once again Bush is spreading soundbite lies about what Kerry really said. Charlie explains: I'm Charles Osgood.President Bush is NOT on the ballot next Tuesday. Neither is Senator John Kerry, his opponent in the 2004 Presidential election. But it's like 2004 all over again. with Kerry talking to some students at a campaign event and making what he thought was a humorous remark. "You study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't you get stuck in Iraq." said Sen. John...

Can anyone confirm this?

More Hunting for Haters? CBS Seeks 'Traditional' Family 'Uneasy Around Muslims' Posted by Tim Graham on October 31, 2006 - 07:10. The gossip site Gawker reports CBS is trolling on Craigslist for that reliable species of American weirdo, the traditional family-values Christians who have Islamophobia: Do you get nervous when you see a Muslim on an airplane? Have your opinions about Muslims changed since September 11? Do you have family or friends that get nervous around Muslims? A NEW CBS SHOW SEEKS New York families who have traditional family values but are uneasy around Muslims.The show will profile families in different communities...

The ratings for Katie Couric's CBS Evening News may be down – but the upbeat anchor isn't. Claiming that despite her third-place ranking among the major three network newscasts, she's "feeling great" and "having a great time," Couric tells USA Today, "We kind of ignore people who are observing everything we do and praising, criticizing or analyzing it, and we're just doing what we want." Couric, who delivered a ratings wallop with her Sept. 5 debut, says that being in first place "was never an expectation by anyone at CBS News, and it shouldn't have been an expectation by anyone...

The audience-ratings honeymoon for Katie Couric is over - at least on the national level. Now the hard part of her marriage to CBS News begins. Following smashing audience success for its debut in early September (Nielsen figures ranged from 10 million to 13 million viewers nightly), the CBS Evening News has fallen back into third place behind NBC and ABC. The half-hour is averaging around 7.4 million viewers nightly. NBC's average is 8.8 million and ABC shows 8 million. On the positive side, the CBS Evening News is drawing 400,000 more viewers (a 6 percent increase) than the Bob...