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A freelance editor from Alabama who was hired by CBS to help cover the Masters golf tournament this week was one of three people arrested Monday and charged in a bank robbery, authorities said. A man wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and an Atlanta Braves sun visor entered a Wachovia bank branch on Gordon Highway shortly after 9 a.m. and handed a teller a note demanding money, said Sgt. Richard Roundtree of the Richmond County Sheriff's Department. A red dye pack mixed in the money exploded in the parking lot, he said. After an anonymous tip, investigators arrested Michael...

Tonight is the night that March Madness ends in the National Championship Game between The Gators of Florida vs. The Buckeyes of Ohio State.

The Network Hassan Butt Tells Bob Simon Killing In The Name Of Islam Is A "Cancer" British police this week arrested three British Muslims in connection with the 2005 bombings on the London subway system in which 52 people were killed. The world was shocked when the four suicide bombers blew themselves up that morning, especially when it turned out that they were British citizens. The four had been recruited to what is called the "Network," a web of radical Islamic organizations loosely affiliated to al Qaeda which has turned Britain into the western world’s richest breeding grounds for terrorists....

To mark yesterday's fourth-anniversary of the war in Iraq, CBS News requested an interview with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. The ambassador took time from a hectic war-time schedule to speak with Katie Couric from Baghdad, and in the course of the interview provided a first-hand view of how the new surge strategy is working. But when last night's Evening News aired, lo and behold, the interview never ran. It was instead relegated to an obscure corner of Katie's online blog. CBS apparently determined that Ambassador Khalilzad's comments weren't "newsworthy." Katie & Co. did find time for Bob Woodward...

Fox has moved into a first-place tie with CBS for the season, and it likely will pass CBS to lead all networks within the next two days. Fox and CBS have a 3.9 rating among adults 18 to 49, according to Nielsen, with Fox on the verge of rounding up to a 4.0 with the next two nights of "American Idol." That will put Fox in the solo lead position at an early point in the season, a lead that network ratings analysts expect Fox to maintain through the end of May.

March 13, 2007 The Kaplan-Clinton Connection (AP)Rick Kaplan, the new executive producer of the "Evening News," is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Newsbusters, which bills itself as "exposing and combating liberal media bias," has seized on the connection. The implication in their coverage is that Kaplan will not be able to cover Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in a fair way. Kaplan addressed his Clinton connections with the Philadelphia Inquirer's Gail Shister. "I've got a 38-year track record," Kaplan said. "I find it astounding that this is an issue for anyone since it's never come up in my...

Dick Vitale didn't even realize he was on the radio. Billy Packer was more concerned about a Duke player being suspended than about a North Carolina player having his nose splattered across his face. Brent Musberger gave away one of the USC quarterback's hand signals. Lee Corso was last seen wearing a mascot head. Anybody for term limits for TV sportscasters? Some would describe these episodes as senior moments, inasmuch as ESPN's Vitale, CBS' Packer and ABC's Musberger are all 67 and ESPN's Corso an even riper 70. The bigger question, of course, is: Why do these four fogies continue...

Media Bias: After "60 Minutes" used fake documents to accuse President Bush of avoiding war service, how could CBS News possibly stoop lower? By hiring a longtime Clinton crony to rescue its evening news show. Consider this quote, dating from a few months after Bill Clinton first took office: "If we could be one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in the White House, we'd take it right now and walk away winners." Those are not the words of a campaign operative or grass roots fundraiser, but of then-CBS Evening News anchorman Dan Rather, speaking on...

Rick Kaplan described his new position as the executive producer of the “CBS Evening News” yesterday as “coming home.” He worked on the broadcast in the 1970s when Walter Cronkite was the anchor. But then, he could have said the same thing at almost any television news organization this week.

Rick Kaplan described his new position as the executive producer of the “CBS Evening News” yesterday as “coming home.” He worked on the broadcast in the 1970s when Walter Cronkite was the anchor. But then, he could have said the same thing at almost any television news organization this week. Mr. Kaplan, who is 59, is among the most experienced, and most traveled, producers in TV news, having worked for ABC News, CNN and MSNBC as well as CBS over a 35-year career. He has won more than 30 Emmy Awards and has worked with some of the biggest names...

Media Bias: After "60 Minutes" used fake documents to accuse President Bush of avoiding war service, how could CBS News possibly stoop lower? By hiring a longtime Clinton crony to rescue its evening news show. Consider this quote, dating from a few months after Bill Clinton first took office: "If we could be one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in the White House, we'd take it right now and walk away winners." Those are not the words of a campaign operative or grass roots fundraiser, but of then-CBS Evening News anchorman Dan Rather, speaking on...

CBS News on Thursday is expected to fire the executive producer of Katie Couric's struggling "CBS Evening News" broadcast and appoint former CNN and MSNBC president Rick Kaplan to the job. Kaplan will replace Rome Hartman, who has been doing the job since before Couric began at CBS last September, according to sources with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity. [Snip] The newscast has been a distant third in the ratings behind ABC and NBC. During last month's pivotal ratings "sweeps" period, Couric's average of 7.6 million viewers was 6 percent down from what Bob Schieffer...

The shake-ups at the evening newscasts continued last night. In the latest disruption, CBS News replaced Rome Hartman, the executive producer of the “Evening News with Katie Couric,” with the long-time TV news executive and producer Rick Kaplan, said several people who were informed of the move. The decision follows a run of disappointing ratings for the CBS newscast, which had introduced Ms. Couric as its anchor with great fanfare in September. Though the program initially scored impressive ratings, and had increased ratings among some audience groups like younger women, it had sunk back to its long-established spot of last...

Avuncular he might be, but Bob Schieffer can sling Dem spin like a Shrum. Appearing on the CBS Evening News to comment on the Libby verdict, not only did Katie Couric's predecessor in the anchor chair paint things in the grimmest possible terms for Vice-President Cheney, he took things an unsolicited step further. Katie Couric asked Schieffer "how badly does this reflect on Mr. Cheney in your view?" Schieffer: "Very badly, and it's hard to conclude otherwise." View video here.Schieffer acknowledged that: "The prosecutor did not prove any underlying crime here."Right. For the simple fact that there was no...

Katie Couric's brief, rocky tenure holds lessons about TV news. By ERIC DEGGANS Published March 4, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As anniversary presents go, a diamond ring probably would have been better. Instead, Katie Couric faces a jarring ratings report today, on her six-month anniversary as the lead news anchor and star of the CBS Evening News. Despite the millions poured into her transition to the Evening News Sept. 5, it's ABC's Charlie Gibson who deposed NBC's Brian Williams as top-rated evening news anchor in February's "sweeps" period, winning audiences with a traditional and surprisingly female-friendly broadcast. "I think in some ways...

(CBS 5) SAN JOSE It was in 1968, when CBS Anchorman Walter Cronkite did a tour of Vietnam, and came back highly critical of that war. His pronouncement that the Vietnam War was unwinnable led to such a shift in public opinion against the war that President Lyndon Johnson said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." The 90-year-old Cronkite was in San Jose on Friday addressing the Commonwealth Club. In an exclusive interview with CBS 5, he weighed in on the situation in Iraq. "We should have gotten out a long time ago. This is a mistake, this entire...

’60 Minutes’ Iraq War Report Exaggerates Level of Military Dissension Posted by Noel Sheppard on February 25, 2007 - 21:23. As NewsBusters previewed here and here, CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired a segment Sunday dealing with a small group of American troops that have signed a petition called “Appeal For Redress.” Simply put, these soldiers want U.S. troops to come home from Iraq immediately.Unfortunately, the piece exaggerated the size of this group, while also misrepresenting military opinion of the war (video available here courtesy of Ms Underestimated, approximate transcript available here courtesy of CBSNews.com).CBS’s Steve Kroft introduced the segment: Tonight you’ll hear...

ABC's telecast of "The 79th Annual Academy Awards" was up a tick from last year's performance, though it still ranks as one of the lower-rated broadcasts of the event. The Oscars earned a 14.0 rating among adults 18 to 49 (39.9 million viewers), according to ABC's fast national Nielsen ratings. Last year's show earned a 13.9. ABC noted the show was the most-watched entertainment broadcast of the season and that Oscar's 18-34 rating was its highest in five years. The telecast won the night for ABC, which also aired a Barbara Walters Oscar special, which earned a 6.0. The other...

Kurdistan: The Other Iraq - '60 Minutes', reported by Bob Simon (link to video of the segment that aired below) Modern buildings are popping up all over Erbil, the de facto capital of the region called Kurdistan. Excerpt - Try to imagine a peaceful and stable Iraq where business is booming and Americans are beloved. Now open your eyes because 60 Minutes is going to take you to a part of Iraq which fits that description: it's called Kurdistan. Technically, it's inside Iraq but the Kurds who live there behave as if they already live in a separate state. As...

'60' Preview: Iraq In Peace Watch a preview of Bob Simon's "60 Minutes" report on Kurdistan, a part of Iraq that's peaceful and stable, where business is booming and Americans are beloved. It airs Sunday, Feb. 18, 7 p.m. ET/PT. Video preview here - http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2482660n --- The Other Iraq website - http://theotheriraq.com/